Why black people discriminate among ourselves: the toxic legacy of colorism
My grandmother was a great beauty. Everybody said so.
“Like a black Elizabeth Taylor,” was the comment heard most often, because her eyes looked violet in some light. She had a perfect hourglass figure, large clear eyes, a tiny waist, long slim hands, a killer sense of dress and smooth dark skin.
The only trait I shared with her was her skin color. My mother always spoke of this with pride. It was a treasure to be kept whole through diligent care – applications of thick, pasty Eucerin lotion, which used to come in a tub, worked into the skin as it melted down and made everything smooth and shiny. My grandmother used the silkier Nivea instead – kept on the dresser in her all-white bedroom, applied throughout the day. The smell of it still reminds me of the elegance of her life.
That dark skin was the most beautiful was the logic of my family. Growing up, all my Barbies and baby dolls had skin as dark as mine. This was my mother’s conscious choice. She stocked our bookshelves with black children’s books, bought toys and games with black characters. She worked hard to make sure our home was a place where blackness was always celebrated. She was keenly aware, as the mother of three black girls, how the world would treat us, regardless of our varying shades.
I went deeper into my colorism research, and what I found let me know that colorism is still alive and well. I started with the marriage market, and found out dark-skinned women are less likely to be married than lighter-skinned women. But colorism shows up in even starker ways: the difference in pay rates between darker-skinned and lighter-skinned men mirrors the differences in pay between whites and blacks. Darker-skinned women are given longer prison sentences than their light-skinned counterparts. And this discrimination starts young – if you are a dark-skinned girl, you are three times more likely to be suspended from school than your light skinned peers.
Even more insidious, colorism even affects how we are remembered. Lighter-skinned black people are perceived to be more intelligent. Educated black people, regardless of their actual skin color, are remembered by job interviewers as having lighter skin.
The daily toll of living with colorism is inescapable. Darker-skinned people report higher experiences of microaggressions; heavier-set dark-skinned men report the highest levels of microaggressions. All of this affects our mental health and wellbeing. Darker-skinned black women report more physiological deterioration and self-report worse health than lighter-skinned women. Taking all of this into account, I cannot help to think how the weight of history comes to bear on our daily living today.
Wage and punishment inequity and our skewed perception by the professional world make more sense to me, because they operate on the cold logic of white supremacy. They are describing interactions with a wider, non-black world and take into account how both white and black people view skin color. But the facts around relationships and dating don’t make any sense to me: given the relatively low rates of interracial marriage for black women in the US, we are talking about perceptions and prejudices within the black community – how we treat each other, our own internalized white supremacy.
To understand colorism, perhaps, we have to understand self-perception. Margaret Hunter, a sociologist who published her findings on colorism, marriage and dating in black and Hispanic communities in the 1990s, noted, “Different communities define it differently. There’s no clear lines about those definitions. The best research tends to use color palette to ask people how they see themselves. Because whether or not you say you’re light skin or dark skin is relative to your social context and that varies by what kind of community you live in.”
I began to realize the importance of distinguishing between colorism as practiced by white power structures like courts, schools and businesses, and colorism as practiced within the black community, evidenced when we talk about marriage statistics and measurements of color.
The former seems easier for many black people to acknowledge. The latter is less explicitly talked about. To do so is to begin to unpack internalized white supremacy, something most people are unwilling to do because it can be so painful.
We talked about how it affected who we tried to date, how easily we were underestimated, how often we were expected to work for free, be grateful, be humble, and the intense backlash that we each experienced when we didn’t act accordingly.
We talked about who was respected for their craft, who was deemed a literary darling, and who was not. “Have you ever noticed, the women of color writers who are championed as ingenues or geniuses are almost always light-skinned?” A question I typed out into the thread, knowing it was a place to be able to unpack and figure out the complications around these feelings.
Recently, I wrote to them: “What makes this all so hard to talk about is the internalized white supremacy. If white people disappeared from the planet tomorrow, colorism would still exist in our communities, and that is maybe the most painful part. Why people would rather say it isn’t real.”
To try to answer this question, I began to research the roots of colorism in the US. As far as I can tell, it starts, like so much of our culture, in the system of chattel slavery. In the US, unlike in other systems of slavery in other time periods, to be a slave meant you were legally a nonperson – unable to enter into legal contracts like marriage or land ownership, and not considered a citizen. Whiteness meant that blackness meant a person was property. Slavery was inherited, and whether or not you were considered a slave was dependent on the status of your mother. This system ensured that white male slave owners who had children with the black women they enslaved contributed to their own wealth.
Under this system, proximity to whiteness could increase your chances for freedom. If you had a white father, and more importantly, if you “looked” white, the easier you could potentially claim some sort of freedom.
In the US, our current understanding of colorism, though, stems from the decades directly after slavery, when everyone was theoretically free and a citizen regardless of race. This meant the amount of color in skin, not just skin color, became paramount for whites to maintain social and economic control. The one-drop rule – that even one distant black relative meant a person was black, or at least, most definitely, “not white” – increasingly became a way to define people.
This is not to suggest that during slavery there was some sort of pan-racial understanding of color. Only that before widespread emancipation, there was some leeway in defining mixed-race people’s heritage. The most famous example of this is the history of the creole communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, and Charleston, South Carolina – spaces where the descendants of black enslaved women and white slave owners could establish their own communities as free people of color. This leeway gradually disappeared in the latter half of the 19th century, as legalized segregation hardened into the daily realities of every American.
As more black people obtained freedom after the civil war, and began establishing newspapers – vibrant spaces to define and keep record of what it meant to be this new thing, a black citizen of the US – some of the African American newspapers struggled to call colorism exactly what it was.
In Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880-1920, released in 2000, author Willard B Gatewood notes that darker-skinned reporters pointed out that black churches were often divided by color and that political positions and government positions were won based on complexion. In contrast, those in the upper classes insisted that there was no preference at play, pointing to the existence of working-class and poor light-skinned people as proof that color did not directly correlate to an unfair advantage.
The debate, mired in frustration and denial, mirrors conversations around colorism and privilege today.
In the decades after emancipation, the debate shifted from how it felt to experience colorism (usually arguments made by darker-skinned, middle- and working-class writers) to whether or not it actually existed (a point usually made by upper-class writers, some of whom were able to “pass” as white).
Gatewood quotes Nannie H Burroughs, a dark-skinned civil rights activist and educator, remarked in a 1904 speech as saying: “Many Negroes have colorphobia as badly as the white folks have Negrophobia.” She continued: “The white man who crosses the line and leaves an heir is doing a favor for some black man who would marry the most debased woman, whose only stock in trade is her color, in preference for the most royal queen in ebony.”
Compare this with one of Burroughs’ contemporaries, the light-skinned Alice Dunbar Nelson. Both Burroughs and Nelson were schoolteachers, but Burroughs was denied a place in DC public schools because she was dark-skinned, while Nelson flourished.
Famous for marrying the much darker-skinned poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, Dunbar Nelson identified as both an African American author and activist and was deeply conflicted around the subject of color.
She did attempt to write about her complicated feelings; in her essay Brass Ankles she described the persecution she believed she experienced from other children growing up and from dark-skinned teachers in her workplace. “To complain would be only to bring upon themselves another storm of abuse and fury,” she wrote. But the essay was unpublished – Dunbar Nelson did not want to publish it under her own name and black journals refused to publish it under a pseudonym.
And so again, we fell into another silence.
I think about these two women – the outspokenness of Burroughs and Dunbar Nelson, obsessed with color but self-aware enough to avoid talking about it in public. I wonder where that shame originates, and trace it, for Americans back, to the origin of the variety of skin colors in our community. You cannot separate the often painful stereotypes of colorism from misogyny, in part because of the fundamental fact that light-skinned black people’s heritage in the US stems from the practice of sexual slavery, sexual abuse and sexual exploitation inherent in American slavery.
This profound trauma explains, to me at least, why this discussion is suffused in so much denial.
I am not sure how we get free from the trap of colorism, but as with most things in life, I know it begins with being able to talk about it openly. When I was a child, the love and pride my grandmother took in her color, the assumption of dignity and elegance, was an unspoken guide to how to navigate the world.
But I think the time has come to be explicit in our strategies, to have the difficult conversations, to acknowledge when they make us uncomfortable, or remind us of our own individual pain. To have your life dictated by something you are not even allowed to name is a special kind of cruelty. The way to begin to combat it is to try to speak about it.
Dream McClinton contributed some research. Share your experience of colorism: use the hashtag #ShadesofBlack on social media
Dark-skinned love create and toast
They say a picture is worth a thousand words… we say that super high resolution, copyright-free images of black people that fit in perfect context with that Ad/Website you are working on, are worth five hundred thousand words. But as we are well aware, good things don’t come cheap. Finding the right image is always a daunting task.
However, we have good news; We have curated a list of free stock photo sites that are either exclusively stock images of black people or have an impressive and flourishing section for our black-skinned folk. Enjoy.
Nappy: Nappy was born out of the quest for the solution to the problem that this article planned to solve; create a platform of high-resolution images of black people. Beautiful; high-res photos of black and brown people for free!
Createherstock: Just like Nappy, Createherstock was founded by Neosha Gardner after she was frustrated by the internet. She could not find the perfect image of a black woman for a lifestyle blog post in 2014. This experience led to the creation of the Createherstock website, which aims to provide clear, high-resolution images for women of color. Createherstock has over 2800+ models for you to choose from.
Unsplash: If you are a big-time picture hunter, you might be familiar with Unsplash already. Unsplash is a photography platform made up of creators all around the globe. This site allows you to download black, high-resolution images for free without having to worry about the license. Since Unsplash is for everyone, the category of pictures, including those of black people, found on the site is limitless.
Pexels: Pexels is our personal favorite and is usually our go-to for free stock photos, they are the loud newcomer in the game and they provide high-quality and completely free stock photos licensed under the Pexels license. All photos are nicely tagged, searchable and also easy to discover through our discover pages.
Reshot: They have a diversity matters pack. That’s all you need to know! Diversity Matters!
Freepik: Freepik is perhaps the most extensive online graphic resource for creatives. They are usually the hub for free vector files but their stock photo catalog is thriving. The website has over 200 000 high-resolution images, most of which are free. Some of the pictures are on the premium plan, which attracts a small monthly fee.
Hopefully, This list will help your next project go extra smoothly. From us to you; happy creating.
At Toast Creative Studios, we are experts in content creation and would love it if you check out our work here and follow us on Instagram to keep up to date with our work.
Light-Skin Privilege Jumped Out Of LisaRaye After She Defended Radio Host Who Compared Black Women’s Skin Tones To Toast
When it comes to colorism, LisaRaye doesn’t understand all of the fuss.
She reminded people of that during an episode of Cocktails with Queens this week where the hosts discussed the controversy surrounding a New York-based radio host fired for colorist comments. Rob Lederman, formerly of The Morning Bull Show on 97 Rock, shared his preferences among his white co-hosts on the show in regards to Black women, comparing the skin tones of notable women of color to toaster settings.
Starting out by saying “I may get into trouble for this,” Lederman said, “I will never go to a Serena Williams level, but I’m very comfortable with a Halle Berry level.”
He went further adding, “I need a little bit of mulatto still coming through.”
While publicly stating that he would never be attracted to a darker-skinned woman was offensive to her co-hosts (and most people who heard the comments), LisaRaye didn’t get the uproar.
“Wait a minute. What I heard was an opinion. I heard that he’s saying that he won’t go as far as a dark-skinned Black woman,” she said. “He’s comfortable with going with the color of a Halle Berry. What’s wrong with that?”
When Syleena Johnson tried to explain to her the ignorance of the comments, LisaRaye replied by saying only a small bit of the conversation was put out there, and he simply was sharing the kind of woman he’s partial to.
“You don’t got a preference? How [do] you say it? ‘I like mocha chocolate opposed to cappuccino?’”
“This man said I like ’em more mixed. That’s what this man said!” Johnson replied. “He said I like ’em more mulatto. That’s what this man said. To me, that is colorism and discriminatory. That’s a fool.”
LisaRaye said comparing skin tones to toast is similar to her way of comparing Black skin, as a Black woman mind you, to the shades of coffee drinks. No, girl. Just no.
“I don’t know. I’m not there with it. I just think that we’re so sensitive now,” she said. “Everybody gonna get caught up now because I think everybody is gon’ be so sensitive and ain’t gon’ know what to say and how to say it and it’s going to take the fun out of everything and everybody gon’ get slapped with lawsuits and defamation and it’s gon’ to be tedious and ain’t nobody gonna be able to talk about nothin.”
This isn’t the first time LisaRaye has played confused about why people are upset in regards to moments of colorism. Earlier this year she was one of the few people who came to the defense of singer DaniLeigh after a clip of her controversial song “Yellow Bone
“I’m light skin, I’m a redbone, I’m a yellow bone, I’m boney,” LisaRaye said in January in response to the uproar. “I think that you know, India Arie, ‘Brown skin, you know I love your brown skin,’ — I’ve heard women and men talk about what they have, because I guess, and you can contest to this, that you’ve got to start inward with what you all sing about; meaning what your experience is, what you have gone through and whatever. For her to celebrate her skin, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that. I do think that just because it’s Black Lives Matter, is it that Black lives matter because we’re talking about dark skin Black lives matter? Or light skin and cappuccino and caramel and expresso and all of that?”
As a light-skinned woman, it wasn’t a shock that she wouldn’t see why a song like that might be seen as a bad look, but the disrespect was very clear in regards to Lederman’s comments concerning Black women’s skin tones. Saying you would “never” go for a darker woman but love a mixed one is incredibly offensive and gives the impression that only Black women mixed with something else are beautiful. Even the person he lauded in that silly conversation was outraged:
Granted, he’s welcome to have his opinion, but to use his platform to publicly state it when it was ignorant as hell and hurtful (and he knew it was, which is why he introduced the view by saying he could “get in trouble” for it), is very bold. The backlash he received was fair.
And no, LisaRaye, people weren’t just being sensitive in regards to this situation. Colorism is bad enough amongst us, we don’t need white people out here publicly perpetuating it. But as the complimented “toaster setting,” she didn’t see anything wrong with what was said. And it seems that when people who look like her are uplifted in a way that is seen as putting down other shades of Black women, she doesn’t want to understand how it’s problematic. There is a clear block there and a desire to see herself in situations; to be defensive when the insults felt by darker women are centered in conversations. Perhaps if she realized that light-skin Black women are often represented and embraced in comparison to brown, dark-skinned and the other shades of Black women, she would realize why people are so fed up with this kind of thing.
She certainly is welcome to have an opinion that’s unlike others when controversial topics are brought up. Different viewpoints are great to share. But LisaRaye’s positions on matters of colorism rarely provide a refreshing perspective or really add anything to the discussions had by her colleagues. She just doesn’t get it. She simply doesn’t want to because how would that benefit her?
