Colorism has inflicted immense harm on the Black community in countless ways. It has subjected Black teenagers to hardships when attending school with white peers, caused distress for Black millennials and Gen Z in the workplace, and historically divided those with lighter and darker complexions. Colorism’s detrimental impact has even driven some to alter their skin color permanently. Colorism has continuously imposed anguish and obstacles upon the Black community. We need a psychological revolution to undo its harmful effects.
Black students often feel ostracized, labeled, and subjected to a range of offensive racial terms by their peers. These students receive derogatory labels based on skin tone, terms ranging from high-yellow to red-bone, to blue-black. This leads many to feel awkwardness, shame, insecurity or even disgust with themselves. This leads to internalized prejudice, feelings of inferiority, comparison, and distinctions between being brown versus black, and infighting. Fearing darkness from suntans, stress in some families during summer months is realistic and etched in self perception. The interplay between the two words black and ugly additionally emboldens the insult game to throw the hardest jab possible against one’s humanity while, as if presenting a delicate gift, the backhanded compliment “you’re pretty for a dark-skinned girl” does not further strip away one’s confidence. Likewise, likeability of dark-skinned people has to be met with interaction before even standing a chance. This pervasive environment of stigmatization, bigotry, and skin-color discrimination leaves Black students feeling marginalized, fetishsized, and objectified. To add, lighter skinned Black people can also catch a bad rap for being perceived as vain or arrogant due to their light skin, being blamed for “privilege” they never asked for. Devaluing a person solely based on the color of their skin also plays out in the professional world, where favorable treatment defaults, more often than not, to those who have the closest proximity to whiteness. Black employees often face workplace challenges due to stereotyping. Projecting expectations based on preconceived ideas, regardless of educational credentials plays out in acceptance and promotability.
The origins of colorism in the United States can be traced back to the era of slavery. Sexual violence against enslaved women by white slave owners created a population of of lighter-skinned individuals, known as mulattos. A caste system of sorts has been perpetuated in the Black community as a result of vocational positioning during slavery based on skin tone. Lighter skinned offspring of slave masters were given opportunities to work in the house, dressed in professional uniforms that did not consist of torn and tattered garments while those of darker complexions were relegated to the field. Working in the relative comfort of the house, rather than the physically demanding labor of the southern sun increased the chances that these lighter-skinned slaves would become literate and acquire specialized skills, leading them to access to freedom more readily. This contributed to class divides that have plagued the Black community for centuries, wherein substantial social, educational, and economic advantages were attainable by those positioned preferably in society.
The conversation that we should have as a community is around the misnomer that skin complexion is a true agent of social capital. The confusion of skin color in the Black community must be straightened out by divorcing ideas that whiteness is the standard we should follow. It is this message that has created a certain set of conditions, yet realizing who controls these conditions is what we should focus on. A light skinned slave and a dark skinned slave were both still slaves, there was never a lasting advantage to skin color. Every hue in between was at the mercy of race hate. It will take a deep dive and psychological revolution to understand the intricate manipulation of colonization throughout the African diaspora and how its tentacles have blinded us to the real cause of colorism, which has created a false sense of superiority. Identifying the enemy within is critical in countering racial and cultural confusion caused by colorism.
The Trial of Complexion
By: Anyla McDonald
Colorism often leads individuals to feel ashamed of their natural appearance
Compelled to alter our flesh
Manifests in concerning thoughts and actions
Should I just have used my eraser on my skin to see if I would become white ?
Should I wash my face with dish soap to see if my skin turns bright?
Should I rub my face with clorox
To see if I’ll become less dark?
Maybe white paint, white markers, white
To look like the Instagram models on my cellular device
Skin lightening products
With significant health risks involved
This becomes the answer
With the possibility of cancer
Susceptibility to skin infection
Permanent discoloration
Colorism’s pernicious effects
To change our core
Identity and physical traits conform
Melanin skinned people:
Be elated and enraptured for the future
Grab hold of a life brimming with possibility
Uphold gusto and nerve
Against impending assimilation
And the confiscation of emancipation
Be not encumbered when it comes to just existing
Discover a sense of zeal beyond complexion
Zest to live, keep persisting
Let no opportunity be interposed
By my light, medium, or dark skin tone
We are ready to conquer the world as ourselves
And no one else
Due to the world attempting to cast us out