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The deep ways colorism affects African Americans
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The deep ways colorism affects African Americans
Hadiyah Khalfani
What is colorism?
Colorism is the prejudice and discrimination against darker skin tones, in which lighter skin tones are more favorable and treated better
Ties to colorism
Racism
Racism is “ the individual, cultural, and institutional beliefs and discrimination that systematically oppress people of color”
Racism
Discrimination
Discrimination is the mistreatment against a person or group of people based upon their social membership.
Discrimination
-Colorism happens within the same race of people and is a product of racism. It perpetuates and upholds eurocentric beauty standards and keeps white people in power.
Let's take a step further
-During slavery, light skins were conceived by the slave master raping a black woman. Then, the slaves were separated. Darker skin tones would be working out in the field. Lighter skin tones would work in the house.
Affects of colorism
-Darkinned women are less likely to get married than light skinned women
-Darkskin girls are 3x more likely to get suspended from school than lightskins
-The difference of pay between dark skin and light skin men is almost the same wage gap between black and white people
-Lighter skinned people are even perceived as more smart
-Darker skinned people are reported to have experienced more significantly more microaggressions
-Even Skin bleaching cream is marketed and sold in black or other POC(people of color) countries
Stereotypes
Stereotypes are wide-based perceptions about personality, characteristics, or tendencies of a group of people, like intelligence, preferences, physical features, personality, etc. Usually people use stereotypes and associate traits like loud, aggressive, violent, dumb, not beautiful to black people, but it's more associated to darker skin. Light skin is associated with the epitome of beauty, innocence, smart.
Martin
Some examples are like the show "Martin". In a lot of tv shows and movies, pertaining to black people or black people being the core audience, there would be a black man and the love interest would be lightskin, like Martin and Gina. Then, Gina's best friend is darkskin, who is percieved as the aggressive friend who Martin hates and is always making fun of her. She's also the one who never has a man, and is seen as "too independent" or non-deserving of love.
Colorism in Entertainment
In the movie "Coming to America" , the main character is a darkskin man who falls in love with a lightskin woman because that's the first girl who caught her eye. At first, when he lived in Africa, he was supposed to marry a darkskin, African woman. As soon as he moved to America, the lightskin woman was the first one to catch his eye, as if she was something he never saw before.
Coming To America
In the show, "The Proud Family", Penny is the main character who is lightskin and portrays as innocent, has morals, smart, and pretty. Her bestfriend Dijonay is a darkskin girl who is seen as annoying, loud, not as intellgent, a backstabber who thinks about herself, and always searching for a man. They make her character look desperate, as there's another person in the friend group named Sticky, and she's always chasing after him, but it's clear he doesn't want her and is annoyed by her.
The Proud Family
Even Further
Your skin color and proximity to whiteness is focused on so that white people can maintain social and economic status and power. The one-drop rule is a prime example of this, where a person who had any African ancestry was considered black.
“The white man who crosses the line and leaves an heir is doing a favor for some black man who would marry the most debased woman, whose only stock in trade is her color, in preference for the most royal queen in ebony.”-Nannie H. Burroughs
The Paper Bag Test
The “paper bag test” was used in the 19th-20th century to determine what black people they would hire. If you were the same color of a paper bag or lighter, you would be let into the space and considered for hiring. If you were darker than the paper bag, you would not be let in.
Experiments/Tests
A doll test, conducted by Kenneth and Mamie Clark in the 1940s, contained them doing experiments on black and white kids. They would give them a black doll and a white, or all different shades in the spectrum, and would ask questions like, “Which one is the smartest? The nicest? The prettiest? Etc.” The children always had a preference for the white dolls or the lightest.
The Doll Test
Straight Outta Compton
This might shock you
For the movie Straight Outta Compton, they casted the girls in the movie, based on colorism. This is how they did it:
“A GIRLS: These are the hottest of the hottest. Models. MUST have real hair - no extensions, very classy looking, great bodies. You can be black, white, asian, hispanic, mid eastern, or mixed race too. Age 18-30.
B GIRLS: These are fine girls, long natural hair, really nice bodies. Small waists, nice hips. You should be light-skinned. Beyonce is a prototype here. Age 18-30.
C GIRLS: These are African American girls, medium to light skinned with a weave. Age 18-30.
D GIRLS: These are African American girls. Poor, not in good shape. Medium to dark skin tone. Character types. Age 18-30. (Cadet 2014)”.
This makes you wonder if this implicit bias that's clearly deep ingrained colorism is ingrained in mostly everyone.