Dark-skinned Brehs Were You Ever Really Jealous Of Lighter Skinned Brehs?

[Knuckles Red]

Jealous is the wrong word and is accusatory. But there's an interesting discussion to be had about male psyche on colourism. And truth be told most on here won't keep it real. I wanna stay on topic but i'll share the real.

All types of teasing in young years can cause insecurities. Whether it's short, dark or ugly. It's not just jokes, it feeds into the psyche of young people. In relation, to skin colour the way some kids talk is exactly how a White Supremacist would talk. "Look how black you are, i'll slap the black off you. With your nappy head! And big ass rubber lips" etc. Then at the same time lightskin dudes are more fawned over at a young age.

As time goes on - this goes away to some extent. But some animosity sometimes remains. The whole lightskin / darkskin jokes in the majority are corny and stem from insecurities. Light skin is generally preferred in the black community (let's be real) and light skin dudes still eat very well. That is masculine in itself. The way to get at them is to diminish their masculinity in other ways. Strength usually. Sometimes in other masculine ways like sports or music - which are usually dominated by darker blacks but in recent times lightskin bros have come to run.

I was never teased about my complexion but this is just how it is.

A similar thing happens in the UK between Carribbean blacks and African blacks. The Caribbean blacks ribbed on the Af blacks. Being African wasn't cool and you would get ribbed on. Again, all the negative stereotypes of Africa and Africans of white supremacists comes out the mouths of kids. "ABC - African Booty something, do you speak clicking language? AIDs" etc. for some reason we got the slave jokes. I'm African and it made a brother feel some type of way. Of course the jokes flow back "this is why we sold you for a mirror, lazy etc." but the same thing applies As time goes by being African becomes more cool and the jokes flow back even harder like the darkskin lightskin stuff. I think part of the reason Africans go so hard with the Carib jokes now is in part because of the teasing back in the day.

Thank you for being real and actually contributing to the conversation. Can't believe there are some dudes in here trying to say that colorism isn't something black dudes have to put up with. I'm really not understanding some of these answers. I'm glad you didn't have to go through getting teased about your complexion though.

 

[Ohene]

I personally never was. Cause it seemed like most of the dudes pointing out my dark skin were dudes I was getting more bytches than

 

[RTF]

I personally never was. Cause it seemed like most of the dudes pointing out my dark skin were dudes I was getting more bytches than

Really breh? In elementary school? Or did it not happen.

If the convo was about darkskin women the conversation would ironically be more genuine despite a lack of darksin women's perspective.

 

[Kuwka_Atcha_Ratcha]

Thank you for being honest and not pretending that shyt like this doesn't really happen; black dudes clowning one another because of skin complexion. Apparently there are some black people here who don't have to deal with colorism...in Amerikkka.....

Wtf is colorism

 

[Ohene]

Really breh? In elementary school? Or did it not happen.

If the convo was about darkskin women the conversation would ironically be more genuine despite a lack of darksin women's perspective.

I ain't lying man. I got a lot of chicks in elementary school. K would've in high school as well but I was very studious and didn't pay girls any mind. In college...after freshman year I ate

The reason i said MOST is because there was still this white Italian dude...one of my good friends at the time who would also point it out. And he by far got the mooooost girls in high school and elementary. I'm talking literally every girl had used to see him and drool.

Other than him...it was usually other dark dudes or a bti lighter dudes that'd point it out. And it was no beef. I didn't even know i was that dark until nikkas at school would comment lol. Going to school with mostly white dudes and a few other africans...none of them ever tried that. Didn't hear any comments til like grade 6 when I went to a school with a bit more black ppl.

 

[RTF]

Jealous is inaccurate but colourism does affect dark skin black men as much as it does other black people.
- this "never let these light skin nikkas come back in style" thing comes from insecurity. Said dark skin person ends up spending his 30's marrying a white woman, creating mxds/light skin nikkas and chasing white approval

 

[Kuwka_Atcha_Ratcha]

Usually when we talk about the light skinned/dark skinned debate its focused around black women, which is understandable. Even when black dudes are incorporated into the conversation its only in a joking manner, as evidenced by the countless dark-skinned/light skinned memes all over social media. But a question for dark skinned dudes: were you ever jealous of lighter complected black dudes? Did you ever have any type of real hatred? How common do you think this issue is with black males? Hopefully this opens up a serious dialog that usually never happens between black males.

'lightskin' really just means mixed. why would anyone be jealous of being a mixed person? a diluted black?

 

[RTF]

I ain't lying man. I got a lot of chicks in elementary school. K would've in high school as well but I was very studious and didn't pay girls any mind. In college...after freshman year I ate

The reason i said MOST is because there was still this white Italian dude...one of my good friends at the time who would also point it out. And he by far got the mooooost girls in high school and elementary. I'm talking literally every girl had used to see him and drool.

Other than him...it was usually other dark dudes or a bti lighter dudes that'd point it out. And it was no beef. I didn't even know i was that dark until nikkas at school would comment lol. Going to school with mostly white dudes and a few other africans...none of them ever tried that. Didn't hear any comments til like grade 6 when I went to a school with a bit more black ppl.

Fair enough man. But from my experience - I don't even see how woman are relevant, except as an insecurity crutch many years down the line.

When kids was going around calling brothers "blick", "charcoal", "burnt", "crispity black" the retort wasn't "but I get bytches though". This only happened in teenage years but then the tide had begun to turn anyway.

The last line is powerful. It only happens when there's a good number of black kids. If you weren't around other black kids like that, you wouldn't have heard it so I understand that. Where i'm from dark skin cats got ribbed HARD as kids. The way being dark was so intertwined with "bad", I know people carry it with them to this day (all black people).

Random - kids gotta be the biggest c00ns out. Explicit reflection of their parents and environment.

Interestingly, there's differently colourism issues with Africans but we rarely overt and tease people about it. Maybe it's because most of us are darker anyway but we don't play/tease that way

 

[Spatial Paradox]

Because it seems a little unrealistic to say that having dark skin (or any feature) and getting teased for it as a child wouldn't affect you and make you insecure. All kids are insecure thats why they tease other kids, and those kids become insecure. This is natural. I didn't know that confident children existed; ones who weren't affected by their peers teasing them. But then again, this is The Coli where everyone is 6 foot 5 and makes 5 trillion dollars a month....

To be fair, you didn't ask the bolded, and the responses probably would've been different if you did. You asked if they were jealous of light skinned brehs, which is related, but not quite the same thing.


Me personally, I didn't get shyt for being dark until I got to high school (or at least, nobody came at me directly that I remember). Most of it came from Latinos, a few of whom based on their appearance definitely had a cousin or three that were chocolate colored, so I tended to just call them out on that in response

It definitely bothered me more the few times it came from other blacks though. And it was usually girls who were a$$holes to me for no good reason


I have witnessed other dudes who caught hell for being dark though. They got hit with damn near every dark insult under the sun on a regular basis. I'd be surprised if some of them don't still harbor resentment on some level towards people who made fun of them

 

[MoonGoddess]

me and my older brother went through this when we were younger. so many fights

we were forced to be tough lil nikkas as a result. My older brother took it to the next level and became super gangsta

it's not easy being light skinned in the hood

Reminds me if these two brothers in middle school. They were Jamaican bit lite skin, one had hazel eyes and one had green eyes. They literally had to fight everyday, it was so bad that they were banned from taking the bus cause the other guys would never let them tide in peace. Every girl in that school had crushes on em, black, spanish, white. It was ridiculous, i was friends with the younger one and he told me it was like that at every school they went to.

They ended up leaving that school too. I reconnected with them in highschool and it was ran by Jamaicans so they didnt have issues like when they were younger. Bu that time they were bigger, taller and im sure used to fighting a lot anyway.
Its crazy i never even thought of it as jealousy but i dont even think the main reason they got hated on was cause they were lite skinned, these guys were freaking pretty lol. That pretty that some guys have where they're even prettier than girls.

 

[RTF]

Someone spin this thread without the "jealous" shyt. A #MidnightBoy that starts it off with a real ass story. Even the name midnightboy is something nikkas had to reclaim as a badge of honour rather than just live.

 

[Ohene]

Fair enough man. But from my experience - I don't even see how woman are relevant, except as an insecurity crutch many years down the line.

When kids was going around calling brothers "blick", "charcoal", "burnt", "crispity black" the retort wasn't "but I get bytches though". This only happened in teenage years but then the tide had begun to turn anyway.

The last line is powerful. It only happens when there's a good number of black kids. If you weren't around other black kids like that, you wouldn't have heard it so I understand that. Where i'm from dark skin cats got ribbed HARD as kids. The way being dark was so intertwined with "bad", I know people carry it with them to this day (all black people).

Random - kids gotta be the biggest c00ns out. Explicit reflection of their parents and environment.

Interestingly, there's differently colourism issues with Africans but we rarely overt and tease people about it. Maybe it's because most of us are darker anyway but we don't play/tease that way

Yup. I agree your comment about the comment you bolded

I don't know why it just never affected me. Never made me insecure when dudes would call me blackie and shyt. I rolled with that as one of my nicknames even. It's sad though because in the black community shyt is rampant.

I just never ever thought I wanted to be lighter like some of these dudes out here. Never lusted for light skin chicks > dark ones. None of that. And even as an older dude I've heard some foul shyt.

My Nigerian ex liked ligh skinned dudes for some reason ...and said she was gonna hide her future children from.the sun. Mortifying comments but....says more about her than me, who am.I to feel insecure about that? And despite my darkskinnededness she worshipped me.so fukk it.

I guess the reason is I never saw anything bad about being dark.other than being teased and that all the ppl around me growing up in my family were dark so there was never those "treat one kid or family member better than others for being light" type of shyt

 

[Crayola Coyote]

I was made fun of for being African, dark skin, but I wasn't paying attention to that. I wanted to be more "African American" (watched lots of MTV rap videos, BET and read lots of books on black folks and so on..) than African though. I was more focused on have long hair like dreads and a fro also. But I had a light skin friend with red hair that would say bunch of c00n shyt like "I don't want to stay in the sun too long or I'll look dark like him".
I'm not friends with him no more cause his gay ass would get black p*ssy thrown at him left X right n this gay nugga will say "I don't like black women.." And end up with some trailer trash EDM dusty white chick.

 

[Sonic Boom of the South]

Nah
Cause the stereotype is that light skin dudes are feminine and weak

So being dark gave me an advantage to people who go by that stereotype

 

[Prince Mongo]

@Knuckles Red what city are you from? And what are your personal experiences with colorisim? I'm from a city that's 65% black and like I said this is something that was ever remotely an issue for me. I've only heard shyt like this online, never irl