Although the issue of colorism is often discussed within the Black community, it is seldom addressed in a way that can or will reconcile the problem. Colorism—the remnant of slavery, colonialism, and white supremacy—is a tool that divides people of color and creates infighting where there should be solidarity and unity. In many Black families, it is the reason for contention and misunderstandings. And within the Black Diaspora, it is a reason to self-segregate.

The big question that remains is: Who is responsible for reconciling the issues created by centuries of colorism that has perpetuated a set of social, financial, and economic hierarchies? In society at large, that responsibility falls upon the shoulders of Whites. However, when speaking amongst Black people—within our own families and our own communities, including those specifically between Black women—lighter-skinned Black people must shoulder that responsibility.

As a 25-year-old Black woman, I was not really confronted with colorism until I was 16 years old, when I spent a summer working as a lifeguard at the community pool.

"Oh, my god, but you have gotten so dark," my extended family exclaimed after I arrived at their home for a visit, my skin much darker than they were accustomed to.

Their preoccupation with my skin color caught me off guard. No one had ever openly made a statement about the hue of my brown. I stood confused, as my mother explained that I had been working at the pool all summer. After the discussion ended, I shrugged my shoulders and dismissed their ignorance as just that: ignorance. In my opinion, skin color wasn't important. We all were made equal. So, of course, I needed not to contemplate the matter.

When I broached the subject with older my sister, who is beautifully mocha-colored compared to my slightly lighter caramel hue, she told me: "When I was a kid, I remember all of the kids would talk about who was the prettiest and of course I'd usually be passed over in that conversation for a lighter-skinned girl."

I was born a lighter-skinned Black girl and, by extension, granted the privileges that come with it. As we often see with white people, it is easy for those in a privileged position to dismiss issues they are seldom confronted with. After all, it’s unlikely that there are too many dark-skinned Black women who would claim they haven’t been touched in some way by the realities of colorism. Oftentimes, they were forced to confront it daily—especially all throughout childhood—as society constantly told them they were not pretty or attractive based on their skin color. Women like myself, however, were not.

Her admission pained, even though I've had so many opportunities to be confronted with the reality of colorism and how it impacts the lives of women of color. After all, five of the 10 highest-paid Black actresses in Hollywood are biracial or lighter-skinned, despite biracial individuals only accounting for a marginal percentage of the Black community. The richest Black men in America are seldom paired with darker-skinned Black women and often times exclusively date non-Black women. And how many of us have watched the now infamous doll test where children were asked to choose which dolls were beautiful or ugly and stupid or smart and the negative adjectives always coincided with the darker-colored doll?

We know that colorism permeates every aspect of our society and that permeation has huge implications. For example, lighter-skinned Black women often have more access to wealth and social capital than their darker-skinned counterparts. So how, precisely, do we go forth in creating equitable friendships and relationships across these color lines?

Primarily, it is important to understand color and race to be nothing more than proxies for social class and status. We knew and understood this very well in the time of slavery where lighter-skinned Black people were socially elevated to housework, while other slaves remained in the field. This elevation meant possible access to education via their white masters—and perhaps better housing circumstances and even access to healthcare. The best known example can be found in the memoir of Frederick Douglas, who learned the alphabet after working in the home of his slave master. Phillis Wheatley became the first African-American published poet after her slave masters not only provided her access to an education, but also publishing rights with the help of their family friend Selina Hasting, Countess of Huntingdon. A closer proximity to whiteness meant social elevation and a chance to "assimilate" and find success.

There are other many well-known Black figures in history that were able to benefit from skin color privilege. Like W.E.B Dubois who attended integrated, mostly White schools all throughout his childhood in the late 1800s when most Blacks were still “separate but equal.” Even our own President Barack Obama, who is half-white, has most likely experienced benefits during his life. Indeed, access to Whiteness and white people are almost required for most notable Black figures to be "successful.”

This reality is especially detrimental to darker-skinned Black women who are not only discriminated against within their own community, but are also further discriminated against in our white-dominated society as well. And yet, whenever I talk to lighter-skinned Black women, somehow they still manage to make themselves the victims in this equation.

Some months ago, Kim Lute wrote a piece at The Huffington Post titled, “The Problem with Black Women.” In the piece, Lute—who is a lighter-skinned Black women—acknowledges the reality the divisive lines "created generations ago, remain frustratingly in place," yet offered very little to actually combat that reality. Instead, she decided to wholly avoid befriending darker-skinned Black women in favor of White women, because she found Black women to be "competitive, strident, pushy, and critical.” She also offered a very brief history of her upbringing as the token minority family in a predominantly white Denver suburb and questioned: "Is my lack of Black girlfriends due to my childhood? Or am I naively assuming my interests are exclusive to white women?"

Yes, absolutely. By its definition, cultural assimilation "is the process by which a person or a group's language and/or culture come to resemble those of another group." When a Black child is raised amongst whites, that child culturally assimilates into white culture. Lute’s story is not the first or last of its kind that I have played audience to over the past few years. A very close friend of mine, who is also lighter-skinned and was raised in a mostly white environment, still struggles to this very day to reconcile her relationship to darker-skinned Black women.

"I feel like they don't see me as Black," she expressed to me, "but it's not like I don't experience racism on a daily basis from white people.”

Bringing whites into conversations around colorism is a plain and simple derailment. Just because one experiences racism from whites does not negate the many ways the individual has not only internalized, but also benefitted from white cultural assimilation and light-skin privilege. Any attempt to obfuscate that fact merely maintains the same social hierarchies that oppress Black people as a whole.

If I and all other Black women who have benefited from colorism in any way understand this to be true and sincerely do care about Black women as a whole, we must accept the responsibility of not only being receptive to the feelings expressed by all women of color, but also begin to dig into ourselves and weed out our own internalized biases while mentally re-aligning ourselves with "Blackness." Unless the goal is to be absorbed by whiteness (and I don’t believe it is), we must empower Black women of all skin shades and colors to realize themselves in a world that constantly tries to shut us out.

The brunt of that responsibility will fall upon the shoulders of lighter-skinned Black women on a peer-to-peer level. For women like Kim Lute, that means giving her darker-skinned sisters the space to air out grievances, concerns, and ways that her behavior may be marginalizing to them. In my relationship with my sister, that means feeling her pain and confusion instead of running away from it or pretending her experiences are of no consequence. For my friend, that means understanding she comes from a place of privilege that has allowed her access to an "assimilation" that is far out of reach for many people of color.

This is only where the work begins. For there to be true social change, we must see to it that an equitable reality is created for people of color, wherein whiteness is not the only vehicle of social elevation or success. We must begin to believe that all of our Blacks are beautiful, and thus, create the spaces—in our lives, homes, and communities—that reflect that.

Tiffanie Drayton is a freelance writer focused on social justice issues. Follow her on Twitter @draytontiffanie.

by Tracey Michae’l

Every day last week, it was something. Before I could wipe the crust out my eyes good and let my feet hit the floor in the morning, news and social media smacked me in the face with another appalling event that would trigger my heart to racing and mind to spinning. First, there was the ridiculousness of Rachel Dolezal, then another brutal police attack on a 12-year-old girl in Ohio, and the so-called "ethnic cleansing" in the Dominican Republic, and finally the heart-wrenching massacre of nine members of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. This rollercoaster we’ve been on as Black people lately (lately, as in at least the last 400 years, but I digress) has been more than exhausting. It’s been soul-sucking. Not only is self-care a must for those who are actively working in the movement against injustice, all of us must take time to speak life and love and uplifting words to ourselves and each other, even as we soberly navigate these emotional and psychological land mines.

by Veronica Agard

Within the past 48 hours, over 100,000 people were made stateless by the Dominican Republic’s government. Their offense for deportation? They and their ancestors migrated across the mountain border from Haiti into the Dominican Republic for a better life.

by Bee Quammie

It was the first day of fourth grade and I was the new kid. With my shoes shined and my hair tied with pink bobbles, I walked in proudly, ready to learn. As I eagerly sat with my fellow classmates, my teacher started reading the roll call. Breezing through Rita Anderson, Matilda Brady, and Jameson Connelly, she checked names off her list with gusto.

First, A Question:
I have a question for everyone who embraces Afro-centrism- an honest question. How many of y’all would learn Wolof or Igbo? (FYI I learned some Xhosa for my Senior Thesis) To my dear Afro-centrists: How many of you are willing to go beyond talking and start doing? Make Africa great. Do it. Africa is not some abstract concept to be mythologized and theorized. It is a continent w/ 53 countries, 2000+ languages (countless dialects and creoles), great histories.

Afrocentrism is ethnocentrism.

Afrocentrism is ethnocentrism. In principle, it does not differ from eurocentrism. Chauvinism predicated on the notion of particularity. It seals off the variegated cultures of the African diaspora and fails to understand the connectedness and hybridity of humanity. If you expect everyone to know the names of every Black scholar and warrior who ever lived, why don’t you make the effort to know the names of Asian/Hispanic/Middle Eastern/Pacific Islander/Indigenous American warriors and thinkers? Yes, there are Africans on every continent except Antarctica- and at one time, where was one there. I strongly reject ethnocentrism, as it lends itself to myopic thinking and belly-button gazing. (Yeah, I said it) To be frank, most of the “afrocentric” folk I have met were African-Americans completely divorced from Africa as it is. Some think that a dashiki is a West African fashion (not) and think that Egyptians had afros (afros are South African in origin)

Afrocentrism: “a mythology that is racist, reactionary, essentially therapeutic and is eurocentrism in black face.”

That’s a quote from UC Davis African-American studies professor Clarence E. Walker. I’m inclined to agree w/ it except for the “racist” part. I tend to accept the definition of racism as power + prejudice. Persons of color on the receiving end of oppression are capable of internalizing racism and projecting those biases or prejudices on other members of their group. I would edit that to say that afrocentrism is prejudiced.

I encourage a global, internationalist way of looking at world history.
The world does not revolve around Africa, Europe, Asia or N. America. How can you claim to have a full-bodied knowledge if you can’t even name a single Asian/Hispanic/Middle Eastern scholar? Yes, Africa has a rich history of empires and trade that precedes European and Arabic conquest, enslavement and colonialism. Yes, Africa is the next frontier of neoliberalism and globalization; As African nations’ national interests are privatized and restructured we will see greater Asian, Eurasian and South American investment on thte continent of Africa. In fact, India just signed a deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to extend a $42 million credit line for building a hydroelectric plant. China and Rio Tinto just closed a mining deal in Guinea (West Africa) last week. Last week’s Forum for Africa’s Young Leaders at the White House is further evidence of the increasing importance of Africa. No, Africa is not the land of myth that some people talk about. Africa as a site of diasporic Blacks’ imaginings has never sat well w/ me. Many Afro-centric thinkers borrowed Western forms- patriarchy, chauvinism, Western notions of nationalism and imposed them on Africa.

How can borrowed forms be emancipatory?
I ask this honestly. At some point, the chauvinism and ethnocentrism translates into a belief that being Black is superior to being anything else. Really? My thinking is that we are all humans. No one is better or worse. Why foster division in the guise of “empowerment?” If your “empowerment” is predicated on the denigration of “others” it is not empowerment at all. Consider that afrocentrism can be “eurocentrism in blackface.” Just think on it. If you’re offended, there’s some truth to it. Audre Lorde said: “The Master’s Tools Can Never Dismantle the Master’s House.”

Afrocentrism just borrows the massa’s tools and builds the same house, instead of painting it white, it paints it black.

By no means am I a self-hating Black woman when I say these things. I am a student of history who recognizes the vastness of humanity. I don’t need my beauty to be affirmed particularly. Everytime I look in the mirror, my beauty is affirmed. I don’t need my “blackness” to be affirmed by those who share my skin color. Blackness is a constructed identity contingent on experience. Race is also a construct. These “afrocentrists” who embrace the contrived construct of “race” and emphasize difference change nothing.

I will ask again: “Can borrowed forms of thought be emancipatory?” My answer is NO.
So when some afrocentrists swap out the “euro” for the “afro” they change nothing. There is no innovation or creativity. I explore the question of whether borrowed forms of thought can be emancipatory in a post entitled The Problematic and Thematic of Nationalism in the Post-Colonial Context: Possibilities, Limitations and Emancipation.

Furthermore, nationality is understood as an imported European idea. Elie Kedourie points to the great dilemma of Eastern (non-European) nationalism, the paradox of appropriating alien ideas to facilitate a rejection of that same “alien intruder and dominator.” Kedourie termed it as confining oneself within the paradigms of “European intellectual fashions,” while simultaneous attempting to move beyond the dominant discourse of colonialism, which is, in this case, a European one. The appropriation of nationalism is to “accept the claim to universality of this ‘modern’ framework of knowledge. It thus simultaneously rejects and accepts the dominance, both epistemic and moral, of an alien culture.” It is important to acknowledge that both the discourse of colonialism and post-colonialism occupied the same epistemic space. The existence of one did not preclude the existence of the other- they were not mutually exclusive. However, this space they share is the same space where discursive elements attempt to maintain or change the “relations of power within the society under colonial domination.”

See also: The Dilemma of Nationalism: Another Excerpt from My Thesis

What’s Your Point, Arri?

You may ask “What sparked this?” These ideas and thoughts germinated over the last four years. As a Black student at the University of California, Berkeley, where Black students were 1.3% of the student population, I had a modicum of interest in joining Black student organizations like the Divine 9 fraternities and sororities, the Black Recruitment and Retention Center and the National Congress of Negro Women, but none of these organizations offered the diversity and opportunity I was looking for. Having grown up in a multi-kulti area, being socialized in social circles where 5-6 languages were spoken, I am not familiar w/ the monolingual, monocultural understandings of Blackness that I encounter from American-born Blacks. In fact, when I chose to study French and German, I was ridiculed by my black peers- who gave nary a thought to Afro-Germans or North Africans, or even African-descended French and Belgian citizens. If you’re going to make the point that French and German are the languages of the “oppressor” and the “colonizer” you have to understand that the language you are speaking now- English- is also the language of the oppressor. Who do you think colonized Nigeria? Yes, the British.

The final straw was yesterday when I was accosted by someone on Twitter who identifies strongly as an afrocentrist. She accused me of hating Black men because of my past choices to date interracially. Certainly my rejection of the singular and essentialist concept of “Black Love” does not mean that I hate “Black Love.” Also, my choice to join a majority-White sorority was used to question my “blackness.” Then she went on to accuse me of loving the colonialist powers because of my affinity for Indo-European and Romantic languages. Of course, she didn’t put it that elegantly. Resorting to ad hominem, she called me a “simpleton” ”coconut” and a “Sister SoldjaOut.” Lumping me w/ Bryant Gumbel and Carlton (from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) she accused me of “trying to make other Black people assimilate.”

Now, if you’ve read this blog at all, I do not advocate assimilation. I advocate acculturation, mastery of languages, ability to code-switch depending on social situations and settings. Assimilation isn’t as simple as adjusting your language to your settings. Assimilation is adherence to essentialist ideas of what is “acceptable.” Paradoxically, this is exactly what Ms. Afrocentric does. She polices my “blackness” and expects me to relate to her because we share a skin color. I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. Identity is much more complex than one’s racialised phenotype or ascribed race.

ORIGINALLY POSTED HERE