Advantages And Disadvantage Of Colorism In The Black Community

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Colorism is a tool that divides people of color and creates fighting where there should be solidarity and unity. In the black community, it's a reason to self-segregate. In sum, colorism puts dark-skinned people at a disadvantage. According to Nadra Nittle from About. News.com, people of darker complexion are more likely to be poor, have lower marriage rates, longer prison terms, and fewer job prospects.
Colorism wasn't created by the black community. Willie Lynch devised a plan that would divide that would control the slaves for 300 years and more: divide by skin tone. Dating back to slavery, slave owners gave preference to the fairer-skinned slaves, usually giving them the lighter work of working in the house while the darker-skinned slaves toiled in the fields. This discrepancy came about because the fairer skinned slaves were usually relatives. The slave masters never recognizes their slave children, but instead gave them special privileges that the dark-skinned slaves couldn't enjoy.
Even after the emancipation, the lighter complexion blacks still tried to maintain their leg up. According to racism.org, mixed raced individuals established communities in which access was based on skin tone. This is when the “brown paper bag” test came to light- to exclude people of the darker complexion. Examples like Chatham and East …show more content…
I interviewed many young people around my age at my church and a few people at school. The people who had darker-skin has way more to say than the people who had lighter-skin. The lighter-skinned people were, to a point, kind of ignorant to these things. It made sense. It's easy for those in privileged positions to dismiss issues that they seldom confront. It is very rare to hear about a dark-skinned person who has never been touched because of colorism. Many times, they were forced to confront with these things daily as they were constantly told by society that they were
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