The racial divide in America has been painstakingly obvious and easily dismissed in our everyday lives. With more and more coverage on institutional racism and predominately black fatalities due to police force shootings, Black America is becoming dangerously unsettled. The racial divide among black people has been prominent since as early as slavery. Since the days of slavery, slave masters used skin color to create a division between dark skin and light skin people.
The light skin people worked in the home of the slave master while the dark skin people worked on the fields. The light skin slaves that worked in the home were treated much better, fed better and were even taught how to read and write. Since then not much has changed. We continue to divide ourselves and place superiority on people who are lighter and frown down on dark skin people. Why do we still carry the same values repugnant slave masters placed on us? We don’t realize that we are spreading white supremacy by dividing ourselves.
“My black brothers and sisters, we all have in common the greatest binding we can have. We are all black people” – Malcolm X.
This concept of self love and unity has seemed to fluctuate throughout the decades dues to competition of skin tones, success and physical appearances within the black community. With trends like #teamlightskin and #teamdarkskin, it can be difficult to unite on one continuous front.
I love the fact that I’m both black and white. Biracial people are winning.#TeamLightSkin
— Lyric Monroe? (@_Lyric_Goddess) September 13, 2016
Then we have these light skin vs dark skin vs brown skin. Trained to think that the lighter you are the better
— ☮ & ℒฺℴฺνℯฺ♡ (@Party_TypeChic) October 4, 2016
More people in our younger generations are more focused on skin color, and the privileges that come with each skin color. Can you blame them? Media makes it obvious they prefer lighter skin colors.
We find ourselves engaging in competition on which color of the race is “winning,” but what exactly are these people winning?
Other than praise from media and bias self empowerment, there is nothing to win but disconnection from the black community as a whole. The truth of the matter is, white people all see us as black. They don’t see light skin or dark skin, black people are getting killed across the nation, their light skin or dark skin color doesn’t matter when they’re targeted, it’s their black skin that is the target.
The discussion on light skin vs dark skin hurts darker skin people more cause time and time again they are called names for their beautiful dark skin, it’s white supremacy at work. Black men telling others how they would never date a dark skin girl simply because in their eyes they aren’t attractive. They fail to realize that they are internalizing self-hate due to white supremacy. This notion that a skin color holds more beauty than another is spread throughout media, but more than anything, hip hop music. Many rappers glorify “red bone” or “yellow bone” women, making these types of skin tones superior over their darker brothers and sisters.
Rapper Lil Wayne has made his preference for light skin woman very obvious throughout his whole career. He calls these woman “redbone”.
“Beautiful Black woman/I bet that b*tch look better red” – Lil Wayne on “Right Above It”
In an interview with The Coveteur in 2013, Rapper A$AP Rocky gave some misguided advice to dark skin girls about make-up. He said,
“But for real, for me, I feel like with the red lipstick thing it all depends on the pair of complexion. I’m just being for real. You have to be fair skinned to get away with that. Just like if you were to wear like—f*cking for instance, what do dark skin girls have that you know fair skinned girls cant do… Purple lipstick? Naw, that looks stupid on all girls! Purple lipstick, guys! Like, what the f*ck…”
Where is the sense in glorifying one skin tone over another when we are all simply black? But with the continuous change in black unity there are more people in the black community shaming those who hold their skin color higher than their black brothers and sisters. Of course as a light skin person I do acknowledge my privilege over people who are dark skin, many light skin people choose not to speak up about this obvious injustice cause they benefit from it.
Although it directly benefits me from movies to fashion, I feel it is very wrong. There should be no superiority placed on people who are lighter skin, I have seen the most beautiful dark skin woman and I use to want to be dark skin as I dealt with my own insecurities. The general issue is many light skin people deny their privilege and deny colorism cause well, it doesn’t affect them. Recognizing my privilege is saying, yes I do benefit and I will try to make it easier for those who do not. I will stand up for dark skin people and speak up about the injustice. The divide has become a successful white supremacy tactic, you have black people insulting other black people based on their skin color, you have them denying them entry to clubs based on dark skin color and the popularity of skin bleaching products skyrocketing. I guess the slave master’s plan worked in the end.
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