Your skin pigment or the amount of melanin in you skin has the ability to change your whole outlook on life and determines if you will possibly have fewer or more challenges to face during your lifespan. The amount for melanin that an individual has according to society can determine if you are either the ugly duckling through societies eyes or if you are a beautiful swan. In this short paper I will be discussing the Dark Girls documentary. It is sad to know that we cohabit a nation where you are frowned upon because of the content of your skin. This documentary depicts adolescent Black/ African American girl and boys, and women talking about their melanin. Society imposed on us that to be beautiful you must be of a fairly light complexion, have a sculpted body, perfect bone structure, and have nice non-kinky hair. This image has been imbedded in our society, and resulted in those in the Black/ African American community feeling as is they are ugly, non lovable, unwanted, not smart, less than, lacking self confidence, and wishing that they can change their skin tone (by bleaching) to be accepted and to be considered beautiful. An experiment was done that asked a Black/African American girl who is smart, this children pointed to the Caucasian …show more content…
We cannot blame Caucasian individuals for making statements about our skin tone, because we those who belong to the African American/Black community has encouraged and fueled this cycle of classing skin tones to continue. The prejudice within our own community needs to stop, we need to stop tearing one another down, because of skin complexion and uplift one another. We need to stop trying to emulate the beauty with Caucasian woman and, realize the beauty that Black/African American women
In the article Skin Deep written by Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin, they discuss and look deeper into the diverse differences in skin color. Our skin color has developed over the years to be dark enough to prevent the damaging sunlight that has been harming our skin and the nutrient folate that it carries. At the same time out skin is light enough to receive vitamin D.
In the beginning they laid a solid foundation of how color played a large part in African-American history back to the days of slavery. Giving that history is critical to understanding how colorism started within the culture. Continuing on, the documentary build a story line of the impact in society to how the issue is dealt with within the family structure. They spoke to men on their views of dark women and women on their views of dark men. One of the interesting segments was the global impact of colorism. The director’s ability to show examples of colorism in the Korean and Thai culture shed an additional perspective on the
I chose this video because it raised my awareness by questioning the difference between positive role models, such as The Cosby Show, and positive images for all African-Americans. The issues discussed and comments made by the cast piqued my interest and helped change my perspective on the history of African-American representation in the media, especially in the realm of television. Color Adjustment contains more than just endless ‘talking heads’ – it has elements of fact, history, and professional opinion all blended together in an engaging format. It was extremely exciting to hear the TV producers like Hal Kanter and David Wolper talk about their own productions in retrospect. Most importantly to me, Color Adjustment changed my perspective on African-American representation in the media by challenging me to think about images...
I found this film to be a good tool for people going into the criminal justice field. I think it is important for people going into this field or already in it to understand the importance of racial biasing. The exercise in the video that was used where they changed what the juvenile was wearing was very eye opening. Trained professionals were drastically characterizing the same person differently based on their appearance. I found this to be the most powerful part of the video and gave me a better understand how important it is to not judge someone based on his or her appearance. It is defiantly not only relevant in the juvenile system. People in the adult system are also characterized on how they look. I think the exercise they used in the film for juveniles would also be helpful for people dealing with adult
Colorism in the United States is a result of the history of people being discriminated based upon one’s skin tone. For many years, the European standard of beauty has been set forth and pushed upon mainly young men and women of many backgrounds
Three papers were published between 1933 and 1940 on children’s perspective on race. Their experiments were among African-American children, ages three to seven, who attended segregated schools in Washington, D.C. versus students who attended integrated schools in New York. In the experiment, each child was presented with two dolls that were exactly the same. The only difference was the skin and hair color. One doll had brown skin with black hair and the other had white skin with blonde hair. The children were asked questions about the dolls and given directions, such
In the film “Race the Power of illusion” the actual genetics of what makes us different are attempted to be finally put on paper, only to find out that our exterior features do not correlate people together due to similarities and that those who may look completely different could actually be more similar than previously assumed, completely eradicating this idea of separate races. The documentary also goes into seeing why we socially divide ourselves by “race” and presents the direct issues that are conceived because of this racial segregation and attempt to divide
By the twentieth century, slavery had damaged black pride, and made it known that black features were inferior. When it came to black women and their hair, black women desperately wanted to match the standard of “white” beauty. Walker’s solution to this was to create a look that was Afro-American without trying to imitate whites. Walker spoke about beauty emphasizing that to be beautiful does not refer to the complexion of your skin, or the texture of your hair, but having a beautiful mind, soul, and character.
Have you ever been discriminated against simply because your skin is darker than the next person? Have you ever been told by someone that “your pretty for a dark skin girl or boy?” Have you ever been racist toward your own race? Since long before we or our parents were born, the black community has faced this problem of racism within the same race. In the black community, it is said that if a person has a lighter skin complexion, then they are superior to those with a darker skin complexion.
Skin complexion is a physical feature of an individual that cannot be changed. For example, Emma is very unsatisfied with her skin complexion and she internalizes her pain very deeply. She feels she could escape the pain she experiences at home, school, and in her neighborhood if she finds a way to lighten her skin. As a result, Emma uses products such as cream and ointment to bleach her skin in hopes of having a lighter skin complexion. However, she is unsuccessful with lightening her skin and continues to encounter negative experiences of discrimination. Skin color is different than other physical features such as hair which can be straightened, curled, or styled in a variety of ways. The reasoning behind Emma’s motives for lightening her skin is the perception and value of lighter skin in
In other words one’s characteristics inclusive of skin color, facial structure and hair texture appears to regularly inspire acts of being degraded. Moreover African Americans have the impossible task ...
In the article “Skin Deep”, authors Jablonski and Chaplin discuss the various theories that have been proposed as to why there is variation in skin color among modern humans. Using knowledge of the human anatomy along with scientific findings, both old and new, the authors have put together a comparison between each hypothesized theory. As stated in the reading, it was figured long ago that it isn't a matter of luck of which shade of color belongs to a certain population. Distribution of skin color happens due to “natural selection acting to regulate the effects of the sun's ultraviolet radiation on key nutrients crucial to reproductive success”, according to the authors.
Rodriguez, Richard. “Complexion”. Good Reasons. eds, Lester Faigley, Jack Selzer. Boston: Longman Publishers, 2001. 441-443.
The things we do in these generations are nothing compared to what women did for beauty back in the day. For example, to remove unwanted hair from the 14th through the middle of the 17th centuries, women used quicklime...aka that stuff that gangs use to dissolve bodies! It's hard to believe, but being pale has been all the rage throughout history - until this century. And women did everything they could to make their skin a lovely white shade, the things they did too make...
When we are looked around us at our people are in our neighborhood. If we are taking notice of the people those are around our town at the mall, in church and at sporting events. What do we notice actually, people with different shaded skin tones. One thing that many Wonder Friends have noticed is that people come in all sorts of various skin tone.