The weather is getting warmer and the sun is beginning to shine bright. With this change some people start to complain about getting darker. This light skinned dark skinned complex is something that has been bothering me for a while. Now that I am older, I am starting to notice it more often. The stereotypes that I hear the most are “light skinned isn’t in anymore” or “you’re pretty for a dark skinned girl.”
It is sad for me to say that is a problem with my own family. Out of most of the females in my family I am one of the darkest, and they definitely let me know, even my father called my “crispy critter” when I was younger.
On top of that my brother doesn’t date darker skinned females (lately he has not been into Black women at all). Every time we get into this debate I try to explain that he is going to miss out on a great woman judging by complexion.
It doesn’t seem to get to him and when we went to Chicago to visit my family, we asked my great grandmother about our family history and ethnic background. We were enlightened about the many different ethnicities in our family.
We talked about why she married our great grandfather, which so happened to be a White man. She basically said, when she was younger her parents put it in her head that she should marry a white man so that her kids would come out a lighter skin color.
She also explained that she had a cousin that was so light that she was able to go to college as a White woman. She carried on hinting around the fact that she does not like dark skinned people. I was a little offended because I was the darkest person in the room.
I understand that in the past it was an advantage to be a lighter skinned Black person but times have changed and that way of thinking (also known as Willie Lynch Syndrome) holds us back and continues to separate us.
It started with the slave owners’ methods for controlling black slaves and one of these methods was to put light skinned slaves against the dark skinned slaves and that this works because “distrust is stronger than trust and envy stronger than adulation, respect or admiration”.
To this day these methods still affect the black community.