DARK/LIGHT...SKIN COLOR.........Is this still an issue? Let's be honest Sorors & SF'

[AKA_Monet]

Dearest Greatchan:

After having my dinner practically ruined last night from some dumbassed caucasian teenage kids talking to their caucasian parents about what it means to be Black in the US and the difficulties Blacks face for most of their lives and how the past is invalidated like you have just judged us here, all I can say is bless your heart, good luck to your future and I wish the best for you!

Please post wherever you feel comfortable. I am overjoyed that you found open arms wherever you found it and are happy in your own midst. I hope you never face what I, my parents and my ancestors have suffered. But if in some unfortunate circumstance you ever do, I hope you have the wherewithal to overcome judgment of us kneegrows who are suffering in the trenches of life due to injustices.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by AKA_Monet

Dearest Greatchan:

After having my dinner practically ruined last night from some dumbassed caucasian teenage kids talking to their caucasian parents about what it means to be Black in the US and the difficulties Blacks face for most of their lives and how the past is invalidated like you have just judged us here, all I can say is bless your heart, good luck to your future and I wish the best for you!

Did you want to interject? LOL.

I wish I had the transcripts for that convo. Comic relief for the day.

[Soror Pinkacres]

Ladies I have heard that slanted compliment all my life (adult life) I was a funny looking little girl, thanks to those BIG purple glasses my mommie made me wear!!!! but that is another subject (I am currently in therapy for

Anyway it is sad that brothers actually think they are paying you a compliment when they say that! I am pretty because of who I am don't qualify my blessing!!! I have a very ignorant cousin who when her baby was born would not hold her beacuse she was of a darker hue. Her first child was of a ligher complextion. She indicated that she was not use to "a dark child". Some stuff I can not even internalize it is too painful to deal with, I just shook my head. Now the baby is 5 years old and her mother is constantly slicking her hair down, dressing her up and trying to do whatever to "make-up" for her darker complextion. I see what she is doing and it is sad. She use to do my hair and would frequently comment "you sure are a pretty Chocalate thang" My reply was always the same, "Liz you are one ignorant thang." Girl just roll with the punches life deals some interesting blows! But, this is an issue which will not go away, God loves me and is very very good to me, what people say about me means nothing!!!

[pink bunny]

I already posted on this subject on the Cita thread, but dang i hate it when Brothers say stupid stuff like that to me. Like i said in my other post, some people are trying to lighten their family tree thinking it will end thier suffering as black people, but it won't. The madness will only stop when the masses put an end to this warped mentality. But i'm beginning to think that some people don't want it to end because it benefits them. We as black women can have three children each completely different in skin color, so it would seem that all of us would want to stop this self hatred because eventually it will affect someone in our family, if not our children, theirs.

[daruler]

I just thought of something positive that I would like to share on this issue:
Freshmen year my friends and I were trying to weigh the options on which sorority to join. I hadn't been exposed to Greek life prior to this so I kind of based everything off of what my friends had to say. Two of us were light skinned, the other two dark skinned. Well my friends all seemed to think that we light two should be AKA's and the dark two should be Delta's because that is the way things are. But that spring when their new lines came out, there were more brown/dark skinned AKA's than Delta's and more light skinned Delta's than AKA's. I just remember being very relieved. I guess the point is that, no matter what people may have felt at one time about skin tone, educated people have sense enough to put all of that aside. Now we just have to sit back and wait for everyone else.

[deja]

This has truely been an exciting topic to read. One we are of one but with so many different ideas and beliefs.

No matter our hue, we are all Sorors. Now that is beautiful. Oh, yes, and big hugs to my SF's.

Deja

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TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN....MUCH IS EXPECTED.

[Steeltrap]

I decided to kick this one up in view of this news from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Applebee's settles color bias complaint

By TAMMY JOYNER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution


A former Applebee's employee who said he was harassed by his black supervisor because of his color has received a $40,000 settlement in an agreement reached between the Kansas-based restaurant chain and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The lawsuit, part of a rare but growing trend of intraracial harassment claims, was resolved through a consent decree filed with the U.S. District Court in Atlanta. In addition to paying Dwight Burch, who worked at the Applebee's in Jonesboro, the company must provide anti-discrimination training to its workers.

Burch said he was called derogatory names by the store manager because he is dark-skinned. The manager is light-skinned. Burch said he was fired when he threatened to report the store manager's behavior to Applebee's headquarters in Overland Park, Kan.

Applebee's spokesman Frank Ybarra said in a statement that the company admits no wrongdoing and settled "to clear the way for the sale of our restaurants in Atlanta to one of our franchisees."

Burch joined the suburban Atlanta restaurant in December 2000 and was fired in March 2001.

"I am grateful that the EEOC filed this lawsuit, not just for me but for other workers, too," Burch said in an EEOC statement. "No one should have to put up with mean and humiliating comments about the color of their skin on the job."

Color bias filings have risen from 413 in 1994 to 1,382 in 2002.

"It's an important case," said Robert Royal, EEOC regional attorney in Atlanta. "People don't realize color discrimination is [covered] under Title VII. It affords protection not only to African-Americans but Hispanics ... and everybody of color."

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

[Exquisite5]

I am glad that article was posted because some of us have been lead to believe that color preference was instituted by the slave master during slavery and that white America then left it alone. That simply is not true. Color preferences are used every day in corporate America. It is probably more common that name-profiling.


Just survey the scene you will find far more A.A.'s in high corporate positions of light to brown skin tones.

My mother, who is "light" by almost ALL standards, but was treated differently as a child because she was the darkest girl in her Jennings, LA native family, has openly told me she would not be where she is today (VP of a major bank/investment firm) had she been darker. My mother doesn't even consider herself light, but she is the color of Tracy Ellis Ross. Her sister is about the color of Vanessa Williams and always got the preferential treatment.

When discussing why her boss, a black male, was a Senior VP and she was not (she has an outstanding record...over a million in sales last year) she said it had to do with his sex (banking is a big boys club) and the way he looked. He is VERY fair with the requisite wavy hair. She said while the face of corporate IS changing (SLOWLY) they just still lean towards blacks who look like them.

So while our self-hatred is depressing and infuriating. Please don't be deceived, even in 2003, it is not only self-inflicted.

[iceandivy]

At least I know now that it isn't just me!!!!

I have been told that I am "pretty for a dark skinned girl."
What the heck does THAT mean?!?

My son is fair-skinned, and people assume so much about us. My boyfriend is darker than him, but lighter than me, and if we go out, people automatically ask him questions about my son (how old is he?) and direct comments to him (oh, he is so cute). And I have to push him aside to say, "4.. and thank you!" The same things happen with my lighter skinned friends. They ask or assume that his father is white (ummmmm.... naw.). We as black people should know that we come in all colors and not assume stuff like that.

Once, a white lady came up to me and said, "Oh, your son is such a pretty color." She expected me to say, "thank you." I just looked at her as if to say, "Soooooooooooo..... my color is what?"
It is a trip.

People still do care.

[iceandivy]

As far as BGLO's go, I think most stereotypes only exist in the minds of non-greeks. (AKA's are light skinned, Delta's are dark skinned, Kappa's are light skinned, Alphas are dark skinned, etc.) I can only think of a handful of campuses who still use the paper-bag test. Very few care anymore. Greeks are always in the forefront, aren't they?!?

[sphinxpoet]

Funny thing is was I was in the bookstore and I was about to pick up the color complex and I said nah I think maybe we have come a little farther since that was written (Sometimes you give people too many compliments) Well being dark skinned myself I grew up with a lot of issues about that and I had to get over that! I think our people still take that seriously until we see more darkskinned women on TV and a more broad based spectrum of people of the African descent then the whole complex will never change!

[miss priss]

Originally posted by iceandivy
At least I know now that it isn't just me!!!!

I have been told that I am "pretty for a dark skinned girl."
What the heck does THAT mean?!?

Thank-you so much for saying this...I have experienced this more than a few times and it pisses me off to no end!

When my daughter was born she was VERY light-skinned, everyone looked at me then looked at her--I sarcastically said her father was white, then they would say "oh that explains it" ;but, I would laugh and say her father was light-skinned. The killer part is they would say oh she is so cute but then turn right around and say she looks just like her daddy---even though I've been told she looks just like me but lighter....

I just completed a feminist class, and this issue was one I found very hard to explain to my white female counterparts. America is still shielded with the concept of race.
But ya know even today color is still an issue...it's so sad

[Steeltrap]

Originally posted by sphinxpoet
Funny thing is was I was in the bookstore and I was about to pick up the color complex and I said nah I think maybe we have come a little farther since that was written (Sometimes you give people too many compliments) Well being dark skinned myself I grew up with a lot of issues about that and I had to get over that! I think our people still take that seriously until we see more darkskinned women on TV and a more broad based spectrum of people of the African descent then the whole complex will never change!

Thanks for posting this. For years, I thought that the dark/light skinned issue always slammed women in a disproportionate manner, as you alluded to when you mentioned that we need to see more darker-skinned women on TV, etc.

[sphinxpoet]

Originally posted by Steeltrap
Thanks for posting this. For years, I thought that the dark/light skinned issue always slammed women in a disproportionate manner, as you alluded to when you mentioned that we need to see more darker-skinned women on TV, etc.

Soror,
I can honestly say this plays a great part in self esteem. Growing up darkskinned in America can be difficult for both men and women. Rarely do we see positive images of both sides of the fence even today. BET plays into that in their original programming!

[1savvydiva]

@ ST, this was a very interesting article! Do you think it would apply to my situation? Actually, I was very heated when I wrote that HC this morning, I have calmed down considerably. I talked to my Auntie about it and she said that maybe I shouldn't say anything. I have basically chalked it up to ignorance (on her part of course), but I still don't feel comfortable (actually it burns me a bit) that she is so incredibly uncouth. Honestly, now that I am sitting here writing this, there have been occasions where she's made little inuendos about me going to RN school and "being so proper", and that makes me uncomfortable. I guess she may be jealous because I am trying to do something with myself, but I think sometimes she just does stuff for shock value. I really need to think about this before I proceed, but I do want to report it, (at the very least, it is just inappropriate), I am just weighing who I should report it to first. The first person that I actually SHOULD report it to is the ER RN Manager, but like I said, she is their little 'mascot' so I may have to take it elsewhere.