Okay Sorors and Sisterfriends...my point was the subject started out talking about Cita being a ridiculous "ghettoized" character. All of a sudden the connection was made that, "it sure is funny how Cita just happened to be dark-skinned". Now this is a bit ridiculous. I know a lot of the darker skinned sisters seemed to get uptight about my post but you know what...alot of times when we wonder why the connection still lives on, why don't we stop and think who keeps carrying it on! I understand why it is something that is so hurtful. If you keep making the connection of skin color on everything from why you were not asked to dance or why it just happens to seem like lighter skinned Blacks like Gina as opposed to Pam got the "better" role, then I can see how you can connect that with your feelings with your childhood experiences. Gina's role was not as sadity as you make it out to be. Nor was Pam's role as "ghetto".
My opinion about Rachel has nothing to do with skin color. Unlike many of you who seem to have let skin color determine how you view things (based on the the responses on this subject), skin color or hair type (for me) has no baring. Let's just assume that Rachel was what you consider dark-skinned with a short natural style and Big Lez was light-skinned with long wavy hair (as it was put in a previous post), Rachel would still have it!
Also, there was mention in a post that said that even though Rachel was from the Caribbean, most Caribbean women don't look like her. That is another reference to color that was out of synch. I mentioned Rachel's Caribbean background in my previous post to make the connect between her background and why she was probably placed on the Caribbean music show (because of her knowledge of the subject and her interests). What did that have to do with what she looked like? That is the point that I was trying to make. There is so much reference to color when sometimes it has nothing to do with color at all!
Again, I am not saying that racism within our race does not take place. I have seen it. I have been in situations where I was asked to dance more times than another friend. But could it have been that he was intrigued with my exotic eyes or my dimples? I guess I could internalize my fear of men not talking to me because I don't have a big behind, I'm not thick or tall.
I know that being dark-skinned caused a lot of jokes in school (even now). A soror and some friends and I went to a comedy club not long ago and a comedian was talking about "Your Momma" jokes. And what made it the worse was when he not only said a "Your Momma is so black..." joke but a group of white people were in the front row! When will the separation of our people stop?
It is great to increase the self-esteem that was lost by all the heartache of being labeled as less than acceptable because of your skin color, but don't tear down members of your own race who happen to be lighter skinned to lift yourselves up. How many times have I heard that even though she was light skinned, I don't consider her pretty at all. If lighter skinned black said something like that, there would be all H_LL raised, with responses like, "Oh, so you think you are better than us?" or "our thinking has been so influenced by white America that we think that darker skin is bad".
I just feel that we touched on this subject in the Lighter/Darker Skin topic. Why was there a connection to Cita appearing in Essence? To me that lighter/darker skin subject should have stayed in the other thread.
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