With all the racism being showed in this world, black people face their own problems within. Colorism is one of the biggest issues in the black community. Colorism is a form of prejudice and discrimination in which people are treated differently based on the social meanings attached to skin color. Light skin people versus dark skin people has been the headline of colorism in the black community. Comments such as “You’re pretty ... for a dark skinned girl” or “light skin people are more beautiful than dark skin people” has affected the black community, putting them against each other.

Skin color will continue to serve as the most obvious criterion in determining how a person will be evaluated and judged. It goes back to slavery times when dark skin people were seen as less than the light skin people. Due to the fact that light skin people were usually related to a slave master. Racism against black people has formed colorism within black people. Colorism all began in 1712 with a speech by William Lynch titled The Making of a Slave. He delivered this speech on the James Bank River in Virginia. He addressed slave owners, and he taught them how to solve their problems by using his methods to put the black slaves against each other. His methods to divide our people only made them distrust each other and solely depend on the white slave owners. While the physical chains of bondage may be broken, for many in the black and Asian community, colorism is still a part of life – a psychological prison of self-loathing and envy.

Light skinned black people are deemed more attractive, more successful and smarter than dark skinned black people. This idea that light skin people are better has divided the black community, and brought dark skin people against light skin. We are all black and each struggle that comes with our identity is valid. We contribute to the divide when we fail to acknowledge that the black community needs to unite rather than divide and continue to let people drive us apart. Colorism is a societal problem in many communites all around the world, including Latin America, East and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and Africa. Here in the U.S., because we are such a diverse population with citizens hailing from all corners of the earth, our brand of colorism is both homegrown and imported.