Watch: Chika Okoro’s must-see TED Talk exposes the damaging effects of colorism.
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Every once in awhile something makes me take a beat and just think about what it’s like to be a Black woman.
You’re a woman living in a world where men make more money, undermine your authority, feel entitled to your time, and take ownership of your body.
You’re a Black person living in a world set up to cater to whiteness, where law enforcement is a threat, job opportunities are unequal, and assumptions of character are made before you even say hello.
On top of all that, you’re a Black woman, both hypersexualized and desexualized (sometimes within the same conversation), expected to live up to European standards of beauty for not just men as a whole but also to Black men who lavish praise the closer you are to whiteness.
We gotta do better than this. Of course colorism has its roots in white supremacy, but why is it that some of the same people in our community who are quick to call out racial injustice and are quick to dismiss white opinions borne of archaic assumptions about race still adopt the white man’s standard of beauty and apply it to our own women?
One, women are not a status symbol and they’re not property. You aren’t a better man because you found a White Man’s Trophy to accept a ring on her finger, and the same goes for the light-skinned Black woman with long hair.
Two, White America doesn’t respect you more because your wife is closer to Europe than Sub-Saharan Africa, and you shouldn’t even care anyway. That’s where a lot of the colorism from Black men to Black women comes from. We’ve been programmed since birth that white is beautiful and good, and Black men want some of that to rub off on them by having a lite-brite or white woman on their arm. It’s not just the programming of falling prey to Eurocentric beauty standards – it’s also an attempt to increase self-worth by proxy.
Let it go. White America won’t give you a pat on the head for dogging brownskingirls. The most powerful man in the world – a biracial man at that – got to the White House with a brownskinwoman by his side who is descended from slaves, probably field slaves. No Black woman should have to feel like a D-Girl because your insecurities as a Black man in America got you chasing after the Sisterhood of the Traveling Vanessa Williamses.
