Keep It Real: Have any of you ever practiced COLORISM?

[richaveli83]

I'm not going to like a lot of folks. I have practiced colorism but not willingly. I had to catch myself with it.

 

[HARLEM AL]

There are more dark/brown skinned women married than lightskin.


Lol at colorism. That shyt is about dark skinned ugly women wanting dating affirmative action. fukk outta here bytch, find someone who likes you. Get your hustle on with the short nikkas.

 

[Thegospel]

I can also genuinely say I've never engaged in "light skinned people act like this, dark skinned people act like that" shyt publicly. It's just worthless convo to me that I never wanted a part of. Yea we've all seen the pretty light skinned chick (or handsome light skinned dude, pause) in HS who is perceived to act a certain way. But I've seen the pretty dark skinned chick (or handsome dark skinned dude, pause) act entitled too.

As a kid I remember feeling a certain way about my color, but by the time I got to HS? Or better yet in college when you really see who is running shyt? Couldn't care less. At that point it was about getting in shape, going to the gym, running, anything to look like the nikkas who were fukking all the chicks (regardless of whether the dude was light or dark). It was the in-shape dudes. Hell I'm tall but didn't really notice shorter guys struggling. A lot of football players are short, 5'10 dudes who were going to town on the hoes.

Publicly huh?

 

[Hazel Brown]

There are more dark/brown skinned women married than lightskin.


Lol at colorism. That shyt is about dark skinned ugly women wanting dating affirmative action. fukk outta here bytch, find someone who likes you. Get your hustle on with the short nikkas.

That’s a BS, go to argument that people say when we want to have a honest discussion about colourism. So many beautiful black women talked about the colourism they experienced. Kelly rowland, Coco Jones, Lupita and Shannon Thornton. Colourism is not an ugly person argument. Try again.

 

[murksiderock]

I think colorism is real but I'll repeat what I've said on this board in the past, it was grossly overestimated on the webosphere (here, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc) than it actually is within our community---->yes, we've all known colorist black people. They are a minority of black people, though...

The internet has given so many people so many avenues to talk about anything that it distorts the degree of many, many things; this is one of them...

I'm dark, have never practiced it consciously. I've dated all shades of sisters and still do. I think I have a preference for red sisters, but it isn't because I find darker sisters unattractive, because I don't. I don't think lighter skin is more attractive, I think the majority of women I found attraction to throughout my life were lighter, so I subconsciously gravitate to that, bit I think that's all it is. I've never said I wouldn't date a woman because she's darker, or said a black woman was unattractive because she's darker, and have gotten in people's asses for saying things like this...

The part that gets missed in this convo is its possible to have a "type" without being colorist, just as it's possible to have a type without being racist (I prefer black women of any shade over white women, but I've slept with white women; I've been with nonblack women who weren't white, but I'm more attracted to features more typical of black women, meaning I don't like pasty Japanese women or anything like that)...

Too many people will hear you have a type and assume you're colorist online. This isn't actually something I've seen much in real life, and I've been black for 33 years, but online if you say you have a type, you get accused of being all kinds of colorist. And it rarely works in reverse, if you have an affinity for darker skin sisters no one throws the colorist word at you, part of the trauma of this term is misapplying it to fit whatever standard you want it to, instead of what it actually means...

I'll also say that most lighter blacks date darker blacks, male and female, so there's a magnetic draw between the two that I think is natural. At the end of the day black is black and most black people know this...

Outside of dating, I've never shytted on ANYBODY, not once, for having dark skin. Not one time, for any reason. I love being black, I love black people. And I never had a complex on being black growing up, was always taught to love and protect my blackness---->I also didn't really know colorism was a thing until my 20s. I grew up around blacks of all shades, never heard or saw any open discrimination between black people towards each other...

 

[The Gentleman]

Exactly. But even she experienced colourism which shows the backwardness of it. How can someone that fine experience racism from her own race?

That was silly talk from a sucker. She probably wasn’t into him anyway. He didn’t take anything from. Y’all play that victim shyt too much.

 

[jay83]

Conversations on colorism always turn into a pointless race to the bottom between Black men and Black women. These types of conversation should focus more on the way the white power structure pushes for the standardization of white passing peoples on tv, movies, social media, politics, magazines, and other forms of media


You deal with colorism by confronting the white supremacist infrastructure behind it

The problem is colorism always is brought up in dating and nothing else. I’m curious to see how hiring practices from companies and colorism intertwine with each other.

But it always goes back to “ light skin girls get more attention than me” or something of that nature.

 

[The Gentleman]

That’s a BS, go to argument that people say when we want to have a honest discussion about colourism. So many beautiful black women talked about the colourism they experienced. Kelly rowland, Coco Jones, Lupita and Shannon Thornton. Colourism is not an ugly person argument. Try again.

Much of attraction is nothing more than perception. Not that somebody its not objectively beautiful its that somebody may not see your beauty.

The problem is you make yourself foolish by complaining about it. I don’t care if these people are the same ethnicity as you’re not. Just find someone who likes you and keep it moving. So what you didn’t get the cover of a fukking magazine.

 

[The Gentleman]

The problem is colorism always is brought up in dating and nothing else. I’m curious to see how hiring practices from companies and colorism intertwine with each other.

But it always goes back to “ light skin girls get more attention than me” or something of that nature.

You’re just bringing up a problem that won’t ever be solved in our lifetime. People who look more like the people who control society have better opportunities in the corporate world. FACTS.

 

[bordeaux]

I tend to not go for light skin women. Light skins prefer dark skins and vice versa. It is what it is

this i agree w/. i come from a black city. light skin usually attract and seek out dark skin people and vice versa. in my adult the majority of women whove approached me r short, light skinned ones. honestly a light skin couple is something ive never seen irl.

 

[HARLEM AL]

That’s a BS, go to argument that people say when we want to have a honest discussion about colourism. So many beautiful black women talked about the colourism they experienced. Kelly rowland, Coco Jones, Lupita and Shannon Thornton. Colourism is not an ugly person argument. Try again.

Get the fukk out here. We might as well have shortism and brokism while we at it. You know women should get to know them as a person instead of what their short on



Ma’am get all the way the fukk out of here.

 

[Jazzy B.]

And why do we get more defensive at the people honestly sharing their experiences with colorism than the ignorant people perpetuating this mess. A lot of black people are loud and PUBLICALLY colorist. And every time they spit that dumb shyt, I hope there are more people there to psychoanalyze and break down that self-hate until it’s as unacceptable as racists using the n-word.

Because these so called experiences are usually a bunch of

“The dark skinned black man didn’t look me so I experienced colorism” or maybe you’re just unattractive compared to other black women that particular black man has looked at. Or maybe he simply had a girlfriend or maybe he didn’t see you. But it can never be that it always has to be rooted in “colorism”

And you’re just agreeing with what I said, these women hear what some ignorant rapper, c00ning actor or white washed athlete says and then use it project that black men are colorist because they think that these higher status black men would never look at them romantically.

That’s why they wine and try and shame these same men, instead of focusing on the black men who aren’t colorist, which is the general black man. They don’t because they really want the colorist black men.

Which is why everytime they talk colorism it is ALWAYS in reference to desirability

I’ve never seen a decent looking dark skin black woman in real life with this whole “woe is me I’m darkskin, black men don’t want me and I’ve struggled”

 

[Iverson_64]

Not at all. I dated every shade and respect every shade.

Then again, I'm from Queens and we have a lot of Caribbean and West African jawns out here who tend to be on the darker side. I'd say 50% of Black women I've ever dated were non-AADOS.

 

[⠝⠕⠏⠑]

Because these so called experiences are usually a bunch of

“The dark skinned black man didn’t look me so I experienced colorism” or maybe you’re just unattractive compared to other black women that particular black man has looked at. Or maybe he simply had a girlfriend or maybe he didn’t see you. But it can never be that it always has to be rooted in “colorism”

And you’re just agreeing with what I said, these women hear what some ignorant rapper, c00ning actor or white washed athlete says and then use it project that black men are colorist because they think that these higher status black men would never look at them romantically.

That’s why they wine and try and shame these same men, instead of focusing on the black men who aren’t colorist, which is the general black man. They don’t because they really want the colorist black men.

Which is why everytime they talk colorism it is ALWAYS in reference to desirability

I’ve never seen a decent looking dark skin black woman in real life with this whole “woe is me I’m darkskin, black men don’t want me and I’ve struggled”

Nah. I don’t dismiss them b/c I’m not dark skinned but I’ve seen first hand the way some dudes will literally go out of their way to demonize and degrade a chick if she is dark. I’ve seen it in college, working in k-12, and growing up. It’s a large part of our culture just like in Latino and Indian/Asian cultures. It goes far beyond just preferences and into bullying and internalized feelings of anyone phenotypically closer to blackness being mistreated.

And it should be called out. That doesn’t mean a random dude finding beauty in our lighter sisters should be demonized.

But when you wake up and literally go out of your way to ridicule somebody with the same genetic markers as you, just cuz….and create a sub-culture around it…THEN deny it and tell the victims of it that they making shyt up or just ugly AND deny their experiences, we gotta problem.

 

[The Gentleman]

Nah. I don’t dismiss them b/c I’m not dark skinned but I’ve seen first hand the way some dudes will literally go out of their way to demonize and degrade a chick if she is dark. I’ve seen it in college, working in k-12, and growing up. It’s a large part of our culture just like in Latino and Indian/Asian cultures. It goes far beyond just preferences and into bullying and internalized feelings of anyone phenotypically closer to blackness being mistreated.

And it should be called out. That doesn’t mean a random dude finding beauty in our lighter sisters should be demonized.

But when you wake up and literally go out of your way to ridicule somebody with the same genetic markers as you, just cuz….and create a sub-culture around it…THEN deny it and tell the victims of it that they making shyt up or just ugly AND deny their experiences, we gotta problem.

It happens to males as well. Now I know women are more sensitive because they built to be that way. But I’ve seen people degraded and destroyed because they had dark complexions.

Again it’s not just the one with me I’m a dark sun woman thing.

On the other hand I’ve also seen many lighter skin or ambiguous looking Black people treated like outcast.

I have a feeling you won’t reply because you don’t want to deal with the truth.