Transcriber: Lucia Mascetti
Reviewer: Sheri Friedman I'm Black. Ever since I can remember,
this is how I describe myself. Now, describing myself as Black
was never something I did with hate. I was one of those kids
that had to think about race because when you grow up
with a white Jesus, you will have some questions
as to why he doesn't look like you. My mother was the first person to really shape my views
on race and diversity. Her explanation was simple: there are people who are Black,
White, Asian, etcetera, and although we all look different,
we're all the same. And that was that. I was in sixth grade when I found out
that I wasn't just Black - I was, in fact, brown-skinned, so in the middle
of the Black color spectrum. The term brown-skinned is a relative one. Compared to whom? No one knows because it's all made up
and varies from person to person. And yet, there's a very clear
understanding amongst most people that Drake is light-skinned
and Lupita Nyong'o is dark-skinned. I thought, "That's plausible." There are people light-skinned,
brown-skinned, dark-skinned. And in my Brooklyn middle school
full of Black people, I thought there was no divide
between said shades of Black. I mean, everyone hung out with everyone,
and everyone was generally respected, even if there was the occasional,
"Yo, you mad dark." Basically, there were other things that we, as kids, focused on
that determined our social stratification. Then I went to high school,
and I began to notice a couple of things. I realized that the world around me was a little biased towards people
with lighter skin. I realized girls with lighter skin
got more likes and comments on Instagram. And that guys I liked
only went after certain kind of girls. I also realized that darker people were not being represented in the TV shows
and movies that I was watching. And if they were, they were the ghetto
all-up-in-your-face like this, secondary character. However, the effects colorism
had on me at the time were things I thought
I could avoid and even counter by not giving it my energy
and living my life. And so I did. And for a while, it worked because I managed to convince myself -
if I can separate myself from the problem, I could avoid it. That all changed when I got to college. Because here, amongst all the college boys
and college pressures, I learned a lot about myself
and a lot more about the world around me. For the first time,
I no longer had the safety net of having people
who thought exactly like me. For the first time, the spectrum
of brown wasn't a spectrum. It was a dichotomy. You were either light-skin or dark-skin. I was considered dark skin, and people didn't see
that as a good thing. I mean, of course, no one said to me, "Amaya, you're dark-skinned,
so you're ugly." But there were plenty of microaggressions
that made it very clear. You know, the whole: "It's not that dark-skinned
girls are ugly. I just have a preference
for lighter girls." It was here that I realized
that colorism is alive and well, and people don't like to talk about it. So what is colorism anyways? Although this is not a new phenomenon - it was finally coined in 1982
by Alice Walker, who defined it as prejudicial or preferential treatment
of same-race people based solely on color. The key term here is same-race people, which makes it just a little
bit different than plain racism. It's kind of like this: if America was a tree,
and its roots were racism, colorism would be like a leaf stemming off of the branch
that's Eurocentrism. This is because since Europeans
came into contact with Africans, they believed that they
were the better race. And this whole idea that light
was better than dark - because white was better than Black - never really went away. And this is bad because this means that not only
do darker Black people have to deal with racism from white people
and people who aren't Black, they also have to deal
with harsher treatment from other Blacks because they're darker
than a brown paper bag. There are so many reasons
this phenomenon is problematic. However, for the sake of time,
I'll only share a few. Colorism creates a stereotype
about what acceptable Blackness is. It creates a model Black, if you will, and colorism pits Black people
against each other, which is what the white man wants. So understand that light-skinned people
are not to blame for colorism. They can't help the way they were born. However, light-skinned
privilege does exist because along with these views
and notions and stereotypes of what acceptable Blackness
is come negative views and notions and stereotypes of people who do not fit
into this "whitist" Black box. These stereotypes include:
being less educated, more ghetto, uglier and, overall, less proper
than their lighter-skinned counterparts. And this is seen
everywhere throughout time. It's seen in minstrel shows where white men would dress up
as a dark caricatures and look almost idiotic
to make fun of Black people. It's still seen in television today where dark characters
are used as tools by writers to contrast light characters, so that the lighter characters
seem more vulnerable and soft. For example, Penny Proud
from the Proud family and her best friend, Dijonay Jones, with their eight brothers and sisters
and a hard-to-pronounce name. Or Pam and Gina from the Fox show Martin. It's also in critically
acclaimed literature. For example, Toni Morrison's
"The Bluest Eye," where the main character,
Pecola Breedlove, was told over and over again that because she was dark,
she was not pretty. And she internalized that, and that made her
hate light-skinned people. The reason why this is so problematic is because darker people
will go to drastic lengths to become this model Black to receive the privileges
associated with it. This is why Caribbean people
bleach their skin. This is why women tell their children, "Don't go outside for too long
or you'll get too dark." And this is why some dark men,
and women, in fact, find the lightest person they can
to marry and have children with, so that their children
aren't dark like they are. This percolates the self-hatred
and pits Black people against each other. Another thing to understand - pitting Black people against each other - not a new phenomenon. It was used during slavery
from white people to divide and conquer. White people do it now
for the same reason. If you get Black people to hate each other for something so natural and biological
as the color of their skin, it's less likely
that they'll come together, which means it's less work
you need to do to stay in power. This phenomenon is shown best
in Spike Lee's movie "School Daze" where one highlight
of the movie is a musical scene where light-skinned and dark-skinned women
spew insults at each other, including: jigaboo, nappy-headed and wannabe. White people will also use this
to excuse their racist intentions or notions. By giving these model Blacks
special privileges and helping them rise to the top, they can hold these model Blacks
over the rest of the race, saying, "The system isn't the reason
you're failing. Look at these people: They're succeeding.
You're the reason you're not. These model Blacks ... are succeeding." And the craziest part is ... this isn't even a phenomenon
only seen in the Black community. Communities such as the Asian,
South Asian and Latinx communities experience the same thing. Colorism in these communities
takes many different forms. Whether it's a Chinese laundry commercial featuring a dark man
going into a washer machine to become a lighter, more Chinese person or Filipino people being told that they're at the bottom
of the Asian totem pole because they're dark. In Bollywood, there's
been an outcry in recent years because Bollywood movies
use too small of a range of skin tones to represent the entire Indian population. As a result, some people have started countermovements
to counter this harmful propaganda, such as Nandita Das and her
"Why Dark Is Beautiful" campaign. Latinx stars such as Amara La Negra
receive significant backlash over trying to break the mold
of what mainstream Latinx stars look like, including hyper-scrutinization
over her hair and skin, being accused of Blackface
and not even being considered Latina. So because this is something
that affects so many people, you'd think it's something
that more people spoke up about. And yes, there's been increased interest
in the whole colorism thing. However, the reason it's not as loud as it could be is because people
think it's natural. They've never been exposed
to anything different. It's what they grew up on. And even if you did grow up
in a household like I did where you were taught that your Black's beautiful
or your brown's beautiful and that your dark skin was great
and your hair's also great, once you walk out that door, you will feel all
of the effects of colorism. Period. So what was the point
of me telling you this? Well, I believe the famous quote goes, "The first step to recovery
is admitting that you have a problem." And yes, there are a lot
of problems out there - er, Trump. However, the reason they're being fixed
is because there are people out there who are working tirelessly
to get the public to acknowledge that there's something
that needs to be fixed. And this is one of them. I don't have one
particular solution to colorism because I'm one girl,
and I've had only one experience. However, I do want to stress something. Once America and the rest
of the world, really, recognize that colorism isn't natural, and that instead it's been instilled
in our minds for generations that lighter is better, then we as humans can start
the decolorization process. We need to kick this to the curb
and leave it in our past because do we really want
our time on Earth to look like this? Thank you. (Applause)
