Black Christian Mind

Colorism is Thicker than Blood – Racism Within the Black Family
by Sabrina Dawkins

There is an assumption within the black community, even within the black family, that lighter skin and looser hair is superior to darker skin and more tightly coiled hair. And family members might assume that if they don’t insult you personally for your darker skin and tightly coiled hair, you shouldn’t be offended and should still regard them as family.

I was at a cafeteria-style restaurant with my mother, her sisters, her mother, and maybe a few other family members. I stood next to my light-skinned aunt, with her long, straight hair extensions. We had already eaten and were getting ready to leave when a family walked in. We were at the check-out area, and they were on the opposite side of the serving lines, at least 50 feet away. It seemed like a father and maybe three of his sons. They were dark-skinned black people, but their build was different from what we were used to. The sons were tall, slim, and with long necks. We assumed that they were Africans. I thought they looked majestic, heads held high atop their modelesque bodies and extended necks. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them as they marched into the restaurant and down that serving line toward their destination. I wouldn’t be surprised if my mouth unconsciously dropped open as I watched them, so mesmerized by their curious and royal look.

My aunt destroyed the moment, however, when after we verbalized our assumption that they were Africans, she said, “They’re ugly.” I snapped out of my gaze and whipped my neck around to look at her, standing to my right, shocked by what she said; and she had a casual look of resolute disgust on her face. It was no mistake. She didn’t regret it. She was sure of her opinion and in her 50s at the time.

The interesting thing was that they were too far away for us to see any facial features. We only saw their body type, their passing right profile blur, and their uniformly dark skin. No one challenged what she said, not even me. This happened maybe 15 years ago. She didn’t even whisper it, she said it in her normal voice. She had a dark-skinned husband and older brother who were the same color as the presumed Africans she insulted, and I become just as dark in the summer. But that didn’t matter to her. I wish I could say there was cognitive dissonance there somewhere, but there wasn’t. She was very sure of what she said and unashamed of her opinion.

How could it be that my blood relative whom I’ve seemingly known all my life and who gives me gifts said something like that? Her attachment to colorism was stronger than blood or family bonds, it seems. But she also felt comfortable saying it in the presence of her family because she took it as a given, an established fact.

My mother’s other light-skinned sister, immediately after perceiving that my dark-skinned second cousin was flirting with me, disgusted by his indifference in attempting to woo a cousin, told me that he was ugly and that I should marry a light-skinned man. She said my dark-skinned father had done well in choosing a light-skinned wife. I’m sure my brown-skinned grandmother had a hand in teaching her colorism. I remember a long time ago at a restaurant family gathering when she told the family that she married a good-looking man because she didn’t want her kids to come out looking like monkeys. My grandfather had light skin and wavy hair. But I quickly corrected her at that family gathering where my aunt, the one who had called the presumed Africans ugly, had brought her at-the-time boyfriend, an elderly, obese white man who, she whispered to us, was a millionaire. I said at that long family table as my grandmother freely vomited out her “selfless” contribution in “enhancing” the appearance of her light-skinned children that we had unfortunately inherited bad things from my grandfather’s side of the family as well: “mental illness.” That’s what the medical community calls it. As a Christian, I call it easy demon possession.

The fact that I was at the table, and I’m clearly not light-skinned, and her oldest and only dark-skinned child’s dark-skinned widow was also at the table didn’t bother her. And when she said this, her son’s widow flipped open her phone under the table to look at the clock, and my grandmother’s youngest light-skinned son nodded and said, “She was looking out for our best interest.” My grandmother would say over and over again in her creeping senility that “Halle Berry is the most beautiful black woman in the world,” each time as if she were saying it for the first time, something she probably first saw in Jet magazine, which she had a subscription to. The August 23, 1993, issue said on the cover “Halle Berry Tops Ebony Poll As The Most Beautiful Black Woman In America.” Halle Berry’s mother is white.

I don’t entirely blame my relatives for their colorism. I see them as unfortunate victims of a lie that engulfed them, gave them something to feel pride in that was not worthy of pride. If we should boast in anything, “let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth” (Jeremiah 9:24). Instead, colorism has made skin complexion and hair texture itself an accomplishment that turns even blood relatives into inferiors.

I remember Christmas holidays spent at my other grandmother’s house, as my father’s brother’s light-skinned wife volunteered information she’d read in books and studied about the Blue Vein Societies, where light-skinned people used the brown paper bag test to make sure the accepted members’ blue veins showed through their skin, which indicated more European ancestry and thus higher social value, and the fine-tooth comb test, which determined whether or not prospective members had loose enough curls or waves so that the comb could easily pass through the hair. She shared this information in front of her daughters, one light-skinned, the other dark-skinned, both with long, permed hair.

Two decades later, the light-skinned one, now wearing her natural hair as a coiled afro, told me that her hair cannot lock, that she cannot develop locs. She actually believed that she could not naturally develop dreadlocks, even though mixed people and white people can naturally develop dreadlocks. She told me this after I told her that I have to braid my hair before I go to bed and comb it after washing it in order to keep it from eventually locking, and that if she keeps her hair damp while combing, it could make detangling easier. But she quickly let me know the difference between herself and me: Her hair was unlike mine and therefore my advice was not applicable to her. You see, even though we are first cousins, both of her parents are light-skinned. She’s part of a society that I can’t gain entry into, where light-skinned girls with slightly larger African coils are unable to develop dreadlocks. Her father is the only child of my dark-skinned grandfather and light-skinned grandmother who came out light-skinned, though the three brown-skinned daughters had long hair.

Colorism is thicker than blood. Even “black” people look for erroneous but established discrimination standards to set themselves above other blacks. But their version of blackness is different from mine. Their version of blackness is a step above mine, in secret. They occupy a space in between blackness and whiteness, where they can remain not quite black and therefore identify with whites. Therefore, their blackness is not resolved blackness, it is merely a space that non-blacks, barely blacks, and confused people can maintain in order to establish superiority over at least one other group (true blacks) since whites will not accept them into the fold.

Don’t let them fool you. Colorists occupy places in your family, and from time to time they will tell you what they really think about their dark-skinned relatives, even by commenting on a nonrelative with dark skin. And when your relatives intentionally seek out light-skinned and mixed mates, hoping to lighten and Europeanize their offspring, their self-hatred along with any superiority complex in their lighter mate will rub off on their children, and those children will harbor negative opinions about people with darker skin, even within the family.

Parents teach their children that dark skin and African-textured hair is inferior in the most subtle ways: by straightening their children’s hair, sending them to be taught by mostly white teachers, and perming and straightening their own hair. Even going to family gatherings where known colorists within the family will be can traumatize a child if that child is witness to one of the colorist’s slips of the tongue in which he or she betrays a feeling of superiority over darker “uglier” blacks and yet remains unchallenged and accepted within the black family.

The one-drop rule has made a lot of people “black” who really aren’t. The rule does not benefit the black community. It was created in order to keep the white race “pure” from black “contamination.” But what of all the mixed people thrown into the black category who intrinsically feel superior to blacks because they are closer to whites, who are currently in power, and who therefore cause confusion within the black community? There I was thinking we were all black, albeit different shades, and my light-skinned aunts were calling dark-skinned true blacks ugly, a skin tone category that I also occupy. My aunts knew that dark-skinned and light-skinned blacks weren’t the same. It was I who didn’t. They were operating based on that thinly veiled law of colorism, a cancer within the black community that I didn’t want to believe had infected my own family and therefore ignored the signs for as long as I could.

And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them; and he departed. And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow. And Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous. And Aaron said unto Moses, “Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned. Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb.” And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, “Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee.”

Numbers 12:9-13

But don’t think colorism only exists in the minds of light-skinned blacks and those who intentionally breed with them. Many dark-skinned blacks who have black spouses and black children accept whites as their eternal, good parents and depend on them for food, shelter, other resources, and education. Since whites and fake white Jews hold the majority of the wealth, they associate light skin with wealth and power and therefore bow down to it and worship it. They all but ignore other blacks, who can’t give them things for free or take care of them financially. They have cozied into the role of perpetual children (or perpetual slaves), and they won’t get behind a black person or the black community unless they are offered material treats for little to no work, or the mission requires little to no struggle against white hegemony, because they don’t want to anger their good white parents, who are their main benefactors.

You become a habit to your old colorist relatives. They get used to seeing your dark face and smile. But instead of causing them to abandon their idea of superiority, your familiar face gives them a sigh of relief in that they can express their colorist views and still receive unconditional love from you, as colorism is left undisturbed and free to continue decimating the black family.

Sources

Brown Paper Bag Test. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved January 2, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Paper_Bag_Test

Cousins, L. H. (2014). Encyclopedia of Human Services and Diversity (pp. 154-156). Western Michigan University: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Uzogara, E. E., Lee, H., Abdou, C. M., & Jackson, J. S. (2014;15). A comparison of skin tone discrimination among African American men: 1995 and 2003. Psychol Men Masc., 2, 201–212. doi: 10.1037/a0033479. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4365794/