For as long as I can remember, I’ve used sunscreen to protect myself from not only the physical effects of the sun but the emotional scars it would leave me with. Shielded by the winter months and short days of fall, I found myself comforted. Every summer I watched as my friends would flock to the pools on the warmest days but I found myself at home, protected from the sun as if it was my enemy, layered in clothing like I was prepared for a battle. I knew as my russet brown skin darkened, I wouldn’t receive the praise as lighter people would receive about their “beautiful” tans and “sun-kissed” skin. I watched as darkness on dark people became a shameful accessory and I was a prime example, constantly asking myself why my skin had to be so dark and ugly.
I carried this shame with me year around and I knew I wasn’t the only one that felt this way. I watched as girls and boys like me became nothing but jokes solely because of the color of our skin. As lights went out in class and at sleepovers, I knew the laughter awaited. I knew that I had to prepare myself for questions like
“Where’d you go?”
Just like I would have to prepare myself to fake a smile or laugh when those same people would say
“I’m as dark as you!!!” and
“You’re so lucky you don’t have to tan!”
after they had been in the sun. As time passed, it became more and more apparent that this struggle was far from over.
When I got to middle school, my race and skin tone seemed to work together when it came to the way people treated me. By being a darker complected African-American girl, I was placed into a stereotypical box. I was supposed to be “loud,” “ghetto,” and “mean.” I was supposed to know every hip-hop song, be the best dancer in the room at all times, and have my hair braided as if these are all token pieces to “being black.” I was only a sixth grader when my worries became more than keeping my grades up and playing basketball. I was only a sixth grader when my race and skin tone began to speak for me before I had the chance to speak for myself.
I knew my experiences were connected with a larger problem but I couldn't put a name to it until my freshman year of high school when we reached the race unit in English. Colorism, by definition, is a practice of discrimination by which those with lighter skin are treated more favorably than those with darker skin. It exists everywhere, in all cultures and in all races. In the United States, colorism has roots to slavery because slaves with fairer complexions usually worked in the house while slaves with darker complexions were sent out into the field to do grueling work all day long. This is due to the fact that lighter skinned slaves were usually the offspring of slave owners because many slaves were raped. Even though these children were not recognized as blood by slave owners, they still were given preferential treatment, causing slaves to turn against each other.
Outside of the United States, colorism is associated with class opposed to slavery. Lighter skin is valued in places like Mexico, India, China, Europe, Australia, and many other countries. Not only has colorism affected the self-esteem of young dark skinned boys and girls everywhere but it also yields real-world advantages for individuals with light skin. According to Shankar Vedantam, author of "The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives," light-skinned Latinos make $5,000 more on average than dark-skinned Latinos. Similar studies have also found that light-skinned black women are more likely to be married than darker-skinned black women, showing how colorism has an effect on all aspects of one’s life.
The sad thing about colorism is that it’s not only used by people of other races and cultures against a person or group but it’s used by people within the same culture and race.
All through middle school and high school, I didn’t necessarily find myself within a specific group. I mostly kept to myself and tried to hang around people who accepted me for who I was. I tried to pick friends that I knew wouldn’t expect certain things of me based on the negative stereotypes of African-American people but that didn’t mean I would escape it. At a time when everyone was finding their special someone, I was constantly surrounded by boys who vowed they would never date dark black girls while they openly embraced their love for girls with lighter skin. This ideology didn’t stop outside of school and continued on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. It became very clear what helped prompt their beliefs and that is the standards of beauty embraced in our society, media, and everyday life. It became clear to see what colorism was able to survive on.
The standards and perception of light skin in the world is what is able to keep colorism alive today. Lighter skin is seen as more attractive due to the Eurocentric standards of beauty that thrive across the world. Children as young as three years old start to notice distinctions in skin color including my four-year-old brother at the time. My brother, Marc, loved video games, watching "Pokemon," and playing his new games with my brothers and I. When Marc got his first Wii, he was so excited to start playing but of course, he had to make an avatar first. That day, he decided to be nice and let everyone make their avatar first, Soon the Mii Channel was filled with an array of browns that matched the way each of us looked but while Marc was making his something seemed wrong. His Mii character didn’t match like the rest of ours did. He created a Mii using the fairest complexion available and when we asked him why he did it, he replied
“Because white skin is better!”
At the age of four, my brother already was convinced that he was inferior to people with lighter skin.
Colorism reaches children at younger ages every day and it affects more boys and girls across the world each day. We live in a world that perceives dark skin as threatening, foreign, unattractive, and inferior. To end colorism, we need to start with ourselves and the media. We need to diversify and include all types of people into television, games,books, and movies, not just the ones who fit in our altered standard of beauty. We have to end the “We don’t have that in your shade,” era. We need to acknowledge that the reason people have low self-esteem issues is not a personal issue but a societal problem that we need to fix. We can’t expect young boys and girls to love themselves if our standards are making it hard for them to do so. We can’t expect young girls and boys to love themselves if there isn’t a positive light on people that resemble them.We cannot feed into the stereotypes that make young girls and boys resent who they are and how they were born. We need to embrace people like Naomi Campbell, Viola Davis, Alex Wek, and Idris Elba just as much as we embrace people like Kim Kardashian, Beyonce, and Rihanna.
Remember, I was only a sixth grader when my race and skin tone began to speak for me before I had the chance to speak for myself. Now it’s time to change that and make sure every child can love who they are and finally have a chance to speak for themselves.
