How Do I Fare Against The Rest? My Internal Battle With Colorism

Published on Blavity in April 2017

My little cousin wanted a Barbie for Christmas, so we scrolled online looking at life-sized dolls. I clarified as we searched that I wouldn’t get her the white dolls we were seeing, but instead a black one. She looked at me quizzically and said with conviction that she did not want a black doll. Before getting offended and launching into a discussion about how she was wrong, I asked why. I had to remind myself that she was a child and everything she said came from another place and another adult. She started telling me how she was not black and she did not know why she didn’t want a black doll. This little girl looking at me was only six years old. Her skin the color of creamed honey and mine the color of milk chocolate. At twenty-two years old I have long known the effects of colorism within the black community, but to see it in a six-year-old who loved me as much as I loved her, struck me. 

My mother from the time I was young affirmed my skin tone with affirmations, books, tv shows, and black dolls. Representation was important to her and I grew up loving my skin tone. That didn’t stop me from noticing the social disparities when I got to middle school and high school. The lighter skinned girls were automatically deemed prettier because of their fair skin. All the dark skinned boys were pining for their affections. The ranking of women changed once different ethnicities came into play. Why get a just light-skinned black girl when you could get a Dominican or Puerto Rican girl? Once I got to high school the stakes got higher, why get a Dominican or Puerto Rican girl when you can get a White girl? But no matter how the ranking shifted dark skinned black girls were always at the bottom.

I am not saying anything groundbreaking as plenty of talk shows, articles, documentaries, and movies have been made about this topic. But I noticed that colorism is mostly an internal battle I face. I think about it more than the people I surround myself with. 

Majority of my close friends are light skinned women. It just happened that way. Every time I am with them I notice the dynamics of being the “dark skinned best friend” a trope that has been apparent in all forms of black media for a while. Gina and Pam from Martin, Penny and Dijonay from Proud Family, and the list goes on. Oftentimes these friendships are portrayed as the light skinned friend being pretty and nice and the darker skinned friend being mean, ugly, and unapproachable. It's a very simplistic way to view people, but I see it happen in my life. Once in a train station a guy approached my friend and in that three minute exchange, acted as if I was invisible. In the club ignorant men will try to hit on my friends and when they decline,  try to talk to me as backup. Or will come up to me, so I can introduce them to my friend, simply using me as a tool. And God forbid I decline to be their wing woman, I then am deemed angry and bitter because they didn't want to talk to me. It's ridiculous, but it's more offensive when it comes from the very women I call friends.  I once told a friend about a conversation I had with a light skinned man about colorism, a conversation that I thought was enlightening, just to have her shut it down because it condemned her privilege as a light skinned woman.

Now, I won’t act as though I am lacking in the man department, but I am more aware of things. I have thoughts that I know my lighter skinned counterparts do not have. When I am attracted to a man, I wonder if I am stuck on the lightness of his skin and not who he is. After I pass my own test, I allow myself to interact with them. If I fail, I remind myself this is society and I need to do better. When I show a photo to someone of me and friends and they comment that my friend is pretty, I don’t doubt if my friend is pretty, but wonder if they purposely left out that I too am pretty. When a guy friend asks me to hook him up with girls and says “I want a redbone or a white girl.” I am not supposed to be offended. With guys I am the homie and homegirl, not the coveted girlfriend my lighter skinned friends get to be. Plenty of dark skinned women are in relationships but when placed in certain situations it's sometimes hard to think logically. It's a burden that is plagued into the minds of many dark-skinned black women. Even when a relationship is not working out, in the back of my head, separate from the situation I wonder, is my skin holding me back from the love I want?  A burden that is more internal than external. 

So how do I deal with it? I would love to give you a straight answer and say I am cured from these thoughts, but I am not. I work through them, I acknowledge these feelings, I talk them out with friends, and I weed out ignorant people who still hold on to these tropes. I try to not box myself in, and to look at myself every day and say that I am beautiful. I remind myself I am more than my outward appearance and that I have way more attributes to bring into people’s lives besides my beauty. And when the days are hard and I get sad that a man didn’t choose me, I remember the books and affirmations my mother gave me. She said I was beautiful, but always told me my mind was worth more.

Our minds and spirits are worth more we cannot forget that.