The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

Hopefully, over the next couple of days, I will be addressing the following points that I have noticed all throughout my life on what WE think it takes to be considered “black” in America:

#1. Skin tone

#6. Must always consider a black spouse over all other choices.

#1. Skin Tone

Not a new issue

After the Civil War, light-skinned mulattoes further disassociated themselves from darker-skinned blacks. The Bon Ton Society and the Blue Vein Society were formed and applicants had to be fair enough so the blue veins on their skin were visible. Fraternities and churches would use the paper bag test. If the skin of an applicant was darker than the bag, he or she couldn’t join. Sometimes, a fine-toothed comb was hung at the door. If one’s hair snagged in the comb, entry was denied. (Straight hair was often regarded as “good hair” — as opposed to tightly curled hair — often associated with lighter skin.) (more…)

Not an everyday issuse, but it still exists

I think that most of us can agree that although we do not see the heated tension between light-skinned black folk and darker-skinned (how can black be light is a mystery all to itself), this subtle resentment towards lighter-skinned blacks does still exist in the black community. I can’t help but to crack up every time I see a commercial that has the typical light-skinned black male with the blow out hair (you know, hair like Lenny Kravitz). I say to myself, “this must be their way of appealing to ‘people of color’ instead of just settling for a darker-skinned person”. I dunno. Maybe I am reading a little bit too much with the commercials, but one thing is for certain, Hollywood isn’t the only one that has a preference of light-skinned over dark.

Light skin is the color of choice for most actors you will find in many of our music videos. Not only that, as a black man I can also tell you that many (not all) brothas that I talk are admittedly drawn to a light-skinned sistah a lot quicker than a darker skinned one.

Because we live in a world where to some extent people are still judged on the color of their skin, one does not have to look hard to see the cases where lighter-skinned blacks were given better treatment than us darker-skinned ones. In many cases I have seen how this has created a wedge between the two shades. It is situations like this that will cause some darker-skinned blacks to accuse the lighter -skinned ones of “not being black enough”, or “ashamed of their race”. Again, I must stress that even though this is not an everyday “visible” occurrence, the animosity does still exist subtlety.

It is almost the norm these days to see many of our black athletes either dating or married to a female with a much lighter completion than him. To some, this is seen as an abandonment of their “true blackness”. Bryant Gumble, for example, was labeled by many in the black community with what I would consider “double jeopardy”: He was a light-skinned black man who did not have the stereotypical mannerisms, and he married a white woman after his divorce to a black woman.

Bottom line: What I have seen in all my years is a general unity amongst blacks of all shades up until the lighter skinned amongst us get the preferential treatment. Instead of us getting angry at the system that condones this kind of practice, many times we turn our frustrations on our very own. Sooner or later, we will look at them as “less than black”.

Related Links:

Skin Games: Color and Skin Tone in the Black Community

Play explores corrosive prejudice within black community