Skin Tone Synthesis Essay

1512 Words4 Pages

Skin color is a polemical and highly evaluated physical attribute (Kim,2014) within the black community, as it influences their economic attainment (Goldsmith, Hamilton, & Darity,2006), mate selection (Hill,2002), litigation (Blair, Judd, & Chapleau, 2004). Furthermore, the skin color of African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans has exerted influences on racial socialization, black stratification patterns, and societal attitudes towards the treatment of light skinned and dark-skinned blacks within their communities. Skin tone stratification and has been historically ingrained in the black community for many generations. During the era of slavery, skin-tone stratification had a continuing impact on the black community as lighter skinned African …show more content…

“Skin tone bias is the tendency to perceive or behave toward members of a racial category based on the lightness or darkness of their skin tone. … this phenomenon also has been referred to as ‘colorism’ (Maddox & Gray,2002).” This term highlights the fact that colorism is a manifestation of a larger system of racial discrimination that has been ingrained in the black community. As it is firmly established in the omnipresent European colonial structure that places emphasis on White aesthetics such as a lighter skin tone and small features. Therefore, the blacks used White physicality as the ideal standard and this Eurocentric thinking perceives light skin and other shades of brown as being superior to dark skin. This hierarchical divide continually stimulates discord, discrimination, and cultural disconnects between Black individuals within the Black American & Caribbean community. The conception of colorism has a pejorative connotation (M. Hunter,2007) that operates both interracially and intraracially. “Intraracial colorism occurs when a member of one racial group makes a distinction based upon skin color between members of her own race. Interracial colorism …show more content…

‘Am I who I say I am?’ is a question of achieving congruence in assessing how our spiritual, cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions align with our self-definition. ‘Am I all I ought to be?’ is a question of self-actualization where one seeks to achieve the fullest expression of all one is supposed to become (Parham, White, Ajamu, 2000, p.42).

It is essential that Blacks develop a healthy racial identity to counterbalance the historical racist and discriminatory societal conditions they have endured (Sellers, Smith, Shelton, Rowley, & Chavous, 1998). Blacks who have a strong racial identity can understand the uniqueness of self and invoke racial connotation of subtle interpersonal cues within the community.
Scholars have discovered that even though skin color only influence an individual’s social, economic, and cultural characteristics it is essentially irrelevant to the political views of Blacks. In her book, “The Vanishing Black African Woman: Volume Two: A Compendium of the Global Skin-Lightening Practice author Yetunde Mercy Olumide defines skin color

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