Colorism: Black People and Skin Color Essay

Growing up as a youth being in an interracial family, I always go through prejudice whether it was in gradient my home or out on the street. My father was an African-American, his family was accepting but all could see that they praised the fact that my skin was 5-6 shades hoy than that of my other cousins.This of course caused unresolved issues, issues that couldnt and wouldnt be talked about among us as children, but later on became deep conversation change with tears and understanding because we were finally able to get from under the stigma that our parents were engulfed in because their parents had subjected them to the same treatment. While on the other hand, my mothers side of the family is Irish, German, and Indian. They despised the fact that my father was an African-American man.I would hear my mothers mother talk badly of my father. She even went as far as not to allow my father in her home. She was the hardest on me out of all the grand children when it came to discipl ining us, because my fathers skin tone was that of a black man. They too tended to favor my mothers eldest daughter because her father wasnt an African-American. As a child growing up I experienced two positive and negative feedback for my skin color. notwithstanding I must say that it was about 85% positive when not in the presence of my mothers mother.Note I dont say grandmother because she was hardly ever a grandmother toward s me, just because my skin color was that of a black girl, while my cousins were mostly fair skinned. Colorism in the United States is a stigma that wont get lifted because of what slavery has embedded in the minds of African-Americans. According to wikipedia. com, Colorism is defined as a Black-on-Black racism, based on skin-tone. The discrimination is based on the idea that a persons worth is flat related to the color of his or her skin, valuing lighter tones over darker tones.Its commonly known that Colorism plagued the Black community after slavery and through the early to mid-twentieth century. In the early 1900s, many black organizations, including colleges, practiced the brown paper bag test when accepting new members. If a persons skin was not lighter than a brown paper bag, they would be denied admittance. Though the brown paper bag test is out of date and frowned upon as a disgraceful moment in African-American history, the ideals behind the practice still lingers in the African-American community.Modern-day Colorism rears its ugly head in the day to day lives of African-Americans all day. This issue has affected every hue or shade of blackness within the African-American community. In The Color Complex by Midge Wilson, Wilson addresses the issue by tracing the origin of Colorism, To trace the origins of the color complex, we must return to the year 1607 when three ships sailed in Chesapeake Bay, stopping at Jamestown, Virginia, to establish the first English dependance in the New World..It was a new land and a new er a filled with possibilities. What might have been unthinkable in europium and Africa was an everyday occurrence in the wilderness. Miscegenation, or race mixing, became widespread as Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans mixed their seed and substance to produce a kaleidoscope of skin tones and features. But these primary race groupings differed sharply in their civil liberties and political freedoms. Subtle variations in appearance took on enormous consequence in meaning, especially among Negros, (Wilson, pg. 9).With the idiom of color being placed in the forefront of the black community, blacks have let this issue set the stage for ignorance for over four hundred years. The set up of these actions have trickled down into some of the most prominent black organizations that define our community and our blackness, such as the NAACP, Jack and Jill, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Kappa Alpha pounds per square inch Fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and etc. It is no secret th at these types of organizations were created in order to create a faux safe haven for the wealth of the light-skinned mulattos.In the early years these organizations were called Blue Vein societies, because in order to quote belong, the test of how light you were was could you see your blue veins through your skin? And if they could, you were in. Works Cited Colorism. Wikipedia, The exonerate Encyclopedia. 1 Nov 2009, 2252 UTC. 2 Nov 2009 . Wilson, Midge, Russell Kathy. The Color Complex The Politics of Skin Color Among African Americans. New York Harcourt Publishers, 1992.