Colorism and the Black Body Image

meet your new best friend black and white unlock the power of nature with up to three times more whitening actives and sun protection for naturally whiter skin it's truly a beautiful new you new black and white start something beautiful foreign [Music] is the pretty doll which doll is the lifestyle foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] White and he have two eyes which doll is the ugly doll why is that dog ugly because he's black and can you show me the doll that is the nice doll and why is that the nice Style he's white why is she the bad child because she makes fun of everybody else's skin yeah that one which one this one why do you want that skin color because I don't know I just I'm not sure how about you why why do you want that skin color because it looks lighter than this kind because this looks a lot like that one and I just don't like the way Brown looks because the baby brown looks looks really nasty for some reason but I don't know what reason um [Music] first of all thank y'all for coming because this means a lot to me um and I think it means a lot to y'all because y'all showed up but I think we live in a time where there's a lot of judgment and like discrimination going on and not just with like outside of our race but like even within our community as far as like colorism and you know the black body image and all that stuff How can any of you like Define like what color is it mean colorism is a self-destructive system of hierarchy in a race it's the biasedness of different shades a bias between two skin tones right so it's so it's like being prejudiced towards like a skin tone favoritism to a certain colors yeah certain colored skin tone and it happens in the black community mostly but it happens in every culture all over the world but like how would you define like body image body image is how a person perceives themselves as well as how Society perceives that person or a group of people I would say that for me body image is like what someone identifies with how they see themselves but then also how societies number 12. tall and big big and short thick and skinny slim and thick [Music] the history of colorism began most exclusively with white supremacy but I think it was solidified during the Jim Crow era Minstrel shows when people were using blackface and the blackest pigment to represent all black people would you like to go to work for me yeah yeah how much you gonna pay me I hope well let's see now I'll pay you all your words no no I gotta have some money [Music] [Applause] and so they were you know being very animated and real slapstick and this is how people started to perceive all black people because this is the only representation that they saw colorism stem from um Willie Lynch so basically what he wanted to do is not have um a revolution and so he came across this idea of you know why you know let them group together to fight when I could you know make them fight and not like each other excuse my turn but you have field [ __ ] and you had house [ __ ] and the house [ __ ] are always the lighter ones and they were looked as better than than darker skin tones so the master would put them one against one another to create tension within the African-American race like if you if you remember your history books or like you can see just like how even house slaves were auctioned off women were naked and they were just place there for 250 Gotham especially in this country there's for a while there was a traveling exhibition of a black woman's dead body because she had curves that white people had never seen before yeah like um yeah she was pretty much put on display because she had a large butt yeah it was yeah people were just looking at her and like since then people have seen the black body as almost an exhibition or uh a form of domestic orientalism [Music] how coloring is portrayed today I almost want to say it's worse today than it's ever been is this pageant I think in Brazil that they have and finally a darker complected Brazilian woman won the pageant and everyone was in the Uproar about it I mean a lot of people even a dark dark and complected people were complaining like oh why did she win she's too dark she's too black she's to this my position with fashion has always been from The Styling and design aspect of it so anytime I'm at an event I'm usually there on official terms and so I remember going to an event one time and I would assume because of my color um I was asked if I can hang up somebody's coat and go grab them a drink of water and I was like [Music] going over your head like they look certain colors aren't represented when it comes to like Media or like no entertainment and so we get this one chance and y'all tripping yeah but I I also feel like we're all black so why is that something that's an issue true true and I I felt like you know outside of our culture and our community um and outside of our our race other races tried to pin us against each other and they they they use us for like the good part of us I mean even if you look in like you know other parts of like entertainment you know you get you know black you know dark-skinned actresses who are on magazine covers and what do they do they make them lighter they edit that photo you know so it's it's everywhere now foreign [Music] one of the earliest memories of colorism I had was in the seventh grade we were getting ready to do a show and tell and a Mexican boy cut off all the lights and said oh my God where is where are you I've had people date me because just because I'm light skin I remember walking into a Walgreens it was a summer day it was I was like maybe 17 16. it was hot outside I was like okay I'm gonna get something to drink and I'm with my dad so if you're walking to the back one of the co-workers who was happy to be African-American he approaches us and he goes you know I'm not accusing you of anything I know you're not he's like but they actually told me to come back here and make sure you guys wasn't still it's the stigma you know it's not necessarily like people I mean of course I think it's the lack of education you know what I'm saying because of the stigmas that like African-American people have with being a dark-skinned man comes a lot of weight that I have to carry every single day that I walk outside of my house people want to automatically think I'm angry people make me think I'm going to steal you know it's just it's just the mindset that mindset that people have my brother's actually always talking about team light skin and team dark skin and they're a lot darker than I am so every time I go over I start talking and say damn you talk you talk White You're So light-skinned I was little I don't know how little but I remember using the grocery store all these I remember that it was white ones just kept staring at me and I have a sister that's darker than you almost sitting in the dark in me and she just kept staring at me but she talked she said to Mama she's like she's to be black she's the prettiest little girl I've ever seen and she stuck with me in my childhood um for a while I was way lighter than what I was I would get bullied a lot because I was very light saying like I'm not really black I'm white I was adopted you know my family is not my real family they just took me in because my white parents didn't want me uh in this picture um I got teased a lot in this picture too because they was like oh look at the white girl wearing white and of course my hair was long and it was straightened so that didn't make it any better beautiful and it's it's crazy because you would think uh you know only dark people would feel this uh kind of we will feel this kind of treatment but I experience it because like I said I wasn't black enough or you know I was pretending to be something that I'm not and I'm proud to be black so like I would try to make my skin as dark as possible just to fit in with my own race [Music] foreign so I'm Nigerian and we're they're known for bleaching or lighting their skin via lotions and my mom used to do it all the time so one day me and my cousin are going in and she's like oh God you're so black you're so so black you're gonna stay in the house for the rest of the day like my her mom was furious at how like how much we like you're so black why are you so black right now you're gonna stay in the house and I remember like damn my mom would never say that yeah but we're there's parents who are perpetuating this Frame of Mind as far as like body language goes I feel like my mom comments on my weight gain so often mind you she not skinny but she's always like Aaliyah you need to stop eating meat because you're getting fat I'm just like okay Mom thank you but it's it's frustrating for me because it's like I can't just like get fat and be happy about it everybody has to like say something yeah like oh you're gonna wait literally just the other day uh just as his mom was like oh Leah I see you're gaining weight um look at your hips and I'm like okay and when I tried to explain to her like my anatomy And how it's not really my hips it's my thoughts she like argued with me I'm like look okay everybody has to comment on my way it's fine I understand I've been eating but you're not happy it's cool yeah the connotations for dark-skinned men are beastly robbers ghetto wretchedness aggressive dark-skinned men depicted as ape like we looked at his angry not mentally stabled we're not smart um we we don't want to work hard light-skinned men their their stigma is that they're more pretty boy more innocent and more approachable because I'm light-skinned you know they assume that I'm super emotional or you know soft or you know you're gonna get over on me I check that [ __ ] especially you know when you look at movies and TV shows you know they're doctors they're lawyers you know they're they're happy they have a happy life they're married with kids they you know they're they're just perfect you know and like dark-skinned women get this reputation of being like angry or too dominant society looks at them as unfortunately um less attractive the dark you are um the ugly you are which is not true light-skinned women have the connotations of red bone they take us as more preppy or that we should be goody two shoes or just bougie boot yeah man you can't talk you can't approach them like [Music] [Music] it's not just about black people yep what'd you say the brown paper bag tested they don't know people don't know whether you're black even in China whatever Japan like they seek to be pale old school like Asians back in the day used to carry around umbrellas [Music] Las Vegas [Music] foreign [Music] is so prevalent or the vestiges of colonialism is so prevalent every culture that was affected by white dominance during that era experiences colorism and for example Mindy Kaling when she started in the office was very dark however now she's a lot lighter or a lot of people use the argument that Beyonce lightens herself to or lightens her hair or lightens her appearance so that she can be more widely accepted by a white audience and in Asian countries people use skin lightening creams so that they can be more like the Polish women more like the European women that offer a standard of Beauty in Asia in other countries you know African-American people or dark people they use bleaching creams so to bleach their skin and to be lighter and they promote it like openly like they openly promoted you know as a country like Africa like they have Billboards like promoting like skin bleaching and bleaching creams which is like unheard of because you would think Africa like that's what you celebrate your darkness and your Blackness I have seen a clip uh-huh I think her name is Amara La Negra I think that's her name and uh young Hollywood let's say we were actually to take off some and do a record right and I'm like yo I need you to look a certain way what would a certain way look like like what what do you have in mind a little bit more Beyonce a little less Macy Gray you can see Beyonce just like this Soul Sister the same way you could see her come in a beautiful gown elegant breathtaking so I can't be elegant if I have a fro is that what you're saying [Music] yeah I guess so she needs to tone down amazing the Macy Gray and turn up her Beyonce and I was a little surprised when I got there because I was like this is pretty close to the equator so where are the dark people all I'm saying is like billboards with all like fair-skinned women like very pale and then I get to Phuket which is a island one on the island but it's like the beachy area of Thailand and even though I was still seeing advertisements of pale movie like Super pale that's where all the dark people were but they weren't on TV they weren't they weren't on the advertisements they were just still like missing from everything and I'm just like also they just don't get any kind of attention out here at all like no kind of representation not too long ago maybe a couple years back you know if you go to like Italy you know a place like Italy and and places like that Paris they love black women like the men love black women I didn't know that they love like dark-skinned black women I mean there was even a show about it I've been in the business of love for over 20 years and my team and I have been taking women struggling with finding love in the states to roam for years I want you to meet my friend Nikita this is my girlfriend Gina I love you baby you're gonna tip this boat over and wet my weave where they can let their walls down and simply be themselves the European men love black women like they love them dark too and they and they don't care about like body type they don't care if they're curvy they don't care if they're a fan they just love black women and so I thought that was like really cool because I'm like oh wow it's like totally different here in the United States but you go somewhere else like their mindset and their perception of beauty of beauty and what is beauty is totally different [Music] like I feel like just talking about it is is a big deal because before this like I've been around a bunch of different people because I know so many people and like every time like we talk we talk about some deep things and like serious things and fun things but like this never comes up never comes up nobody ever talks about it I think that in order to dismantle colorism you first have to recognize that it exists fully the only way you could ever get over something as cancerous and poisonous and painful to not only a culture but a civilization it's the first looking in the face and tell it I know you exist so you have to look in the mirror and see that you're beautiful but you also have to change your mentality the only way to dismantle any kind of stereotype is to have a conversation about it and so if you find yourself with a Prejudice or if you come into contact with somebody who's being prejudiced with you then it's worth a conversation it's worth asking why they think that and is that worth asking yourself why you think that about yourself or anybody else had a very solid bond with it with like within our community with each other then I feel like they wouldn't use that as a way to divide us or separate us if there was a very significant bond between like all of us as like as a whole like this whole world yeah that would be something that they wouldn't even use like for our demise you know what I mean we can decontextualize false perception of the black body by refusing to allow ourselves to be fetishized who whomever kills you around like tell them like they're beautiful like there's nothing wrong with them like your body is good you know like you're fine to change anything like that we have to start somewhere and I feel like that's where it needs to start because if you don't and you don't acknowledge it then they grow up and they start to figure it out on the on their own and it doesn't help them that like you know every second of a minute they were outside we're being judged on how we look uh did you see him like he was too black like oh did you see him like how he like walk I don't like that did you see how her stomach was like it's just it's too much of that like for what reason like I said broke people break out the people I think if people continue to take those steps to demand action against certain things and promote certain new new stereotypes not in the negative way but like black people are beautiful like that new idea that we are capable and creative and it's not even just black people with darker skin individually you know the more that that is perpetuated throughout Society I think the more we will push forward to that better place yeah I mean like I said it starts with like educating our kids and like not be you know afraid to like have the conversation with them because we think they're too young you know when there's an opportunity to coach and like you know I'm saying give them a lesson on certain things in life why not I think that we as a people ourselves need to recognize that each one of us exists not only with the different body type but with a different image of what we think someone's body is look it starts right here you know what I'm saying so like at least we're talking about it and showing people that like you know this is a problem and this we can do to fix it and like you know what I'm saying maybe they can relate to this because this is a uh a topic that like happens like I said but nobody talks about it because they're too like afraid or they're too embarrassed to like share their experiences you know I'm saying it's just like we all are you know I'm saying we became Brave today and we talked about it and discussed it and like we found out that like none of us are better than the other because we've all had some kind of experience that bonded us so that's where it started [Music] before I could ever appreciate the beauty of my body I had to First recognize and understand what lied deeper the shadows of my ancestors were pure in shape in here well it isn't just Beauty in the eyes of holding yeah it's Beauty in the eyes of God so every time I look in the mirror or in any reflective surface sort of like I fall in love all over again I love the deepness of my skin tone I love the curve of my lips I love the fact that my Beauties were once mocked and ridiculous and now they're the latest fashion statements from the privilege and I love to its core the fact that I've been under this blue sky for two decades and I'm still finding curves and bridges and creases on my body that I could love and appreciate even more my opinion on my complexion and my self-identity as a black man have changed as I have the more I love myself the more I love every element of my being a big part of me is my complexion is how I look the more I embrace myself the easier it is to love everybody else especially the people in my own Community not too long ago I was distracted by all of the opinions that were projected On Me by people who fell victim to an idea in a society where Blackness was less than or otherwise and the more I look inside of my own opinions and respects my own thoughts I find that I disagree with everything that has been taught to us and I agree more with the people who love themselves and love me for who I am and so as I love myself I find that there's Clarity and there's ease in celebrating my blackness but it has many different aspects about it I think that my skin color is something to be appreciated and something to be loved and I feel that way about other skin colors as well I think that really dark brown people are beautiful really light black people are beautiful and it is something to be appreciated I think that there are different types of bodies there are different types of skin tones and different types of people and these are all things ultimately we are all made in the Lord's image so who are we to decide what is the most beautiful when the Lord sees us all as beautiful as well I think that cherishing and respecting one another is something that's important appreciating the things that we see around this is important and it is best to love yourself have confidence in yourself just appreciate the things body it doesn't matter hi guys this is Kelly and I'm young I am comfortable I am in love I am comfortable with in my body image I am comfortable with who I was born to be like the skin tone that I was born in right I am comfortable with everything that just that has to do with Kelly like whatever have to do with me I love it I'm comfortable with it and I support it I can grow to love my body type because I was always been smaller always been skinnier I always had a fat metabolism so always been smaller than everybody so it was it was a thing of like damn see everybody gaining weight you know get Being Fit and everything I was always a stick so I mean just had to learn and appreciate it and appreciate that I do have five metabolism a lot of people don't so it's a blessing and a curse you always want what you don't have but I definitely appreciate my skin tone like I wouldn't trade I wouldn't want to be any other ethnicity than black yeah we go through a lot yeah we struggle and yeah we have hard times hardships and all that but we are kings and queens we we come from royalty we come from something we just gotta get back to that and it starts with our community we gotta appreciate each other more and treat each other right it's no reason to hit on the next man you need to uplift each other because I mean every other community they definitely help each other out a lot more and they invest their money into their own Community way more in the black body image it's beautiful we are Kings destined for greatness we are royalty so you should be treated like that and keep that standard don't let anybody not treat you how you're supposed to be treated

Channel: J Major Productions

Views: 15,691

Keywords: J major, music, sedville, sedgwick, sedville3, Justus, Loui Lil, Cabrini green, New Music, Trending, Hot topic, songwriter, soundcloud, pop, musica, beats', art, instamusic, musiclover, musiclife, musically, musicislife, musical, instagood, bhfyp, Colorism, The Black Body Image, Chicago Colorism, Hot

Id: wwdHjPtsw9o

Length: 30min 41sec (1841 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 09 2019