The truth behind the light skin vs dark skin “beef” & colorism.
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Are “Puerto Ricans & Dominicans Black?”.
The reason why Afro Latinos deny being Black.
What’s the difference between race, nationality, culture & ethnicity.
Colorism & featurism.
The Skin Bleaching Story.
A message to dark skinned Black women.
Also check out the colorism playlist for more videos on this topic.
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Light skin vs dark skin & colorism is still alive and well.
Skin tone is a significant marker used by others to evaluate and rank the social position of Black people.
The light skin vs dark skin “beef”, war or internal battle within the Black community is something many of us are aware of, even if we try to ignore it and act like it doesn’t really happen or exist.
Many people in the Black community act as though colorism is not that serious. Light skin vs dark skin is seen as a little joke between Black people.
But how many of us really take in to consideration he affects of this “battle”?
In the marriage market, it is stated that dark-skinned women are less likely to be married than lighter-skinned women. Colorism also 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 black people. It is also noted that darker-skinned women are given longer prison sentences than their light-skinned counterparts. 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.
What is colorism?
Colorism is a form of racism which is usually seen when people are negative towards people who have a darker skin tone. It also includes people that treat others with a lighter-skin tone better. This brings in the idea of light skin privilege.
To understand colorism, we have to understand self-perception.
Different communities define colorism 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.
Colorism even affects how we are remembered. Lighter-skinned black people are perceived to be more intelligent and educated. black people, regardless of their actual skin color, are remembered by job interviewers as having lighter skin, if they so happen to be a good candidate.
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.
Also we have 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.
Comment your thoughts below. Let me know what you think.
You have open my eyes to the darkness as a Puerto Rican man. I thank you my brother!
I’ve walked through life seeing myself different than my African-American brothers and sisters. Even though I live in the Bronx. Because I’m Puerto Rican, and mixed race, I’ve always seen myself as different. But thank you my brother for opening my eyes!
My friend as someone who is Biracial with a continental African parent and a Hispanic parent I can tell you for a fact the only difference is a pit stop. Every single type of Latin music, Caribbean or American music you can find a similar drum beat or rhythm on the continent.
Brazilian music is for a fact just Nigerian (Yoruba) music in Portuguese. I’ve heard the exact same beats, rhythms everything in Yoruba music. Yoruba’s in Nigeria have been singing and dancing similarly for millennia Brazil only just started catching up when we Nigerians were taken there.
Dreadlocks even ethnic groups in Africa across the continent been doing that, braiding, beading, percussion for centuries.. millennia.
The world could only catch up by us going elsewhere or been taken elsewhere and moving the stuff we been doing.
This is so true. We need this, especially in these times. People are getting wild and extremely colorists. This needs to be on TikTok 😔
There are “light skins” on the continent, because there was East African slavery about 1000 years before the Trans Atlantic slave trade. Slavery in Africa was institutionalized by the Arabs, so there are Ethiopians, Kenyans, Sudanese, Eritreans etc.. who are lighter and considered African.
My friend is Eritrean and about my skin tone, I’m Mixed black my mama is Hispanic and my dad is West African. Latino’s I used to know crapped on me because of my skin tone, that I couldn’t really be Latina, telling me I wasn’t Chilean especially Peruvians because they took slaves. My HS bestie was Peruvian and I wasn’t lucky my character spoke volumes with her extended family because I’m black and Chilean (Chile and them had a war so they don’t tend to like us) and that was like the two worst things I could have ever been.
Colourism in our community has got to stop, seriously, as outsiders slaughter us we are fighting over foolish things. In my high school there a some students who are Domminican, I had a class mate say to me that he is spanish and not black. But he clearly was a dark skin black teen like me, he also said that he hated the Haitians which made me feel sorry for him, but over time I just brushed it off and kept going. We have to realize that we can’t convince everyone in our community, if they hate themselves leave them be, this is why I love black girls regardless of skin shade because I know we are black.