Pages

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Colorism, the Perspective of a so-called light skin woman.


This post is to fill in some blanks about the video above. I had more to say, but I really could not go there because I do feel people will say my feelings and invalid. Plus, I wasn't trying to make a super long video as the video is already pushing 20 minutes. Here is the thing, many of us tend to assume colorism benefits lighter persons and punishes darker ones. But the reverse is true as well. While in larger society I may be "privileged" within my group community I get ostracized. In elementary, middle and high school, there was always pressure to prove that I was authentically black because my skin served as a means of questioning that identity. In my black family, my brothers and I are the only light skin persons. My mother has been told and is said behind her back, to be stuck up because her children are light skin. I have family members who assume my siblings and I think we are "better than" them because we are lighter than them. In undergrad, because I was quiet among people I didn't know, and kept my nose in a book, I was told I was stuck up and full of myself when in actuality, I was painfully shy.  I hate that people assume my dark skin husband married me because he does not prefer dark skin women. He married me because he loves me not my skin and anyone who insists that my achievements are not really mine, but handed to me because I am light skin are insulting me. Yes, I have opportunity due to this crap, but I also work hard for all I do. I am not a 4.0 student because I am light skin. I do not have a happy marriage and intelligent five year old because I am light skin. I do not have an amazing life because I am light skin.I am not light skin, I have light skin. I have those things because I work hard to get what I want. I have repeatedly been told by women who are darker than me that they thought I was full of myself because of how I look only to decide I am a genuinely nice and caring individual once they get to know me. When I asked why they thought that, the answer always has to do with that I "looked" stuck up. Light skin and long hair looks stuck up. 
Thankfully for me, my lightness does not come directly from an ancestor who was raped producing half white children who continued to exclusively mix only with other light persons. My father is Mexican, his mother is Mexican and Chinese. If you didn't know, Mexican has been the new black for a while, so there is certainly no privilege there. But if I was, a child  of so called blue vein blood, raised in wealth, Jack and Jilled, cotillioned and status sororitized, what is there to feel so high and mighty about? Ancestors who were raped in front of their husbands who were stripped of all power and could not protect their women. So called house negros who were kept close only so perverted white men could have easy access to them while white women abused them out of jealousy and shame. The house was a prison and those in the fields who felt (not all) jealous of those in the house no longer accepted their half breed. In the long run, the foul treatment led to better opportunities as one could possibly "pass" for white alleviating the persecution reserved for blacks. Because who honestly wants to live through that if they don't have to? But it means separating yourself from your family as well. 
Let me tell you about my family. My black family thinks I think I'm too good for them. My Mexican family thinks I'm not good enough for them. To my black family my skin is light, to my Mexican family it is way too dark. 
My true family consists of my husband, son, siblings, mother and father because those are the people who love me with or without my skin. 
So please, don't tell me I don't understand, or it doesn't hurt me, or I don't suffer because my skin cost me a high price. And I don't even really care for it. 

3 comments:

  1. Enjoyed listening, watching and reading. Deep insights, if you have time pass by my blog and check out the documentary short that some young, smart and insightful women did on Shadeism.
    SamTecle.Blogspot.com very cool @SamTecle

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Ria,

    I admire your passion! I think you would like my article and videos on the subject: youtube.com/1meeshe011

    ...and my blog article

    Skin Color and Hair Texture: A Black Woman's Journey
    http://meeshe011.blogspot.com/2011/05/skin-color-and-hair-texture-black.html

    Let me know your thoughts as well!

    -Myra

    ReplyDelete