Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Introduction The Association of Black Psychologist (ABP) (2013) defines colorism as skin-color stratification. Colorism is described as “internalized racism” that is perceived to be a way of life for the group that it is accepted by (ABP 2013). Moreover, colorism is classified as a persistent problem within Black American. Colorism in the process of discriminatory privileges given to lighter-skinned individuals of color over their darker- skinned counterparts (Margret Hunter 2007). From a historical standpoint, colorism was a white constructed policy in order to create dissention among their slaves as to maintain order or obedience. Over the centuries, it seems that the original purpose of colorism remains. Why has this issue persisted? Blacks have been able to dismantle the barriers faced within the larger society of the United States. Yet, Blacks have failed to properly address the sins of the past within the ethnic group. As a consequence of this failure, colorism prevails. Through my research, I developed many questions: Is it right that this view remain? How does valuing an individual over another cause distribution to the mental health of the victims of colorism? More importantly, what are the solutions for colorism? Colorism, unfortunately, has had a persisted effect on the lives of Black Americans. It has become so internalized that one cannot differentiate between the view of ourselves that Black Americans adopted from slavery or a more personalized view developed from within the ethnicity. The consequences of this internalized view heightens the already exorbitant mental health concerns within the Black community, but the most unfortunate aspect of colorism is that there is contention on how the issue should be solved. ... ... middle of paper ... ...JUNE_23_2013_Dr Grills.pdf>. Cane, Clay. "J. Cole: I Might Not Be as Successful If I Had Dark Skin." BET.com. BET Networks, 22 Aug. 2013. Web. 04 Dec. 2013. . Eurweb. "KeKe Palmer On Colorism in Hollywood: 'I Used To Pray To Have Light Skin'" Black America Web RSS. Interactive One, 2 Oct. 2013. Web. 05 Dec. 2013. hollywood-i-used-to-pray-have-light-skin/>. Kennedy, Randall. "Racial Passing." Moritzlaw.osu.edu. Ohio State School of Law, 2001. Web. 5 Dec. 2013. . Williams, Chris. "Colorism:The War at Home." EBONY. Johnson Publishing Group, 20 Feb. 2013. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. the-war-at-home-405/2>.
Based on the title of the book alone, it is easy to say that racism is one of the many social issues this book will address. Unlike the normal racism of Caucasians versus African Americans, this book focuses on racism of the black elite versus African Americans, also known as colorism. Colorism is the discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically by others of the same racial group. Margo Jefferson says, “Negroland is my name for a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty” (p. 1).
Within the Black Community there are a myriad of stigmas. In Mary Mebane’s essay, “Shades of Black”, she explores her experiences with and opinions of intraracial discrimination, namely the stigmas attached to women, darker skinned women, and blacks of the working class. From her experiences Mebane asserts that the younger generation, those that flourished under and after the Civil Rights Movement, would be free from discriminating attitudes that ruled the earlier generations. Mebane’s opinion of a younger generation was based on the attitudes of many college students during the 1960’s (pars.22), a time where embracing the African culture and promoting the equality of all people were popular ideals among many young people. However, intraracial discrimination has not completely vanished. Many Blacks do not identify the subtle discriminatory undertones attached to the stigmas associated with certain types of Black people, such as poor black people, lighter/darker complexion black people, and the “stereotypical” black man/woman. For many black Americans aged eighteen to twenty-five, discrimination based on skin color, social class, and gender can be blatant.
Guess contends that conventional theoretical approaches to race fail to account for the “historical consciousness of whiteness as social norm” (650:2006). They tend to ignore whiteness and treat it as a given or a prerequisite (651:2006). This then results in an automatic social devaluation imposed on those that do not meet this norm. Guess contends that racism and colourism work on two levels. Firstly, racism by intent works on an individual level of belief and values that stem from historic events such as slavery and Jim Crowe laws (Guess 661:2006). Racism is then internalized into the framework of society, which Guess calls ‘racism of consequence’. Racism of consequence is reflected in differing educational, economic and residential opportunities between races, as well as differing health care standards (652:2006). Such structural inequalities are extremely problematic because they are so deeply internalised that many people may not even realise that they exist (Guess
The history of slavery has shaped colorism to what it is today. For example, in the article Art Exhibition Exposes Racism by Bernadette Steward there was something known as the “Paper Bag” test which was part of the start to the African American discrimination, “if your skin color was the color of the brown paper bag or lighter you were given access to certain privileges and conversely if your skin was darker than the paper bag you were denied those same privileges” (Steward 1). This test came about in the late twentieth century after slaves were “supposedly free”. This problem goes back to the early 1700’s when “a slave master from the Virgin Islands came at the invitation of some southern slave owners to teach the how to better control their slaves” (Steward 1). The slave master only cared about the stock they were gaining and told the slave owners that killing the slaves was no good for their stock and told the slave owners to turn one group against the other. In other words, make a group believe that they are superior over the other group. The slave master ended up taking African women and produced an offspring that looked incomparably different from the Africans. Because of this, there was a lighter offspring and a change of their features such as straighter hair,
Many people in the United States society believe that people of all cultures, races, and ethnicities are now on an even playing field. People with this belief support their logic with the argument that since equal rights for people of color and women have been required by law for some time now, we are all inherently as equal as claimed in the Declaration of Independence. Many believe that race is no longer an issue, a viewpoint frequently referred to as color-blindness. National polling data indicated that a majority of whites now believe discrimination against racial minorities no longer exists. (Gallagher, 96) Color-blindness allows a white person to define himself or herself as politically and racially tolerant and then proclaim their adherence to a belief system that does not see or judge individuals by the “color of their skin.” (Gallagher, 98) Many Caucasians in particular are of the opinion that because they listen to hip-hop or cheer for their favorite black, professional sports player that they are not racist. Still others believe that because they have a black president, we see black people in the commercial of products we consume, or enjoy television shows with black people that they are actually acknowledging race. In order to examine and dismantle this series of misconceptions, we will turn to the work of various scholars of social justice and privilege, including Peggy McIntosh, Patricia Hinchey and Johnathon Kozol as well as the story of Patricia J Williams. Through a careful examination of these works with the support of some key statistics, it is the goal of this paper to demonstrate the existence of a privileged and unprivileged America, despite the color-blindness many may profess to have integrated into their p...
Dating back to the beginning of times people have always been looked at different depending on the color of their skin or what your religion, race, or beliefs may be. It is in our human nature to not like people for certain things that they are. Many will argue that in this day in age we are no longer at a race war but how can you be so sure when you actually open your eyes and see reality. Rapper Kanye West once said “racism is still alive, they just be concealing it” and these words are everything but false. You must ask yourself the real question about racism and it is how could you ever cure such a thing in people’s minds? People are free to think and believe what ever they would like and old habits such as racism will never change in people.
For as long as I can remember, racial injustice has been the topic of discussion amongst the American nation. A nation commercializing itself as being free and having equality for all, however, one questions how this is true when every other day on the news we hear about the injustices and discriminations of one race over another. Eula Biss published an essay called “White Debt” which unveils her thoughts on discrimination and what she believes white Americans owe, the debt they owe, to a dark past that essentially provided what is out there today. Ta-Nehisi Coates published “Between the World and Me,” offering his perspective about “the Dream” that Americans want, the fear that he faced being black growing up and that black bodies are what
During the mid-twentieth century African Americans were at the lowermost tier of society's hierarchy. However within the black race, there was a further social division between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned African Americans. A black individual with more Caucasian features signified high status and beauty which was sought after by members of the African American community (Dibleck). In Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author uses Janie Crawford to depict how colorism affected African Americans on both sides of the skin color spectrum. By demonstrating the attitude society (mostly men) had towards skin color, the author displays the realities of being an African American in the early 1900s and the deep racial divide within the black race.
Racism within the black community is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. In the black community, African-Americans are discriminating against each other, putting those with lighter skin complexions against those whose skin is darker. In the African American community, it’s like a battle of the skin tones. This type of racism is also known as colorism, the belief that those with lighter, fairer skin are treated with a higher respect than those with darker skin, this issue has been happening for a long time within the African American community. This form of racism is more offensive, severe, and different than the common traditional racism.
“Deeply negative attitudes about skin color have seeped into our own house, advanced by grandmothers who favor the light children over the dark ones; men who pass by the pretty dark-skinned sisters in the club; and music video producers who habitually cast racially ambiguous dancers” (Essence). Harvard Medical School psychiatrist stated “of course, most of us celebrate the various shades of mocha, caramel, cinnamon, peach and chocolate that make up African-American families, but..."The unconscious prejudices we have, where we think we 're going to have a better life if we 're lighter than if we 're darker, have not
the disastrous effects that colorism and racism can have on a whole culture and how African-
The basis for such injustices being done within a race of people can mainly be associated with the subconscious racists thoughts of individuals. These are the thoughts that lay deep within the crevices of one’s mind. The thoughts that an individual is sometimes ashamed to acknowledge. The art of believing that a lighter shade of black is better is primarily a thought process that has plagued the Black community for far too long. Maintaining such beliefs is what causes the racial divisions between light-skinned and dark-skinned Blacks to persist.
Colorism is a form of discrimination based on the color of someone’s skin tone. Colorism has the greatest impact on the African American culture and community. It is sad that we have to face discrimination within our own ethnic group, Along with every other ethnic group in the United States. Colorism has been passed down generation after generation. It is dated all the way back to the slavery dates. The idea of light skin being better than dark skin has been deeply rooted in our culture. We see colorism in our everyday life on social network, in our workplace, school, and relationship. We don’t even recognize it because we are unfamiliar of the word colorism and its meaning. So we ignore the fact that people are being treated different in their own race because of the shade of their skin. People are taught colorism growing up informally and don’t realize the effect it has on our culture, because we see it as normal and we were brainwashed to think that. Colorism is an issue amongst African Americans that is slowly tearing down the culture as it has been for centuries and still is today.
Several psychological studies conclude that the mind has adapted universal reactions to colors. While these responses are subjective depending on the region, there are general responses that exist in relation to the human population as a whole. According to journalist Sarah Marinos, color psychology professor Jill Morton’s global studies have reported that when surveyed on the significance of specific colors “black was linked to bad luck and mourning” (70). Black now encompasses strong “association(s) with impurity” (Sherman and Clore 1020). Many have come to see black as a sign of moral pollution, “not because immoral things tend to be black, but because immorality” (Sherman & Clore 1020) contaminates much like dirtiness might taint a clean mind. Prejudice against the color black has established not only its negative connotation in language, but a deep resentment within America’s roots linked to its progression into a cultural identity. Though there appear to be no longer a “scientific justification for racial classification” (Banton 1111), there is an obvious “dualism in language” (Wilson 112) which links the color with its “cultural representations” (Wilson 112), i.e. Blacks, or African Americans. It has arrived to the point that the “achromatic hue[s]” (Wilson 113) has become defined “solely from the viewpoint of heritage” (Wilson 113). As
Colorism has became a huge issue in today’s society. Colorism is an issue because, it is a form of racism, it reflects back on the days of slavery, it is overall rude, and jail terms are affected.