Is that not the best quote ever? I love Ellen Degeneres. I thought I'd use it as the title for this blog entry just to add a touch of humor to it.
Now let's get to the nitty gritty. The light/dark skin issue has plagued our people since slavery times. But when will it end? Will we ever get past it? I truly hope so, but just like racism and the natural/relaxed hair issue, I think we are stuck with it.
You may ask what made me think about this. The answer is... somewhat simple. Some one on Facebook commented on a status message I'd posted about Ri Ri and C Breezy (another issue of its own). Usher and Tameka came into the conversation, I mentioned she was ugly, and immediately it became a light/dark skin issue. Apparently Halle Berry is the poster child for light skinned beauties because she always pops up in these conversations. It was immediately "so I guess if she looked like Halle Berry or Rihanna" then she'd be pretty, huh?" WHOA. Hold the fuck up. Don't put words in my mouth (or my fingertips actually).
Yes, I am a light skinned black woman. (Actually I am probably somewhere between light and medium.) But my mother, father, brother, my aunts and uncles, and most of my 1st cousins are all dark skinned. I have no hate for darker skinned black folks, nor do I have an exclusive love for only light-skinned people. I think all kinds of women are beautiful-- from the light skinned Halle and Alicia to Sanna, Gabrielle, Kelly Rowland, Alek Wek, Tweet (where the hell is she, by the way), Lauryn Hill, Kerry Washington, Angela Bassett and everyone darker, lighter and in between. Tameka Raymond, however, in my opinion, is ugly. I don't see why I have to justify the statement. People have their own preferences.
I just don't get why we as black people have to come back to the dark/light skin debate ALL the time. It is not even appropriate in many of the situations where the debate is used. When will we as a people let the shit go?
Maybe you should get some compassion for the New Year. Unpack your invisible backpack of LIGHT IS BRIGHT power.
ReplyDeleteDo you ever meet a person who grew up dirt poor but has achieved a lot and thought about how they are able to do so much despite their poor upbringing? Well, that's a time you are actually acknowledging that OTHER PEOPLE'S EXPERIENCES are DIFFERENT from yours. You yourself are conceding that their social status (and you can easily swap in race, skin color, sexual preference, ability, etc) SHOULD HAVE A HEAVY IMPACT on their experiences, so why do you get mad when a dark skin person's skin color has A HEAVY IMPACT on their experiences?
The biggest complaint among lighter women is how other dark skin women made them feel not wanted OR less than. Where would dark skin women get that from? Wow, so some grade school bullies made you feel not wanted. At least it's not the news media, televison, movies, your fellow black men and women, people of other races, cosmetic companies, clothing companies, etc. Did you ever stop to think about how you (a fair skinned woman) indirectly benefits from ALL of the things that are geared toward white women (like make up and fabric choices and colors), by being close in complexion, and that's not even consider edthat when comments are made like, "Why she wearing them bright colors on her dark complexion?" You would NEVER think about it, because it's not part of your experience. Just like if you're shaped more like a black woman or you're heavier, you'd have to do more work to find clothes that highlight YOUR assets because clothes and make-up are targeted to the MAJORITY of their buyers.
I'm not some low self esteem dark skinned woman who is jealous of attention that other women receive. Far from it, but I think your post grinds my gears because either no one in this LARGE family of dark skinned people has explained their experiences to you or you are being disingenuous about how much worth is placed on your exterior and how people with your attitude tend to fall in to the same group of people who try to negate my worth because of the color of my skin.
This is not a complaint, but a call for you to open your ears and eyes and stop being disingenuous about why you think for dark skin women it always has to be about color, or for gay people why it always has to be about the privilege of straight folk, or why women notice gender discrepancies MUCH EASIER than a man does.
I think you need to let that shit go.
Do you know what it is? You're in the majority. Let's make two groups:
ReplyDeleteGroup A: light/fair women, white people, men, able-bodied people, heterosexual people
Group B: dark women, black people, women, disabled/handicapped people, LGBT people
Everyone in Group B has been told by a corresponding person in Group A: WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE ABOUT (skin color, race, sex/gender, accessibility, gay rights) ALL THE TIME?
Seeing as how you are in two of the group B's as a BLACK WOMAN, I think you know exactly why it has to come up all the time. When you are in the minority, you happen to think about the thing you are being denied access to ALL the time, where as white men or heterosexuals don't have to think about it, and downright cannot relate to it. And what's worse, you belittle the EXPERIENCE of those in the minority, because you cannot appreciate it (at least when you're in the majority as a fair skinned woman), when you ask "why do you have to talk about it all the time?" No one is saying that you don't understand the plight of darker skin women, but you're certainly not sympathetic DESPITE the fact that you claim soooooo many people in your family are darker.