The Light-Skinned vs. Dark-Skinned Battle: Who’s winning it?

At a very young age, children constantly feel the need to define themselves, and they will look outwardly to do so. They are looking to put themselves into a category, sadly to follow and become someone else’s expectations for themselves. When the child or adult grows into, or becomes the embodiment of that stereotype or pre-conceived notion about themselves, it is called a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The stereotypes have become so ingrained that it’s not about hate anymore. The hateful words, actions, and thoughts have come to be the ordinary and the effects of them, which are passed on from generation to generation, are pervasive, most times subtle, but many times blatantly obvious.

Sadly, there has not been enough peer-reviewed scientific research which examines the role that mainstream media plays in perpetuating and spreading colorism (skin-color bias). I am particularly eager to see a widespread, peer-reviewed study which measures how prevalent skin color preference or skin color bias is throughout mainstream media markets. It would be interesting to see how the mainstream media markets would respond to darker-skinned individuals getting more leading roles and “face” time.

An Education on Colorism with Kiara Lee


My Personal Colorism Story

I don’t have a short and sweet or quick story to sum up my experience as a dark-skinned girl. I experience the negative affects of it every single day! I never know when someone is going to bring it up in regular everyday conversation.

The most common statements I hear about myself and other dark-skinned individuals:
1. “She is so black.”
2. (rolls eyes) “…with her black self.”
3. “He was black and ugly!”
4. “She’s a pretty brown.”
5. “She’s the kind of pretty dark black girl.”
6. “Damn girl, you get BLACK in the summertime!”
7. “You shouldn’t date him. Y’all’s baby would be so black!”
8. “Your hair is nappy.”
9. “She needs a perm.”
10. “The best-looking people are not too light or not too dark, they’re in-between.”

Men sometimes compare me to Oprah, saying that I’m dark-skinned and overweight like her, and that if I were to become rich like her, my life would be easier.

And the most annoying one of all, “You’re not dark.” :-( Total Fail!



One of my biggest struggles with this has been...

“Should I take it personally?” I said to myself, and I heard from others, that maybe the cause of the mistreatment was something else about me, not related to my strong African racial genetic disposition. So I thought, “If I were not dark, what negative comments would I hear most often about myself?”



One preconceived notion about me that I hate is...

People think I’m automatically jealous of light-skinned girls because I’m dark-skinned! Right! Those with a self-hating mentality (light or dark) are not able to believe that I could be dark-skinned with nappy hair and not want what the light skinned girl with “good” hair has...and so then there is a lot of disrespect that goes along with that pre-conceived notion about me.

Personally, I can only be friends with light-skinned Black women who are aware of and sensitive to these issues. The light-skinned women who are not sensitive of the feelings I might have about this issue, hurt me oftentimes because they actually enjoy the type of privileges they can receive for being lighter-skinned (closer to White) and tend to force the negative stereotypes onto others. When you first meet someone and automatically assume that they are jealous of you, it seems to be that you are really the one who holds the bias.

I appreciate the light-skinned people in my life who treat me with respect, kindness, love, and who tell me/show me that I’m beautiful and accepted just the way I am...who stand up for me, and who reject the notion that they are better because they are lighter.



One of my biggest concerns is...

Maybe the man I fall in love with will not want to have a child with me because they don’t want a dark-skinned child. I love dark-skinned Black men (and all other types of men actually), but I know that many seek to dilute their African genes as much as possible so that their children will be lighter. A couple of Black men have told me that they did not want to have a baby as dark as them.



Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s “Stages of Grief”

I think the grief comes from the feeling of rejection as well as the feeling of shame. Shame is the feeling that you are wrong, not that you’ve done something wrong. For example, because God made you dark, you automatically qualify as a stepping stool for someone else lighter, or you’re hated, or you're picked over. Grief also comes from seeing others being favored for their lighter skin and more Caucasian genetic features, while you deal with being rejected because of your darker skin and African genetic features.

Denial “Racism doesn’t exist anymore.”
"Chocolate colored skin tone is not really considered to be dark-skinned."

Anger “White people are blue-eyed devils.”
Fight or Flight Emotional Response: "I don't like anyone with fair skin and I let them know it!"

Bargaining "I'll keep trying to be more favorable."
“If I lighten my skin or straighten my hair I will be more worthy.”

Depression "I give up."
“I hate myself because I will always be black, ugly, and rejected.”

Acceptance “Life is not fair, and even though I’ve been discriminated against or made to feel less than, I will live my life in a way that demonstrates love of self, love for others, and reverence for life, period.”
“Shit happens.” :-))-:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.


Medical Intervention

Anita Rani presenter of "Watchdog" and "The One Show" for the British television network BBC ONE, went on a journey with her cameras to find out why skin color issues are so prevalent in the world at large and why the skin-lightening industry is currently a billion dollar industry. She starts in her own family (of South Asian descent), with her own mother's preference for lighter skin.

What struck me most about Anita Rani's short documentary was the moment she surprised her mother with a painted on dark-skinned tan. The panicked mother actually shed tears because she thought her daughter had done something to make herself dark permanently. She was horrified. It was such a painful sight to her! The first question she asked her daughter was, “What did you do to yourself? Can you change it back?”

At that moment, I understood the deep psychological pain that Anita Rani's mother had experienced and suffered through and how she was now mentally and emotionally associating darker skin with extreme suffering. This woman had been so programmed and so conditioned to believe that lighter skin was better, that it manifest itself in a way that made her seem to be racist, hateful, self-hating at the least, and just plain odd (because of the extremes she would go to just to avoid getting a tan darker than the one she was born with).

I asked myself, “Is discrimination really so bad that I would put harsh chemicals on my skin or endure plastic surgery in order to look more White? For me, the answer is “No!” Thank God I have at least that much self-esteem and self-pride! Nevertheless, I realize that some people don’t.


Anita Rani, BBC One "Make Me White"




So, where do we go from here?

Someplace totally different!

I recently listened to Elizabeth Kubler Ross tell a story in which she was visited by the mother of a teenage boy. The mother explained that she and her son always fought about him wearing a dirty t-shirt, which he never washed. The mother said she was ashamed of what the neighbors would think of their family and she said that she even hated to see him coming because she could smell how filthy the shirt was. Then one night, as her son left the house to go to a party with friends, she stopped him and said to him that if he were to get into a car accident and die that night, she would bury him in that dirty t-shirt. The mother decided not to let the dirty t-shirt ruin the relationship she had with her son.

So the moral of the story is this: We are blessed with people in our lives and we let something as superficial as skin color and hair texture, or even a dirty t-shirt, ruin our relationships with the people we love. So the challenge for all of us is to learn how to be our highest selves and live our lives with all the love we can create.