Dark Skin vs. Light Skin

Colorism. This has been plaguing the black community since the first light skinned person was born. Lighter skinned slaves were pit against the darker skinned slaves when they were appointed house Negros and given special privileges. It's been well documented that lighter skinned people received more opportunities than their darker skinned counter parts. If you go as far back to the 1940's, beauty pageants were comprised of very light skinned or coffee colored black girls. Basically, if you were darker than a paper bag, you weren't allowed.

This mentality has not died. Every time I see a darker skinned person with colored contacts or a ridiculous hair color, it hurts my heart. A.) these things look ridiculous. Not everyone is meant to have blond hair and blue eyes. Everyone is made different and if you're darker than me, it looks crazy. B.) people need to love themselves how they are. When you see someone making such a drastic change to themselves, you know its because they have low self esteem.

Sometimes I feel bad for darker skinned women. Black women love chocolate men. The darker and more muscular he is, the better. Women in fact. prefer these men over lighter skinned men. Women, are not so lucky. How many times have dark skinned women heard, "you're pretty for a dark skinned girl?" Probably too many to count. Very few men have a preference for dark skinned girl. I had one guy tell me that he couldn't date a girl darker than him or his skin color. Mind you, he was about 3 shades from disappearing into the night. For some reason, our men have such a disdain for dark skin. It's as if the darker you are, the nastier you are. Many of our men are gravitating towards olive skinned, dark haired, and dark eyed Latinas or ethnic women. Black women are on bottom of the totem pole.

I love darker skin tones. Mind you, I am a cinnamon color, give or take a few shades, but I grew to love darker skin when I saw a dark skinned woman in the mac store trying on make up. I loved how the colors seemed to radiate off of her skin tone. I learned to appreciate darker skin. When I was younger, I wanted to be lighter skinned like my little sister. I rarely saw darker skinned women in the media. Mind you this was the early- mid 90's but the darkest woman I saw was a coffee colored woman. I wasn't represented and I felt I would be pretty if I was a few shades lighter. I look back and realize how pretty I was and am.

The mainstream media refuses to show a variety of skin tones. There are very few dark skinned models or cover girls. Light skinned women like Rihanna, Beyonce, and Keri Hilson cover magazines while darker skinned girls are left to the black media. The situation is so bad that Vogue decided to shoot down the idea of a Vogue Africa. There is so much beauty in Africa and people need to see that. I want everyone to know they are beautiful no matter if you're ebony or ivory.