Colourism

COLOURISM.

KERIAN PREDDIE, SHADES OF NOIR.

Colourism is a form of discrimination based on skin tones, it is a divisive behaviour that’s roots can be found in the famous letters of Willie Lynch (Lynch, W. 2014) and the now inherited effects on the conscience of black men and women today. A sickness based on programming and language that often wrongfully dehumanise black women, failing to address how we as black men consciously and unconsciously perpetuate negative stereotypes.

Colour privilege, is something that some black people first encounter in the household, within our culturally ‘safe spaces’, jokes and passing comments about the darkness of someone’s skin and the overlapping size of features are deemed to be unfortunate characteristics. Which as a young child changed the way I saw other darker toned people, and how I saw myself in relation to my community.

A study was conducted by CCN called ‘Skin Colour - The Way Kids See It’. Renowned child psychologist and University of Chicago professor Margaret Beale Spencer, a leading researcher in the field of child development, was hired as a consultant by CNN. Spencer aimed to re-create the landmark Doll Test from the 1940s, which would highlight colour bias in young children.

A young black girl said; “I just don’t like the way brown looks, because brown looks really nasty for some reason, but i don’t know what reason.” Another young black girl was asked to pick who she felt was the ‘ugliest’ from five different images of different shades ranging from black to

white. When she was asked to pick the ugly child, she pointed to the darkest complexion and said “its because she is black”.

As a child I was often told, I have a “nice complexion”, a comment which always made me uncomfortable despite who it came from. This false sense of empowerment was my entry point to broader questions of selfhate. Although I realised this measurement of identification was wrong, I began to see myself as different, and notice though not ‘light skinned’, was less threatening in whites spaces and more desirable to women in and outside the black community. As a young person with no real agency, this becomes a tool, one used to navigate through a ‘system’. Often within open dialogue Colourism or Shadism as a sickness has not given men and young boys the same opportunity to open up about their pain, and the pressures it has on relationships with other men. The more widely acceptable tokenisation of black men means that deep-rooted issues of acceptance as a neodiaspora only feeds what are considered social and political slights of identity and blackness. Which makes colourism such a complex notion as the condition itself is conditioned by the prevailing culture.

Spenser’s study has identity as the most important factor for us as a people going forward. That this starts in our homes with the language we use to define ourselves and others, and this starts at a very young age. The only way to combat these multi-textured ideals of identification is to continue to have discussions, and to consistently challenge the nuances of a Eurocentric culture.