There was a documentary that aired on OWN on Monday entitled “Light Girls” that was supposed to be a pseudo follow-up to the documentary released in 2011 entitled “Dark Girls“. Both films addressed an issue that’s not only prevalent in the Black culture, but the Latino culture as well. Racism has once again taken center stage recently, but no one really likes to talk about it’s equally mean cousin…colorism.
Colorism is defined as prejudice or discrimination based on the color of a person’s skin. The terms “light skinned”, “dark skinned”, “red bone”, “high yellow” and many others are thrown around so often in the Black community and with them come many connotations. Traditionally light skinned, long or “good” hair (don’t get me started on that) girls are seen as more attractive than their darker counterparts. I’m not sure about exact statistics but between the number of songs talking about “high yellow broads” (don’t get me started on the term “broad”), “red bones”, “long hair don’t care” and etc I’d say that the notion is pretty prominent. This isn’t even something that can be blamed on society or the media; it’s something we continue to perpetuate through our community.
I didn’t realize how close it hit to home until I was out last month for a cousin’s birthday party and had my friend Jasmine with me. I’m more of a caramel tone (I’m using this as a point of reference, not self-identifying…anymore), and Jasmine is significantly lighter than me. In fact, she’s often asked (by Black people too) what she’s mixed with because she’s so bright. When will people learn that Black people come in all shades and colors? Anywho, I’m on the lighter side of the spectrum in the family and it wasn’t rare that I was called light-skinned. Well, someone said our names at dinner and when we both answered the person said “no, the light-skinned one”.
It hit me then that for years I’d self-identified as light-skinned. That I’d fallen victim to that colorism way of thinking. It was at that moment that I knew this post had to be written.
Whether it’s Hollywood casting Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone, L’Oreal lightening Beyonce’ for a campaign, or people adding the hashtags #TeamLightSkin or #TeamDarkSkin in their social media profiles (yes, that’s actually a thing) colorism is alive and well. I feel like it comes second nature to the Black community now. We’re taught to love ourselves and the skin we’re in and then are called ugly names if our pigment falls too dark on the spectrum. I mean come on, the brown paper bag test? This wasn’t just used by some historically Black Greek organizations to pick and choose members, it started long before then. This way of thinking is so ingrained in our minds that people don’t think twice before doing things like this.
Yes, you read that correctly. The cashier at Raising Canes put “Jas” and “Jas Lightskin” to differentiate between my friend Jasmine and I. I didn’t know whether to be shocked or mad. I’m sure she meant no ill will, but I still felt some kind of way about it.
Another hot topic is skin bleaching. Now I know that there are serious skin conditions out that affect pigmentation and cause the discoloration, but that’s not why most people who do bleach their skin do it. Whether it’s self-hate because of their race or because of the darkness of their skin there’s an issue of bleaching within the Black community. There are Black people out here trying to lighten their skin while some white people are working on tans because they don’t want to be too pale. I don’t think there’d be as big of an issue of skin bleaching if it wasn’t forced down our throats that light skin is in. There was an incident almost two years ago when a friend of mine posted a selfie on Instagram on Valentines day and because of the lighting in the room and the filter she used she came out a bit lighter.
Meg has beautiful cocoa skin (that I’m sometimes envious of) and in all of the years I’ve known her I’ve never heard or seen her mention her anything about wishing she was lighter. She posted the picture above and there was a flood of comments, but this one stuck out in particular.
Meg had to defend her use of great sunlight and a filter! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that. She then did something that I applauded her for. Meg owed no one an explanation, but decided to post the picture with no filter with a great comment.
I loved her comment, but was saddened that she had to defend herself. This wouldn’t even be necessary if this community wasn’t so focused on something so petty as shade of darkness. Black people come in many shades and they’re all beautiful! That’s what I think should be taken away from both documentaries, we’re all beautiful it doesn’t matter if you’re the lightest of the light or the darkest of the dark. Lupita Nyong’o is just as beautiful as Jurnee Smollett, Viola Davis is just as beautiful as Tracee Ellis Ross.
Now I know this post was heavily focused on the Black community, but after speaking with a co-worker who’s Hispanic I found out that it’s pretty popular in their community as well. She used different terms (“fair” instead of “light”), but it was the same. We can blame the media and society all we want, but until these issues are addressed within our own communities, until we understand that it doesn’t matter how light or dark you are, you’re beautiful nothing is going to change.
