“You’re pretty for a dark skin girl”, he said to me one day as I was shopping in Walmart.
I'm sure there are women of a darker skin complexion that have been told this line at least once on their life. As I received this line a few days ago prior to getting a white chocolate Reese's Cup, this statement hit a nerve. Questions and comebacks were all over my mind about how it rubbed me the wrong way. What does my skin color have to do with my beauty? What do you mean for "a dark skin girl"? A simple "you’re beautiful" would have sufficed. Even though I came out of the store with an irritated attitude, it made me think about how the black community wasn’t making much progress with colorism.
On my way home, I thought of how colorism is one of the most taboo subjects in the black community. We see, hear, and speak about it almost every day in our daily lives. Since then, I could remember there has always been the "battle" of light skin and dark skin women. Even I was caught up in the mix at one point only for the dark skin team. Now it has gotten so deep that they even threw in team brown skin. We all know about this problem but, it has been brought to light in several occasions such as the documentary that can now be found on Netflix called "Dark Girls" and on Oprah Winfrey's channel OWN was an episode called "LifeClass" with Iyanla Vanzant about colorism, which during the discussion, a few light skin women talked about what they face colorism in the black community as well. I thought deeply of this matter and came up with three main reasons colorism is still alive and well in the black community.
1.Stereotyping
Everyone has been stereotyped. For example, having the “resting b*tch face;” which is when are person looks like they are mean mugging you or is always looking upset. Another example would be “You don’t text back, you are such a light skin” or “Dark skins always have an attitude problem and try to fight.” How do you act light skin or dark skin? What are the rules of acting like one? The stigma of light skin women as being stuck up and conceited that breaks every boy’s heart and dark skin women are portrayed as ghetto and overly aggressive.
2. Media
Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter doesn’t exactly help the cause either. For example, memes comparing phone carriers with people. The phone carriers that are deemed horrible are represented by dark skin women whose hair is not socially accepted as done and not as attractive in the eyes of the masses. On the other hand, the more popular carriers are represented by women that are lighter skinned wearing make-up, longer hair, and are more attractive according to the masses. As well as other memes floating around Instagram comparing dark skin and light skin. Even ASAP Rocky had a hand in colorism with his interview with "The Coveteur," as he made a comment about dark skinned women and red lipstick, that dark skin women shouldn't wear red lipstick because it is unattractive and light skin women shouldn't wear purple lipstick. In music videos, the main woman is usually a light skinned woman as opposed to a dark skin woman. As seen in Drake's Hotline Bling video, it was mostly light skin women being seen and only one dancer that was dark skin, but her face was covered by a hat.
3. The Black Community
The black community, family, and friends also take a part colorism. From the interviews from the documentary "Dark Girls," the women would say that their mothers, friends and peers would degrade them because of their darker skin tone, for example as little girls people would call them names such as tar baby, gorilla, and mud duck, while as for the men growing up they were taught to talk to the lighter skinned and marry a lighter skinned woman. In the Own Lifeclass episode discussing colorism, a few light skinned women rose to speak about their own hardships with dealing with negative comments of being called redbone and light bright as well as the outside world treating them harshly simply because they are black and go through the same struggles as dark skin women. Everyone has unconsciously added to colorism in some type of form by either in school when there was a time when light skin women were looked more highly upon or arguments about who is the darkest and what "team" they are on.
Even though we as the black community are starting to get a little growth in accepting all shades of blackness as beautiful, we have a long way to go with comparing ourselves with the color of our skin. This dispute is causing a rip in the black community by seeing each other as enemies and trying to be better than the opposing force. Colorism causes young men and women to learn disdain for a certain skin tone, some men and women only date dark skin or light skin people. It’s time to start healing within our black community because no one should here that you’re pretty for a dark skin or light skin. We have to do more than sharing posts about black is beautiful but, to also put it into action by teaching people that we are not in competition with each other on who looks better and start to love one another.
Let’s celebrate our blackness in all the beautiful shades we come in because if we can’t accept us as a whole, how can the outside world?
