As a black woman today, it hurts me whenever I see hashtags on Facebook or on Twitter such as #TeamLightSkinned or #TeamDarkSkinned within the black community. To me, every shade of black is beautiful from the creamy caramel to rich dark chocolate. It doesn't make sense to me why we have to have this debate and degrade one another on who has the darker skin tone or who the lighter skin tone. But I have to remember that this debate started in the 1900s.
There was a test that some sororities, fraternities and society places would do called "The Brown Paper Bag Test." For some of you that don't know how the test worked, I will explain. For the black people who were at least similar to the same color of the brown paper bag, they were accepted and received more privileges. If you were dark-skinned and at least my skin tone color you weren't accepted and you would not receive the same privileges as someone who is light-skinned. It's crazy that a method that was used almost a century ago would still have such an impact on us today.
I have seen so many beautiful dark skinned women who don't view themselves as beautiful because they don't have a light skinned tone complexion. There were even times that I questioned my beauty because I would look at the television or read a magazine and not see a black woman of a darker complexion. There are even creams out there for black women to use to lighten their skin color and some women would go as far as getting medical procedures done. Ever since I watched the movie, "Dark Girls" on Netflix, it really opened my eyes to what society and the media make us think when it comes to the different shades of our skin tones. This dialogue is not primarily focused on women, it's also focused on men too. We even use the light skin and dark skin debate to decide what shade is more desirable when it comes to the dating scene.
I've noticed when it comes to men and women, we want to use what shade of black we are to define our personality or looks. Here are a few pictures that I have seen that are perfect examples of what I mean.
I am a dark-skinned black woman. We are precious, but we are not rare. We are everywhere. Every shade of black is beautiful. Whatever shade you are should not determine your worth, intelligence, or anything. I want my worth to be determined by the content of my character and my actions that make an impact on the world.
I want to end the article with this quote: "I wanted to touch on how we look on each other. Good hair, light skin, you must be smart; if you're black, you're dark-skinned, you're ugly. That really happens. This something that started with slavery, when they divided the houses, and it's still part of today's society and things that we battle with." - Rhapsody
