Thoughts of a College Student: 50 Shades of Darker Skin

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The world we live in has a systematic image standard that pretty much says, "the lighter the better." It's known as colorism. Colorism is a problem that is rarely talked about in today's society as it is often overlooked by topics such as racism.

The word "colorism" literally means “prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.” For the African American community, colorism dates all the way back to slavery. During that time, the lighter skinned slaves would be kept inside doing house work while the darker skinned worked the field. In other words, the slavemasters deemed that the lighter the slaves skin was, the more acceptable and presentable they looked. The lighter skinned slaves had the privileged to work inside doing less intensive work. While colorism is something that’s experienced by people throughout many different races, it’s usually more effective to the darker skinned women in the black community, as well as sometimes even the darker skinned men.

Being that the black community as a whole already faces discrimination and oppression outside of their race, the darker men and women in the black community also have to face discrimination and oppression from their own people. A few people were interviewed for this topic, in which they were asked the question: “Have you ever experienced colorism growing up? If so, how did it feel.” One of the interviewees responded with, “As a kid I experienced colorism a lot and not only in public but at home too. I have a brown skin tone, but my mom and all my siblings are really light/fair skinned. They always told me I was ugly because my skin was ‘too dark’ and I was always treated differently from the rest of my siblings... My most vivid memory is when my brother and sister were playing with these matches one day and they were making remarks about how black I was. When I tried to ignore them, they lit a match threw it at me, setting me on fire... At 43, I still have scars from the burns on my body.” Colorism is also subjective and manipulative to the business world as well.

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Do you remember the 2001-2005 sitcom, "My Wife & Kids?" On the pilot season of this show, Jazz Raycole, a dark skinned girl, played the role of the family's oldest daughter Claire. By the second season, they had switched her out for a lighter skinned actress, Jennifer Freeman, to play Claire's role. J. Camille Hall wrote, “Many African Americans have grown up hearing colloquial phrases like, ‘If you’re white, you right, / If you’re yellow, you’re mellow, / If you’re brown, stick around, / If your black, get back.’” This is what the media portrays, and it is also what the black community supports. Dark skinned kids in the black community are more likely to be bullied growing up. Dark skinned people in the black community are more likely to be deemed "ugly" because they're "too black."

Are you aware of the colorism issues that go on around you?