Colorism...

[5fish]

Here is a topic rarely mention in societies of color...

col·or·ism:
prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.

Colorism - NCCJ

page

www.nccj.org

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When discussing Colorism it is important to be aware that Colorism is referred to as only being an issue in the black community and while it manifests there, it is more wide-spread and exists within all communities of color. Colorism is not something that white people experience.

Discrimination based on skin tone - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Discrimination based on skin or hair color, also known as colorism, or shadeism, is a form of prejudice and/or discrimination in which people who share similar ethnicity traits or perceived race are treated differently based on the social implications that come with the cultural meanings that are attached to skin color.

 

[5fish]

Here something I never knew...

Brown paper bag test - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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The Brown Paper Bag Test is a term in African-American oral history to describe a colorist discriminatory practice within the African-American community in the 20th century, in which an individual's skin tone is compared to the color of a brown paper bag. This test can be traced back to the time of slavery where slave masters kept the lighter-skinned slaves inside. The test was allegedly used to determine what privileges an individual could have; only those with a skin color that matched or was lighter than a brown paper bag were allowed admission or membership privileges. The test was believed by many to be used in the 20th century by many African-American social institutions such as sororities, fraternities, and churches.[1] The term is also used in reference to larger issues of class and social stratification and colorism within the African-American population. People were barred from having access to several public spaces and resources because of their darker complexion.[2] The test was used at the entrance to social functions wherein a brown paper bag was stuck at the door and anyone who was darker than the bag was denied entry.

 

[5fish]

It is in South Asia as well...

Colourism in South Asia - UBC Wiki

wiki.ubc.ca

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Colourism, also known as shadeism, is the discrimination of an individual based on the colour of their skin, giving preference to lighter skin tones over darker skin, and is a customary practice in South Asian societies.[1] Unlike racial or ethnic discrimination, colourism focuses on the actual physical features of an individual rather than their ethic, social, or geographic identity/affiliation, and often times exists within the same ethnic community.[2] Colourism is a process that systemically privileges light-skinned individuals in areas such as "income, education, housing, and the marriage market"[2] by associating them with positive traits such as intelligence, attractiveness, and competency, whereas dark-skinned individuals are perceived as unattractive, dirty, lazy, and ignorant. [1] Colourism in South Asia, especially in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, disproportionately effects women by establishing socialized beauty standards based on the racial superiority or whiteness.

 

[5fish]

Here is one today... Latinx community... CLICK ON THE LINK...

The limitations of 'Latinidad': How colorism haunts 'In The Heights'

Film critic Monica Castillo reflects on the glaring absence of Afro-Latino actors from the new screen adaptation of In the Heights and how colorism still affects Latino representation on screen.

www.npr.org

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On the Monday after the release of In the Heights, its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda posted not a congratulatory note but an apology. Over the weekend, the conversation around colorism and In the Heights reached a fever pitch as more viewers began to wonder why there weren't any dark-skinned Afro-Latinos in any of the leading roles to represent a place as diverse as Washington Heights

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The other deeper issue is that of colorism within U.S. Latino and Latin American culture. As part of the region's colonial legacy, light-skinned or white-passing Latinos and Latin Americans have earned a social privilege often denied to dark-skinned Afro-Latinos or indigenous people. It's why Latin American media so often only featured blond hair-blue-eyed crooners, telenovela stars or news anchors.

 

[5fish]

Colorism was an issue in early black activism... it was big need to read the article...

Colorism as Racism: Garvey, Du Bois and the Other Color Line - AAIHS

One hundred years ago this month, Marcus Mosiah Garvey and thirteen associates gathered in a Harlem basement to found the New York branch of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). When the stocky and dark-skinned Garvey arrived in the United States in 1916, he had no plans to stay...

www.aaihs.org

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With Washington dead, Garvey sought out W.E.B Du Bois at the New York office of the NAACP. Du Bois was absent, and Garvey said he was “unable to tell whether he was in a white office or that of the NAACP.” The plethora of White and light-skinned people on the NAACP’s staff, and all the light-skinned Black people in desirable positions in Black America, no doubt contributed to Garvey’s decision to remain in Harlem and establish his UNIA chapter there in 1917

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Scholars were also taking note of these light-skinned people. Two years after Garvey’s jarring visit to the NAACP’s headquarters, sociologist and eugenicist Edward Byron Reuter finished The Mulatto in the United States (1918). From his base at the University of Iowa, Reuter made a name for himself arguing that anything Black people achieved was in fact the achievement of biracial, light-skinned people. He situated biracial, light-skinned people as a sort of racial middle class, below superior Whites, above inferior “full Blacks.”

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Colorism, like all forms of racism, rationalizes color inequities with racist ideas, by claiming the inequities between dark and light-skinned people are not due to discrimination against dark-skinned people, but the inferiorities of dark skinned people.

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This brand of colorism was antithetical to Garvey’s philosophy, and Garveyites made it their mission to attack colorism and the man they believed to be one of its chief arbiters–W.E.B. Du Bois. It was only a matter of time before Garvey and Du Bois became locked in debate, as Du Bois and Washington had done a decade earlier. Ironically, though, the Washington-Du Bois debate is remembered, while this more enduring debate between Garvey and Du Bois has largely been forgotten.

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Instead of viewing light-skinned Blacks as naturally equal to dark-skinned Blacks from an antiracist standpoint, Garvey fashioned the other less acknowledged ideological side of colorism. Garvey more or less looked down on light-skinned Blacks as inferior, holding dark-skins as the standard of Blackness, as some Black power activists did fifty years ago, and as some Black activists do today.