It's true. I'm a woman and have been around black women my whole life. The ones who always claim to "only prefer black men" say it out of insecurity. They're the same ones who secretly lust for your light skinned friend but will never admit it because they don't think he'll want them. This isn't true for all black women, but it's true for a lot.
You might be right about some of them, but the atmosphere right now is one where dark skinned men are in demand.
I see what you're saying, though.I had a aunt that was on that "dark chocolate only" kick.She even preferred to eat her hot dogs burnt

as some type of homage to her love for the dark skin penis
She was that far gone on that shyt.
But I remember when one of my uncles Puerto Rican homeboys took interest in her, she lost her damn mind.He was one of those pretty boy types with the long hair, but his alias was "Psycho".I guess he was a crip and had a reputation for being a hot head.She was sprung off dude something fierce.Went and tattooed his name on her titty and everything.
But maybe that was because he was so "gangsta"?I think a lot of black girls see light skinned men as soft & pretty.They don't want to be with a man who's "prettier" than they are.......So if you're a light skinned dude, you have to be extra buff.....extra gangsta....extra thugged out....extra rugged...etc etc
In order to qualify as "masculine" in the eyes of many black women.
They're not checking for the average, everyday light skinned dude like they used to back in the 80's.The world has changed.You could be a soft, faggit ass dude back in the 80's, but as long as you were light skinned, you stayed stocked with ho's.Women weren't on that super macho, ultra masculine shyt that they're on now.That gangsta shyt wasn't fully laced into the culture at that point, it was barely in the initial stages of development.
The 90's changed all that.You could be right....some black girls who talk that "dark skinned only" could fall for a light skinned dude, but he'd have to be swagged out to the max and at the height of his masculinity
Light skinned dudes have to work harder for it now.Most black women see them as "pretty" and that's a feminine connotation.They start off at a disadvantage in most cases