Celebrating the skin we are in is hard work.
There are so many factors that make it hard, too. Between society, racism, music, movies, television, and other outside factors, loving this perfect, mocha - chocolate - deep rich coffee - melanated skin is a tough job. BUT SOMEBODY HAS TO DO IT. Somebody has to love this skin because it's a reflection of our past. Somebody has to love this skin because it's the focus of our present. Somebody has to love this skin because it is the projection of our future.
But at times - you know who makes it hard to love this skin we are in?
Us.
THERE. I said it.
Now this ain't a Willie Lynch type blog - besides, we should all know by now that the Willie Lynch letter is one of the biggest hoaxes in Black Pop and Historical Culture. But we cannot deny the colorism that is rampant in our community - how light skinned men are deemed "soft" and light skinned women as "more exotic" and "high maintenance." How dark skinned men are loved, but it's more on a sexual nature, and how dark skinned women are either treated as an artistic art piece (think of the Bilal video Soul Sista) or demonized as something that is ugly and undesired (I'm looking at you, Kodak Black). How "redbones" are something popularized by Black music and considered exotic or "video vixens." Or the invisible caramel (medium skin toned) Black person - those of us who aren't exotic looking, or too black to be made fun of, so everyone just acts like we don't exist.
We know that slavery played a major part in this. See, everyone owned us at some point - From the Arabs, to the Dutch, to the Native Americans (Don't believe the hype. All of them weren't trying to fight the "Pale Faces." Some were trying to assimilate) And with owning slaves, come rape. And with rape, children. And when children were born, those who looked a certain way were often treated better - by Massa and the family. Fear of the "Big Black Man" was used to pass laws, from 1863 until at LEAST the 1920s (ever wonder why coke was made illegal? Yea.....about those big black dark skinned men who were raping all the women.) But we know this, right? This is common knowledge if we barely even picked up a book - all you have to do is watch the movies "Roots" or "Queen". Or read the Slave Narratives where they talk about biracial children being treated with a higher level of twisted love.
With that higher elevation, comes the bullshit.
My generation is the generation right behind the resurge of 90s Black Power - Images of HBCUs, successful Black entrepreneurs, empowering singers, and conscious rappers fill my childhood memories. But even in that, there were tinges of colorism. "Don't play outside, or else you'll get too dark" was a mantra my friends and I heard often. My friends have often told me stories about how their lighter skinned cousins weren't made to do any housework at Grandma's house during the family Sunday dinner, while the darker cousins could barely eat for being ordered around and made to be the house beast of burden. The way Whitley on a "Different World" was uplifted by many to be the standard of HBCU beauty. Dark skinned Black men were demonized, then elevated to a point of "this is the only example of Black manhood". The AKA paper bag test was something I grew up hearing about from my older cousins who attended school - a practice that dated back years before any of us even thought about crossing the sands into our respective Greek letter organizations. When the video vixen trend became popular, most of the women in the videos were medium to reddish brown skinned women, with flat chest and big butts. As the 90s went on, however, the trend became Afro-Latina - why? Again, the whole "exotic" factor.
How do we break this? It's easy to say that education is the key, but everything I mentioned in this blog is pretty common knowledge, and yet, Colorism lives on. It thrives. Some people say they never experienced it because "everyone in my family is the same color" - meanwhile, the experiences of some and how they were treated haunt them, even into adulthood.
We have been taught for so many years that the color of our skin isn't the content of our character, but what are we to do when it's our own who upholds such hurtful standards?
