Light Skin Colorism Essay

The amount of melanin in an African American woman’s skin has the power to determine her life outcomes. The color of the black woman’s skin directly and indirectly influences educational achievement, social class and familial outcomes. For example, light skinned black women are more likely to earn more income than dark skinned black women, even when they have the same qualifications (Hunter, 2002, p.188). Additionally, [include one more example].
The culprit behind these disparities in outcomes among African American females can be attribute to colorism. This offspring of racism is rampant among the African American community. As Meghan Burke defines, it is “the allocation of privilege and disadvantage according to the lightness or darkness of one’s skin” (Burton, Bonilla-Silva, Ray, Buckelew & Freeman, 2010, p.440). What makes colorism arguably the worst for women within the black community is that they must not only deal with the widespread societal preference for lighter skin tone, but also navigate a …show more content…
From a historical slavery perspective, black women were required to work and be punished just as hard as black men (Hill, 2002). After emancipation, black women also filled traditionally male roles. These images of a “black woman” have thus made blackness an unflattering thing in women. Among other connotations and terms commonly used to describe black women are “ghetto”, “militant”, “aggressive” and more recently, the “angry black woman” (Wilder, 2010, pp. 195-196; Thompson and Keith, 2001). They are intimidating to society. These examples demonstrate how superimposing Anglo centered ideals of beauty and equating blackness to masculinity steals away the womanhood from a black woman. As will be illustrated, the physical preferences for lighter skinned women extend so far as to determine the marriage prospects of a black