The Impact of Colorism on The African American Community

Colorism, also known as skin color bias, has been one of the greatest impacts on the African American culture and its community. It is heartbreaking that we have to face discrimination within our own ethnic group, along with every other groups in the United States. Colorism dates back to slavery and has continued to be passed down from generation to generation.The idea of lighter skin is better than darker skin has been deeply rooted in our culture. We see colorism in our everyday life on media, school, in relationships and this helps to form judgements.” Like gender, a person’s skin tone is a visible physical trait that others immediately notice during social interactions and use to form judgments”( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4365794/) Colorism has aided in the mulatto hypothesis, has shaped the way African Americans see color, and how colorism is portrayed today.

The History of Colorism

Colorism is a subcategory of racism and is known to be a global cultural practice. “Colorism is a form of racial discrimination based on the shade of an individual’s skin tone, typically favoring lighter skin. It can occur both within a specific ethnic group and across ethnic groups.” (https://www.dictionary.com, 2019) Outside the United States, colorism is more related to class than to white supremacy. There, the idea that light skin is superior to dark skin may derive from ruling classes typically having lighter complexions than peasant classes.

In the United States, colorism is rooted in slavery. Slave owners typically gave preferential treatment to slaves with fairer complexions. Slaves with lighter skin, also known as “house slaves” are assigned domestic tasks like cooking, cleaning and caring for children. While dark-skinned slaves, known as “field slaves” forced to work outside in the fields from dusk to dawn and live in shacks. House slaves were often given more respect and privileges than a field slave. They were given better food, clothing, were able to live with the plantation owner, and were even allowed to become educated by the women in the family.

Sometimes house slaves were treated like the “master’s child” because many times they were. Slave owners frequently raped slave women, creating a lighter-skinned child, then commonly called mulattoes. While slave owners didn't officially recognize their mixed-race children, they gave them privileges that dark-skinned slaves couldn’t enjoy. Accordingly, light skin came to be viewed as an asset in the slave community. “Within those special privileges of being lighter toned, being light skin was viewed as an asset to the slave community while darker skinned was a liability. This created an intimate tension within the black community as generations proceeded.” (https://sites.wp.odu.edu)

After slavery, colorism didn’t end in the United States. This continued the debate of lighter skin being more valued over darker skin and eventually led to The Doll Test performed in the 1940’s. Two African-American psychologists, Kenneth and Mamie Clark, conducted the Doll Test to test this theory. In the experiment, the Clarks handed black children four dolls. The dolls were identical except that two had a dark-colored skin and two had light-colored skin. The Clarks asked the children questions such as which dolls were 'nice' and which were 'bad' and 'which doll is most like you?” The results of the test showed that the majority of black children preferred the white dolls to the black dolls, the children saying the black dolls were 'bad' and that the white dolls looked most like them. “To the Clarks, these tests provided solid proof that enforced segregation stamped African American children with a badge of inferiority that would last the rest of their lives.” (https://www.nps.gov)

Other theories black social scientists attacked were the Brown Paper Bag Test. The brown paper bag test was a form of discrimination in the United States. A standard brown paper bag was used as a way to determine whether or not an individual could or couldn’t have certain privileges. “Only individuals with skin color that is lighter or the same color of the bag were allowed to join certain social organizations, fraternities and sororities.” (https://www.newhavenindependent.org, 2014) This test interned helped to justify the mulatto hypothesis as light skinned, mostly mixed- race children and adults were allowed to obtain an education where dark-skinned African Americans could not. The Mulatto Hypothesis was the idea that bi racial individual were superior to black because of their white ancestry, but they were lower than whites in society.

Colorism in 1990 compared to Colorism in 2019

The media does not only create tension, it also creates stereotypes within the African American community. Most of the color complex stereotypes are formed by observations of the media and negative discrimination throughout the years in American society. For instance, the television sitcom “Martin”, Martin is a respectable classic, whose re-runs many still love to watch but you just can’t help but to point out the aesthetics that speak to a harsh reality within the black community. Gina (played by Tisha Campbell) was Martin’s love interest. “Light-skin females are more likely to appear in and be the love interest in music videos of famous black music artists.”( https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1547&context=law_globalstudies)

Gina was light skin, is seen as beautiful, kind, silly and is one of the main faces of the show. Pam (played by Tichina Arnold) was simply Gina’s best friend, who has darker skin, is seen as loud, confrontational, annoying, while still being attractive but less beautiful. Throughout the show Martin’s and Pam’s relationship is playfully combative as both parties make jokes about each other. These jokes seem to become more of insults as Martin consistently references to Pam’s “bad attitude,” “nasty mouth,” “buck-shots;” while also deeming her as animal like and the type of woman to run men away.

On the other hard Gina doesn’t have jokes directed to her for her attire, skin and hair and Pam is purposely attacked for being darker than Gina. These depictions of her further show a divide between light skinned and dark-skinned black women. While Martin is dark skinned himself, he isn’t critiqued on his blackness or aggressiveness as Pam does. His aggression and blackness are seen as funny and even attractive to the audience, while Pam is desexualized and becomes an undesirable character.

Colorism in 2019 is still very prevalent but I do not think it holds as much burden as it did in the previous decades. One of the main indications that colorism is still very much alive is that people participate in debates about light skin, and dark skin. There are hashtags on social media websites such as “#teamlightskin” and “#teamdarkskin” these hashtags are supporting the problem, because on one hand there can be someone saying positive uplifting things about one hashtag then saying very negative comments on the other. Even with hashtags this that I feel like colorism will always exist but there are more people who do not care about it that much at all and love the skin they were born with. Since then these influences have changed, before darker skinned women only seen lighter women when magazines and television shows were being produced. As of now one can open their phone and see a dark-skinned woman being crowned for all of her attributions to the world or it can be someone that does vlogs on YouTube that they follow and can feel like they are the coolest person ever and tell all of their friends about.

Colorism is always going to be around because people tend to pass off their beliefs to their children, and many people go with what the majority is saying instead of having views of their own. I know so many people that want to be brown-skin but do not want to be dark-skin because they still feel it is a negative thing to be even in 2019. Many of them are actually dark-skin themselves but will use things to enhance how they look online such as filters on their pictures that can make them lighter, using make up and even skin bleaching. I think this is one of the main reasons the conversation exists still because people are not seeing a clear view of themselves with all of these filters that exist, if they just love the skin that they are in there would be no need to take about color.

In this day in age a lot of women will downplay light skin men saying that they are soft and always in their feelings or they are too arrogant. Many people will not even attempt to try and figure out on their own they will just take someone’s word for it and this is how the stereotype is created. These stereotypes seem to become acceptable by one group and not the other. For example, if the light skin man voices his opinion about what he does not like about women he is looked at as a man who hates women and are always in their feeling, eventually falling into the stereotype of light skin men. On the other hand, women talk negatively about light skin men online but they will speak graciously about them and wanting to marry and have children with darker skin men. “Lighter-skinned blacks, particularly females, are more likely to be married than darker-skinned blacks.” (https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1547&context=law_globalstudies)Dark skin men are praised for being sexy, strong, and humble. To me this is all a form of self-hate because very few want to actually be black, but everyone loves what black has to offer. This has become our belief since we have been masked by something that was not even designed by African American people.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I feel in black America the debate will continued as long as we are being feed stereotypes about our own people. African Americans aren't to blame for the wide spread of colorism and the European standards of beauty that keep it going. Skin should never be the deciding factor to how anyone feels or shape their views about another person. Stereotypes such as “#teamlightskin” vs. “#teamdarkskin” within the Black community are cancerous and shape how we view ourselves and our people. Fortunately, media has begun to shift and praise the empowerment dark skinned people, there could be more. To solve the problem, we must start by teaching and mentally reshaping how we’ve been trained to think and behave. As African Americans don’t want to be stereotyped by white people, we should not stereotype our own people based on a Eurocentric ideal of beauty, life and standards. In all the truth in American is no matter how the black community color categorizes themselves, white people all see us as black.

Works Cited

1. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://sites.wp.odu.edu/bodylore/2019/03/04/colorism-within-the-african-american-community/.
2. Kenneth and Mamie Clark Doll. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/brvb/learn/historyculture/clarkdoll.htm.
3. Turner, M. (2014, February 3). Paper Bag Tests Revisited. Retrieved from https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/paper_bag_tests_revisited/.
4. What Does colorism Mean? (2019, October 29). Retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com/e/historical-current-events/colorism/.