Colorism

Colorism is a topic that has been a part of the Black community’s conversations for years. Sometimes out loud and other times, subconsciously. At one point we didn’t know what it was just that it existed. However, as time continued, we started to understand more what colorism was and it gave birth to a name. Along with this, we have gotten to the point where we can identify it and most of us try to find ways to combat it.

Colorism is something that runs deep, unfortunately, and it’s going to take a lot of retraining to get us back on an accord of a universal Black pride of our beauty and differences.

In this article, I will be showing parts of my life that I feel are important to add 

Regardless of our physical differences, we all encounter similar challenges throughout the diaspora, which is why collective unity is essential.

to this conversation because it gives perspective from an interesting place. I will also be discussing where I believe colorism began, and I hope to not only start this conversation in hopes of creating other conversations that can tackle colorism, but I hope to also be a part of the process of helping our people heal from the wound that colorism is. 

My initial belief is that colorism began during slavery. Once I researched a bit on the subject, I found this quote “colorism in Africa as we know it today was not prevalent before colonization”. How people looked in Africa, did tell what region they were from, but it was never looked at as related to race in any way.  When slaves first arrived, everyone was African. It was pure blood, and there weren’t many differences besides maybe the tribes that they came from.

However, when the Caucasian savages also known as slave owners began to have their way with our women, it created a new type of people of mixed descent. From this crossing of the races, we begin to create all different shades of people.  At one time in history, they were classified by different names given to them by their savage slave owners. The names include but are not limited to mulatto, (comes from the Spanish word "mulatto" which is related to the word "mule," signifying a hybrid offspring), quadroon" (one-quarter African), "octoroon" (one-eighth African), and "mestizo" (often used in Latin America for mixed Indigenous and European ancestry). 

The people of that time stop being Africans and were broken down into different subunits and each subunit came with his own benefits and disadvantages. This was a spark of dissension that  

began to breathe and brew within the people at the time. It created an atmosphere where these various levels were divided between who was better and who was considered the worst, and

unfortunately, these beliefs were picked up by the slaves themselves. Unity was one of the first  

things that they attacked because in our unity came strength. 

As years passed the color of one skin continued to matter to the masses outside of the slave community until it finally consumed them. Willie Lynch, a known murderer, and savage began to structure how to capitalize on this division. He concluded that using this division against our people was extremely beneficial. Even Willie Lynch said that that division would be one that would play our community for years and years to come. The bastard was right! 

I remember when I was coming up as a youngster with my own plight with colorism. I was born in 81 and grew up during the 90s. There was a clear distinction in difference of treatment between lighter Black children and my darker skin companions. I was a brownskin girl. In the wintertime I could get fairly light skinned, and, in the summer, I could definitely catch me a tan. Being on neither side, let me see the advantages and disadvantages of both sides, so it gave me the ability to have a non-biased opinion free of my own trauma.

At one time I used to hide from the sun. I asked myself in my wiser years (20s) “what sparked such a drastic reaction from a child and I’ve narrowed it down to two major reasons. One reason was seeing how the darker skinned boys and girls were treated by others, even adults. They were  often considered troublesome. They were often marked and called names such as “African booty scratcher”, “midnight.” and even ugly. There was no beauty to be seen in them just because of the color of their skin and as children, we pick up the habits and thoughts of our parents and  

those around us which brings me to the second part, which is I was told by family members to not stay in the sun too much or I was going to get too Black.    I didn’t really know what “too Black” meant, but I knew that it was a negative thing based on how they said it and based on the things that I saw happen to the fellow children that I knew. 

When it came to lighter skin friends and classmates, I did notice that they had advantages.

They were often considered more “innocent” when disagreements happened in school between the children as they do, they were often put on a pedestal and at times were given favor when it came  

to being selected for leading roles, and things of that nature. However, the other thing that I saw was, they were often physically abused by students that were jealous of them. I have seen instances where girls with long hair or a soft curl pattern, would fall victim of someone cutting their hair, or someone would pour glue in it, or bullies would beat them up after school because they assumed that the lighter skin girl thought “she was all that.” I will be honest I never wanted to be light skin, but I did not want to be dark skin either. I did not want to be abused as a light skin person and I did not want to be ostracized as a dark skin person so in the middle, I floated and watched my classmates and adults act a fool over color.  

I'm not sure how long my “hiding from the sun” lasted, but I do remember when I began to learn  

more about myself as a Black person. I was 20 years old. That is when I truly learned where I came from and the hardships of those in the past from books not furnished by my schools. I also learned that by slave ship is not the only way the African people made it to what we now know as America….and even Columbus made mention of Africans making it to the land before he ever seen it.  

I learned of people like Willie Lynch, and the plan that he devised to separate our people.  To know the things that I saw as a child was partly, if not fully, a result of purposeful intent to destroy and divide my people, angered me and it made me stand up against carrying those stereotypes around my community I decided that I would never help carry

the torch of such disruption between our people. I stopped hiding from the sun, and I started to pour life into the younger children around me, ensuring they knew that they were beautiful. No matter the skin color…. They were beautiful and no matter how their hair curled or coiled that it too was a beautiful thing. 

Now, where is colorism in the year 2025? Well, it still exists however, I am happy to report that there was more Black pride and Black love amongst our people. Less and less people are chemically treating their hair, and they are embracing their natural coils, curls and kinks. Darker  

skin is now currently seen as beautiful, and we can see that in the many models and actors that we can view on our television and in magazine pages. We also can see that our Black is beautiful from those that try to imitate us not only by cutting on themselves, but by staying in the sun for  

extended hours of time trying to achieve that beautiful me look that comes to us so easily.  

However, I must keep it real, colorism does still exist. It exists in homes across the country It exists in the workplace, it exists, the music industry, the movie industry, and all other things where the color of our skin 

should not matter. I have a friend who is a model, and she has beautiful dark Ebony skin. Not only is her skin beautiful, but she too is also beautiful inside and out. Just the other day I was speaking to her, and she was quite upset on how she went to an audition and out of all the women that was there, those in charge selected all lighter skin women.  Though many of them, lacked the talent that they needed for the production that they were putting together. She immediately knew why, and it was quite disheartening as I’m explaining to her to keep her head up and that it isn’t this way everywhere, however I couldn’t help but to feel anger that colorism still exists within our people. So much so that some of us still refuse to see the beauty of ourselves if it’s not put in a package that the white man says is beautiful.

So where do we go from here? Change. Well, the answer is clear, but where do we start? Where we start in our own homes. How? We can fortify our children of being proud of themselves…. being proud of the way that God created them and being proud of what they see in the mirror, even though they may look different than their friends, even though they may look different than what someone tries to sell them as beautiful. For us, who call ourselves community leaders and community activists and advocates, we must create things that in still self-pride, love, and harmony with each other inside of our communities. We also must take care of each other and pull each other up; meaning that if we see someone treating someone poorly because of the differences, we remind them that we’re all beautiful and remind them where that self-hate developed from, in hopes that they too can be appalled enough to refuse to bow down to the standard that they tried to keep us in. For those of us that are journalists, we must create content very much like this that talks about these things.

We also have a responsibility to make content to remind the general population that all Black is beautiful and the different shades that we come in are no better than the other, and that our unity overrides any of the plans they created against us. Defeating colorism will take more than a day because it took more than a day to create the division that it has caused among our people for so many years. But it starts with us one child at a time, one mind changing at a time. We must actively strive to retrain our minds. 

For example, when I was younger, I was told that I had “bad hair.” As you can imagine I didn’t, but before I knew better, I used to tell my little sister that she  

had bad hair and that was farthest from the truth. However, when you know better, you do better so when I knew better, I made sure I doubled back to my sister to let her know that I was wrong…. that her hair is beautiful and why at one time I thought that she had bad hair. To our youth, we must explain our mistakes. I gave her the knowledge. We can correct these roles that others put in our life, and we can correct the wrongs that we carry. It starts with us. Black love.