Colorism l Khadija Mbowe

this is absurd let me just open this mouth part and we can just chat just try not to look at me directly in the face okay this is horrific [Music] self-care Sunday hello and welcome back to my channel where I give unsolicited advice education and all the tomfoolery you need to get you through the week and this is the first-ever edition of self care Sunday I'm hoping to do this series every single week or every other week depending on the amount of research that I have to do but this first one is gonna be about colorism so allow me to take you through my skincare routine while we tackle this subject hopefully you'll learn a little bit whether it's a balding skincare or colorism we're both delicious duo according to merriam-webster colorism is defined as prejudice or discrimination especially within a racial or ethnic group favoring people with lighter skin over those with darker skin the origins of colorism in the United States date back to the antebellum south well technically Virginia since that's where the first African slaves I mean indentured servants were brought to in 1619 okay so before 1650 Africans were treated as indentured servants which means they typically work for four to seven years in exchange for passage room board lodging and freedom news once their servitude ended they were given at least twenty-five acres of land a year supply of corn arms a cow and new clothes get in loser we're going shopping my how all that would change well slavery took off like gangbusters at the height of the transatlantic slave trade in the 18th century about six million Africans were forced to make the journey across the Atlantic ships carried anywhere from 250 to 600 slaves without even the [ __ ] know what how do we get here we are gonna talk about slavery right now that's a video for another day for now let's stick to colorism during slavery white slave owners and great they're black slaves and the production of this assault would be lighter skinned children as the complexions of slaves begin to change so did the treatment of them lighter skinned slaves were given preferential treatment because they were often related to the slave owners while dark-skinned slaves worked outdoors in the fields light-skinned slaves were mostly tasked with working indoors doing the domestic work like sewing mending clothes taking care of children and cooking a British writer named James Charles what a British writer named James Stirling visited the American South in 1857 and had this to say about southern plantations in judging the welfare of slaves it is necessary to distinguish the different conditions of slavery the house servant is comparatively well-off he is frequently born and bred in the family he belongs to and even when this is not the case the constant association of the slave and his master and masters family naturally leads to such an attachment as ensures good treatment the position of the field hands is very different of those especially who labor on large plantations here there are none of those humanizing influences at work which tamper the rigor of the system nor is there the same check of public opinion to control abuse the force is worked on mass as a great human mechanism or if you will as a drove of human cattle I want to make it clear that slavery was steel slavery just because light-skinned people were some streeted better doesn't mean that they weren't still seeing his black in places like Louisiana slave-owners recognizer makes children but it was against the laws for slaves to be entitled to money or property so many of these children weren't allowed to inherit anything from their white fathers also after the Civil War mixed people were subjected to the one-drop rule this meant that no matter how light your skin was if you had a drop of black on you know oh I know it's terribly me must be but you don't know what it is to look like be black after emancipation colorism was perpetuated by black folk we divided ourselves further and created social classes based on skin tone social clubs like the blue vein society was created for people whose skin was lighten up under their arms so you could see their veins the paper bag test was used in the black spaces for hiring and education and just to further divide ourselves and create a hierarchy within the black race basically if you couldn't see the veins in your arms or [Music] now I've talked about colorism as it relates to the United States but what about the rest of the world y'all colorism is a global phenomenon in fact Asia has the largest markets of lightening creams in the world hey I'll edit in khadija here I forgot to add that for colorism as a global phenomenon it was actually more tied to a class structure because the darker your skin was it meant that you were actually laboring out in fields or just working outside basically and if your skin was lighter and when did you have the privilege and the means to be indoors and that's a very brief general thing again all of my works cited information will be linked below so you can go check out these sources yourself okay back to the essay I can't tell you the number of commercials I've seen or someone of a darker skin complexion or who's just basically black we'll go into like I don't know a washing machine or something and come up you know what it's better if I just show you [Music] that was something that got past a director and all the actors on set and the PAS in a marketing team and a network and then made it television research conducted by matrimonial website found that in three northern states in India skin tone was the most important criteria when it came to selecting a partner in India colorism is so prevalent one journalist dubbed it as snow-white syndrome but this syndrome is not just rampant in India or even Asia as a whole for that matter take a look at Mexico there's a noticeable absence of dark-skinned people in telenovelas and commercials and other forms of advertisement a study that examined the content of six spanish-language telenovelas and a drama on three spanish-language television networks in the United States found that lighter skinned characters are more likely to play major roles they were more fit younger and more likely to be upper-class than their dark-skinned counterparts there's actually a really great channel called we are module and the video that I'm showing you right now is from that and it's actually about why telenovelas are so white so I would highly recommend you check it out because it gave me a lot of information on this topic and helped me with this essay I'll link it below it's also found in Brazil where the racial classification schemes used to define a person are based on the slightest variation of physical characteristics if your features are closely associated with black ancestry and/or white ancestry determines if you're elevated or devoted when it comes to the racial ladder in that country in Latin America marrying someone of a lighter skin color is sometimes referred to as donal Arase or improving the race I'm so sorry about my pronunciation I was I was using Google I was using it trust me this idea is one that falls under the theory of Blanca menthol the basic premise is that it's a social political and economic practice used to improve the race towards whiteness again racism and anti-black sentiments or global my face this is freezing I'm gonna take off this mask now get into the next one we're gonna talk about how this is related in my life so growing up I was always teased about my skin complexion I am tambien my family's from West Africa for my parents move from Norway and then America when I before all my plants are dying y'all damn my family is from Gambia and moved to Norway and then America before I was born so I was born in New York and raised in Georgia and growing up in predominantly black spaces when I was really young I was teased mercilessly about how dark my skin was even when I was a baby my mom told me that she was getting off the bus with me and someone was like damn that baby is black and like that's so unnecessary like I was a baby like girl worried about something else like don't worry about how black that was child is worried about something else worry about yourself but yeah it really took a hit to my confidence to be honest especially like and it's something that I still deal with today I'm better about taking compliments now but I'm still kind of weird about it just because I was just yeah I was bullied mercilessly I think people would call me charcoal asphalt like people would chant charcoal in the neighborhood at me so that was fine people call me midnight or say that I was blacker than midnight that I was three am black he would always black and white can only see your teeth in your eyes in this photo get that way or you know white people be like oh tanning seasons coming up I'm almost dark as you haha I remember I would get me fun of mostly especially by black guys like black boys of black men and stuff and so there was one time at this home this happened even just a few years ago at one of the restaurants that I worked at a couple of the kitchen staff were black like the head chef was a black dude and he was talking with another one of his co-workers and I guess I got brought from the conversation he was like I just don't understand how you don't find her attractive Ricardo and this other dude was just like I don't know she's dark-skinned it probably means her Thanks just like like I was pissed when I heard it but I wasn't shocked because this dude was maybe a few shades lighter than me but I was also just like sir sir I need you to take a mirror and hold it to your face to understand that you were also dark-skinned you know it just like people will say ignorant [ __ ] like that all the time and some people might hear that and be like ah and at the moment I was like but honestly it doesn't surprise me I've gotten stuff like that my whole life people will do anything to put you down find any reason to make themselves seem better than you and because I am a dark skinned black woman a just shitty Lea enough comes with the territory which it shouldn't so um yeah it was rough I was very insecure growing up I was very awkward I'm still hot I'm sorry see why why was that necessary like that was unnecessary but as I was growing up and trying to gain more confidence in myself and taking over out of my looks and just things like that I remember realizing that it was everywhere I went like I couldn't until Fenty Beauty came out I couldn't find makeup for myself you know I used to shop at Mac and then they discontinued my shade at least in Canada they did they discontinued my shade in there matchmaster Foundation and so I think it was about four or so years ago I just stopped wearing foundation because I was like there's no foundation out there for me and that seems like a very like fickle thing to be picky about but I'm gonna say it I've said it before and I'll say it again representation matters it's very important and people don't realize how lucky they have it when they see people that look like them everywhere they turn you know it's only been in the last few years I would honestly say even in the last three or four that I've seen more representation of dark-skinned women making it in the media being praised as being beautiful like when Lupita was crowd people's most beautiful person I honestly cried when I saw that because I just never seen someone with a deep skin tone like that and short hair just being praised for how beautiful she was and there's a difference between praising and exotic izing and fetishizing and we'll get to that in a minute but yeah it was it was a rough go for me and sometimes still is and we're talking about dating to like here's this is a video essay for many things but I just wanted to put in a little bit about my own experience of colorism because I think it's important for you to understand that I'm not just reading statistics and facts and and all this research that I've done off the internet which was a lot but I'm also someone who's lived this experience and can speak to my lived experience of it I will say though when I went to Gambia when I was 16 as a teenager it really changed a lot for me because there was so much like people would just like praise the darkness of my skin because when you're there it's not that you're black because there aren't so many white people there you're just a person but people were just like oh oh say noon I have a nice it's not like your new lies not just your skin it's the blackness of your skin like they have a word for it is how its how important it is but yeah so that kind of changed a lot of things for me it was really great for me but I think growing up as well I just struggled with my skin challenging and you might wonder well did you ever consider bleaching your skin Lonnie's story speaking of skin bleach okay it took me like a full minute and 30 seconds to get this part of the mask on usually they don't break apart like this but this one does not like me so I'm gonna just look it up for a little bit and y'all were just gonna get into it this is absurd let me just open this mouth part and we can just chat just try not to look at me directly in the face okay this is horrific so as I was saying before I can't I can't I can't do this like this is not this is not the way but this looks like my skin but like my skin is falling off okay so this is kind of terrifying but I need y'all to just focus and we'll get through this I will insert more clips then it will have my face like this and you don't have to look at it too much sound good let's do it as I mentioned before my mom please her skin and the basic story was when she was younger she had really bad acne so she was using this cream and it started to lighten her skin and she liked the way it looks so she kept doing it and then yeah that's just you know she just started to get lighter so my mom has actually stopped bleaching her skin and sent me some photos so that I could share what it looks like now that she is slowly getting back to her color as I mentioned before colorism is a global phenomenon rooted in white supremacy and the skin bleaching industry is making millions I'm sorry billions every year in 2017 the global skin lightening industry was our 4.8 billion by 2027 it's projected to grow to eight point nine billion yeah I don't want to put that money towards I don't know global student loan debt just asking for a friend so we get it people want lighter skin and skin bleach helps them do that but what exactly is it for the white people in the back let me bring it down for y'all sorry when I talk about skin bleach I'm not talking about literally putting bleach on your skin in fact skin lightening comes in many different forms which includes creams scrubs pills and even injections all designed to slow the production of melanin according to the World Health Organization 40% of Chinese women regularly use skin lightening creams in India at 61% and 77% in Nigeria y'all the [ __ ] is dangerous some skin bleaching products contain mercury mm-hmm another I can't pronounce mercury mercury mercury mercury it sounds like I'm not saying it right though some skin bleaching products include which means there's a possibility of toxicity which is honestly just love to me I've had other family members with their skin being kind of all discolored because I've had other family members use skin bleach and some of them had rear discoloration almost green or blue parts to their skin some people get insanely bad acne which is what my mom hide and it can even cause a kidney disorder so you're hearing this and wondering why the hell would anyone do all this for seemingly no health benefits because the light of your skin is the better-looking you are I don't know when y'all are gonna get it if your blackity black and black you ugly god the [ __ ] are just not killed so bad I mean look at how many celebs have getting work from looking like this to this now on a serious note why do all this because being lighter means you get all the perks it's somebody say the lights I'm gonna take this off I'm sorry I'm gonna remove it and then we'll talk about light-skinned privilege tonight all you want to but light-skinned privilege just like white privilege is a real thing in the context of blackness this idea is found in every aspect of black life research has linked colorism to lower marriage rates longer prison sentences lower incomes and fewer job prospects don't believe me let's look at some stats shall we researchers found that light-skinned women were sentenced to approximately 12% less time behind bars than their dark-skinned counterparts women with light-skinned served 11% less time in prison than darker women a 2006 University of Georgia study showed that employers preferred light-skinned black men to dark-skinned black men regardless of their qualifications a light-skinned black male with a bachelor's degree and typical work experience was preferred over a dark skinned black male with an MBA and past managerial positions a law professor at Vanderbilt University conducted a study of over 2000 immigrants from around the world and found that those with a lightest skin earned on average 8 to 15 percent more than similarly qualified immigrants darker hues dark-skinned defendants are more likely to be convicted and receive the death penalty than lighter skinned ones India's skin lightening cream fair and lovely boasts 38 million users worldwide dark-skinned brazilians make up 63% of the poorest sectors of Brazil troubling ain't it light skin privilege doesn't just manifest in the stats that I just read to you it also shows up in representation - or in film and television darker skin black women are often portrayed as the angry black woman or the sassy friend oh you looking for a sassy black friend oh no I didn't well you got one now girlfriend go might still fall under stereotypes of blackness their proximity to whiteness via a lighter complexion allows just that ever so slight complexity in character I do want to add that shows like insecure by its array or even chewing gum or I me to show you with Michaela Kohl do actually do a much better job of showing representation of black womanhood and varying shades it is still sis back womanhood I know but I do think that that shows that representation matters especially behind the scenes I think if more of us are telling our own stories then there's more opportunity for you to see people that look like you and tell the same sorts of have been in the same sorts of situations as you so yeah I just want to make sure that that's a me or two because this is in the 90s we've we've come a long way but we have so much further to go recently actress Jada Pinkett Smith did a read table talk discussing the issue of colorism one of the participants who had bleached her skin talked about the differences she noticed once her skin started getting lighter do you feel like people treated you differently when you were bleaching yes yeah the boys who were picking on me saying I was dirty I'm black I'm disgusted I have an attitude problem they found beauty and there's a girl once you once I beat you know was more polite they see me as or you know instead of me being angry I'm just passionate that's I'm so you know I say me I'm not angry you know I don't have an attitude problem I just I can talk all day you know so yes people definitely viewed me like I'm more worthy in a way that and that's an issue with with darker skin but every black woman I know and even think about the number of light-skinned women in the music industry and think about the ones that are actually on top people like Beyonce Nicki Minaj cardi B Rihanna even though we never gonna get that out of them so I need y'all to stop asking for her we're just never gonna get it just let it go all very talented all very exceptional careers all very light Beyonce I understand I understand okay this is not Beyonce okay although light-skinned privileged didn't start with the black community it's something we took ahold of and have perpetuated to this day people across all races and genders struggle with the advantages or disadvantages they're afforded all because of their complexion but there seems to be a theme of black men black men uplifting light-skinned women or non black women to the detriment of dark-skinned white woman remember there was a whole Kodak thing about how he prefers light-skinned light-skinned girls I poco can't you say how dark skin lights and girls are easier easier to control like this something like that are you on that hang on line what do you say I'm already black only no black right that's what he said so if you have a baby you don't want your baby to be the same complexion as you especially online dating or as I like to call it so before we close out the last section of this essay I'm just gonna take this lip mask and put it on for about 20 minutes with the under eye mask I'm also gonna take this rose water and my sleeping mask and put that on as well just put a little bit on my mouth there I usually put this on before bed it's my face with some rose water after all that stuff that has been done and then for moisturizing I honestly just use Jergens young and baby oil gel this is a secret to how soft my skin is I just put that all over this is the first part that I've actually been talking about my skincare routine actually but yeah let's get back to the essay now there's something to be said for having a deeper skin tone or being someone that is highly marinated such as myself and trying to navigate the dating world and as I mentioned she just gets messy a study done by dr. Darryl Hamilton a professor of economics and sociology at Ohio State University found that 55% of light-skinned black women were married comparing that to 23% of their dark-skinned counterparts quick disclaimer I don't believe that marriage is some end-all be-all that shows that you have value or just because someone loves you that means you are a lovable person and this study was done all the way back in 2003 and we all know what we looked like in 2003 [Music] but there's still something to be said about the politics of desirability this study as a standalone argued that black sis men holds an unnatural power when it comes to picking a high status partner within the black community because according to Hamilton at least at the time there were fewer black men of higher status to choose from so you have all these higher status black women defined as having higher education not growing up in public assistance coming from neighborhoods that had less crime picking from the smaller pool of black men who come from the same kind of background and that's just good old-fashioned supply and demand folks in 2019 an article from The Guardian about dating Walter that wasn't the name of the article I'm just really trying to make it a thing brighter dream McClinton talked about the issue she and many other dark-skinned black women faced and continued to face with regards to dating interviewing Julie Wadley of North Carolina's matchmaking service eli simone which caters to mostly black the clientele she discovered that Wadley observed this dynamic in her field saying I've had colleagues who were like hey I have a black client and he's open to any race I'm like oh okay great I'll send you a couple of matches who fit what he's looking for then they'll come back and say she's too ethnic when asked what ethnic men we all know Wadley elaborated dark-skinned someone who is probably brown to dark skinned someone with natural hair someone who is over the size of six she answered I would bet $5,000 every single one of my black colleagues have had that happen where they'll come back and say oh well he's only looking for someone who's very fair or he's looking for someone who's light-skinned I know I've put a source in here earlier from a study that was done in 2003 but this article was written into the year of our Lord 2019 so this article goes on to discuss in the Clinton's own sordid past with online dating the stories are one that bring oh too familiar from seeing something on someone's page like I only date light-skinned women this was from a black man that was not necessarily too much lighter than she was or just as dark as she was actually which is usually what happens to seeing the darker the berry the sweeter the juice that person's race was not identified McClinton talks about the double-edged sword there's so many dark-skinned and women have to deal with on one end you feel completely unwanted but on the other end you feel like some exotic eyes fetishize experiment it doesn't seem the people that are swiping right on your profile are interested in you so much as the curiosity of being with you oh that was a word now I just want to say as a queer woman I find a lot of this nonsense is mostly when I'm talking to sis men there's still nonsense across the board but for the most part that's a little disclaimer that I want out there just saying y'all need to get it together and if you think I'm being dramatic check out this youtuber I'm gonna put her name below and there's a link below to a video that she did of a social experiment where she created two profiles and she's not single she just did this as an experiment she created two profiles and one of them was her in her deep skin tone and the other one was her photoshopped lighter almost practically white basically and she had the same information in both profiles and the difference is were just interesting so my camera is gonna die soon and I've gone through my entire skincare routine but I just want to leave you with a few final thoughts and researching for this essay I found it very enlightening but a lot of the stuff was things that I already knew not even just based off of things that I read but just things that have happened to me my own personal experience or other dark-skinned women that I know that have talked about it either online or in real life and it's just something that if you haven't really experienced it across any race you don't really know what it's like but it doesn't mean that you can't educate yourself it doesn't mean that you can't learn and I hope that this video helped a little bit if you've never even heard of colorism before I hope it educated you a little further if you have I hope this was another resource that you can add to your lexicon and as well if you weren't here for any of it you just want to get some skincare tips I hope you enjoyed it coz I got pretty good skin y'all hello thank you so much for watching and I will see y'all in the next one back

Channel: Khadija Mbowe

Views: 605,296

Keywords: self care, self care sunday, let's talk about colorism, dark skinned vs light skinned, racist commercials, self care day, self care routines, self care sunday black, self care sunday insecure, self care sunday night, self care sunday routines, video essay

Id: W9ussxD32tE

Length: 29min 56sec (1796 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 19 2020