Colorism

Do they? Funny how I've never seen Steph Curry on the cover of any magazine like Lebron was with Giselle.

 

smh. What was their background?

 

What interests me is the fact the within the black community, some darker black women are treated as ugly and masculine. Then, of course, lighter skin black women are seen as feminine and pretty.

The interesting part is that in our own community, darker skin black men are seen as the pinnacle of masculinity, whereas lighter skin black men are seen as feminine, pretty, and or gay.

Always found that interesting that no one ever talks about that when discussing colorism. It's almost as if there is some sort of bias within our community or something.

 

agreed

 

That's exactly why. Colorism only exists in our community these days because we embraced and held on to it. It doesn't even have anything to do with white people anymore other than their genetics that was passed on.

 

I wouldn't say it only exists in our community. There have been studies showing the preference for lighter skin in hiring and so on. But, I will admit that I find it most prevalent within our own communities and that only one side of the argument is ever presented.

 

People talk about that the first one all the time, namely about BW and representation in media. BM are allowed to be anywhere on the spectrum but BW are always being represented by light skin or biracial women. Even roles that would be better suited for dark skin women are given to light skin women. Isn't Storm supposed to be African, why has she only been portrayed by biracial women thus far? Convos like that are common within our community.

We don't really talk about the negative stereotypes directed towards lightskin men though. If light skin BM feel some type of way about those stereotypes they're free to speak out on them.

 

Light skin bm aren't generally allowed to voice those opinions and issues in my experience. But, it might be different where you are from. Every place is a bit different.

 

Making untrue assumptions is not someone's 'experience'.

Having fears and anxieties about something doesn't mean it's a real thing.

It's about correctly or incorrectly perceiving the world around you, in which case all opinions aren't equally valid.

As a Black person, I know that we go through life hyper sensitive about racial issues and how they affect everyday interaction, to the point we subconsciously interpret almost all interpersonal reactions through the prism of race.

Is this person reacting to me this way because of my skin color??
Did someone not smile because I'm a Black man??

Sometimes we feel a certain thing is happening because another Black person is lighter, but in fact IMO we as Black folk are projecting our OWN form of racism onto White people.

BTW I totally agree with MilkandCoffee's take.

Any Black person who thinks lighter skinned Blacks in general have it easier from White people and White society in general is simply wrong.

People are acting like light skinned Blacks exist in this separate class from dark skinned Black folks and that's just not true.

 

Not just in black america

https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/aug/14/indias-dark-obsession-fair-skin

Colorism in india
http://sporamagazine.com/main/2016/4/16/a-look-at-south-asian-colorism

Colorism in asia

 

The only real bias I've ever seen against light skinned Black men is in IR porn.

I sort of get that, because the color contrast is a part of what's exciting about IR porn, but it is funny how light skinned brothas get kicked to the back of the line in adult entertainment.

 

Light skinned Black at one point had advantages given to them because of their associations with the White side of their families.

But that financial and educational advantages weren't absolute and didn't carry themselves into all subsequent generations.

Light skinned Blacks still weren't allowed to fully assimilate into White society.

And back to the colorism issue, light skinned Blacks historically have self-segregated themselves within the Black community.

That had nothing to do with White people or White racism.

Many of the historical divisions we've had in the Black community have stemmed from the desire of many light skinned Blacks to exist in a separate social class apart from dark skinned Blacks.

It's easy to overlap colorism and White racism and believe one is responsible for perpetuating the other.

Except that colorism has exclusively been a problem we haven't let go of in the Black community.
We are the ones who keep it alive.

What's amazing about modern American society is how the inter-mixing of races has dealt a serious blow to historical colorism in the Black community.

It used to be that if you saw a light skinned Black person, you could assume they came from a long line of light skinned Black folk who only dated and married Black people who looked like them,(Vanessa Williams).

Nowadays, a light skinned Black person can be someone like Alesha Keys or Blake Griffin, byproducts of IR parents and not generational colorism and segregation within the Black community.

Black kids from IR unions IMO usually don't place a value on segregating themselves from dark skinned Blacks to preserve some light skinned privilege.
THey don't view their skin tone in terms of social status and economics.

Their view on race is all about identity and who they are, not whether or not they identify as biracial or Black, or nothing at all.

Does anyone remember when you rarely saw light skinned brothas who dated dark skinned women??

IMO that's really changed over the last few years, probably since Obama was elected POTUS.

 

I think it's been established that colorism exists in most communities. But, the point is, it's within those specific communities and doesn't necessarily transfer over to other ethnicities/races about those communities. White people tend to see someone as whatever ethnicity or white.....not shades.

 

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You'll love this!

They thought they were as white as white could be (whatever that means). My mom ended up doing one of those DNA heritage things that shows your ethnic make up and they had a pretty high percentage of Mediterranean, etc.

The thing I always thought was funny is that several of them looked more Italian than my dad did.

But you know, often people can't really see themselves.

 

Even in Italy. The ( Northern) Romans (generally) don't even consider Sicilians as Italians.

 

So sorry you endured that. I feel blessed to say that my Greek people don't discriminate on our varying hues. Tans are prized because we are very proud of our Mediterranean roots - my sun-worshipping mother always spoke reverently (still does) of the melanin in her (our) skin and dismissed my concerns of her possibly getting skin cancer.

My sister tans honey, but I tan soft chocolate..whenever people see my beach or tan photos, I often get compliments. Funny how in some cultures it's envied and admired, and others it's a (percieved) negative. SMH.

 

Definitely.

The other day, I heard one of my relatives say that Sicilians aren't Italian.

 

We were posting at the same time.

The issues came from the non-Italians (well they thought they weren't Mediterranean at the time anyway) people in the family living in the mid-west. This was many years ago. My dad grew up in Chicago, My grandfather was a jazz musician. My mom's family thought they were all Mafia gangsters because....don't you know - all Italians were. They said all sorts of really disgusting things to me as a lil girl too.

 

Nothing but the truth. Smh. None of that shit matters if you don't come from a royal bloodline. It's just incredible how stupid people are. Every day folk always seem to come up with the moronic version of what really matters to rich people. This is a pre homosexual erectus type of dumb.

 

Well for one I think all your assumptions are looking through this from purely a male perspective because like I've said earlier bw could give us a plethora of examples where skin hue makes big differences.
Secondly I look at the colorism thing the way I look at race period. Just because someone isn't consciously aware of their bias doesn't mean it doesn't exist so while there are plenty of non black people who will claim to be "color blind" we all know that's horseshit. No one has to say they outwardly don't like black people in order for me to see a bias. I could tell you all day I'm not biased towards Middle Eastern people but I'd be full of shit if I said when I see one on a plain I'm a little nervous, I have consciously pull myself back from bias. I've seen it with my own eyes when white people say things to my biracial cousins or light skin cousin like "well you're not really black" as if to say they are less threatening. A lot of people have described that happening to them as well. It's no coincidence that the first black Ms America had green eyes and fair skin. Of course its not codified but you see so many examples like with Latinos the ones lusted over like Ricky Martin and Cameron Diaz are fair skinned and have light eyes while the darker ones are seen as illegals or landscapers. Same thing with Asians, the paler the better, it's usually the Japanese or other fair skinned Asians that we're talking about when we talk about Asians and that's usually through a white lens.
I think the problem and the disconnect here is you're waiting for white people to say it out right like black people do. Light skin people are better than dark skin people or any advancement of non light skin person is direct proof that there is no bias but we know from being black that things don't need to be said outright in order for them to exist. Nor does the advancement of some mean a clear example of advancement for all.