COLORISM: The Black Experience | Part 1 | Full Episode | De'Ron World Spotlight

[Music] tonight on a special drum world spotlight fair skin equates with money equates with status equates with being the good black person they only pick one black boy for like the ensemble it's very rare the darker male or female is going to get the role like it's always going to be a lighter skinned person the zendayas of this world i don't see myself she's definitely black but like i don't look at her and go yeah like she did it i can do it too like that's not a thing if you have a problem with the way black people are seen the only way to change how they're seen is shifting the standard television has been filmed this is a pretty black girl she's going to be a lighter skinned girl even in music videos they dark-skinned then there's something very special about them like light eyes or something something no matter where you go in the world dark-skinned people are at the bottom of society and that can't be just something that's taught in the home so then have your people tell you that you can't fit in because you because you're too dark that hurts that hurts that hurts even me i would say it affected me more in a sense younger i didn't want to i didn't want to get too dark and i would say like oh i'm glad my nose is not too big and stuff a lot of people get stuck in that self-hating mindset and i've met women who are black women who do not see themselves as beautiful because of what society has told them basically so i said to her be honest with me do you think i'll ever get into jack and jill and she said nobody's going to tell you this but in this society if you are darker or the same color of the paper bag then you're not acceptable how do we expect people that are non of color to accept us if we can't accept ourselves coming up next how does colorism affect your life does it affect it at all do you even notice it tonight i've asked 15 of my peers and colleagues to share their experience on the subject of colorism in black america you'll hear from them in a moment as you watch this special please know that every experience is different and if you feel inclined to do so leave a comment below to share your own experience and continue the dialogue these are their stories their words their experiences [Music] i grew up in a white town um white as hell i grew up in bayou new jersey so a lot of my friends growing up were white kids i had spanish friends i had like good friends and then i also had black friends but um they were like light-skinned i all of my friends were lighter than me i was always like the darker um friend and about every time like when we go to the pool or something like that they're like oh like you're so dark jeremiah because i went to a mostly white school there was like four black kids in the whole grade um so you know i grew up where i didn't really see a lot of colorism more so as you know just being around just white people and all the kids who were in my class that year from like kindergarten all the way up to probably about fifth grade third about fourth fifth grade were my color i didn't really take notice to colorism until i moved to florida so when i was living in new york i didn't experience it i had there were the diversity here i mean i think that white people made up maybe like 15 of my maybe like there was like two three white people in the class so that's what i was used to before i moved to florida just a lot of diversity it wasn't just black people either it was just very diverse for schools and then when i went to florida it was a small town and i entered school i went to a predominantly white elementary school in florida so that was culture shock and um there was only like one or two black people in the class so it was completely flipped when i moved i knew what colorism meant i knew what it meant to be a darker skinned black person and a lighter skinned black person and i definitely had seen it dealing with like my friends and stuff especially in elementary school middle school my darker skin friends getting called all kinds of different names gorillas i'm sure you know this one booty scratcher and i mean i knew that like you know that that wasn't okay like people make it the crazy thing is and i hate to say this love people but it was mainly black people doing it to other black people and i knew that that wasn't that wasn't right like no one had to obviously tell me that that wasn't right but like i knew like why are you making fun of this person because you know they're darker skin color they're still black we still all black we still supposed to love each other right middle school and high school i definitely it was clear and that was when like nicki minaj was like in so it was like yellow bed this and read this and you know all the myspace names and new facebook names i noticed that people were calling themselves that i think i noticed it being like i'm red or i'm this i'm not i don't think it was ever i just black people with black people they're different shades but it wasn't like a thing i didn't know exactly what colorism was when i was a child but as a light-skinned black woman there were definitely things said to me as a child that i now know were forms of colorism in some way shape or form being light skinned and to my family what they considered very light i was often called they called me salad like a white girl like from a distance or you know light bright or you know i had darker skinned friends so they would say things like well you can do that because you like skin or you can wear this because you light skin it's that in the third so it light skin became its own thing i remember like being in fifth grade it used to be a thing like whenever social media was kind of picking up and it was like hey um like this post and then under below put your kick username we'll throw you on a group chat or whatever and then we'll do rates and stuff on the categories they'd be like what would you give them one to ten on hair what would you give them 110 on like looks and then one of them was skin and as crazy as that is like if you think about it in fifth grade nobody had acne so what were you judging it based on so it would go in a sense like they would rate it if you was light skinned you know everybody would always say like oh he's fine and stuff or whatever and like mines was always i'd be in the five for like skin or whatever so it'd be like oh it's not too bad he's acceptable it's okay it's not too bad and then it became kind of like oh you're cute for a dark-skinned girl you know child i remember specifically in middle school in high school saying she's pretty for a dark-skinned girl i remember saying that in middle school in high school elementary school not so much i don't remember even feeling a way about race in general in elementary school i didn't really start really noticing it until i started to become like middle school because i was still at the same school but we started getting more of a diverse um group of people so i then that's when i really started noticing it i've experienced a lot of crazy stuff i went to camp on the bus ride home um they would call me um yeah you're ashy just crazy stuff listen the white girls in my town were bold it really wasn't until high school that i stopped experiencing stuff like that and when i hung out with like a certain group of people that's when i stopped experiencing colorism the first time i was aware of colorism is just younger going to the um going to the store and shopping for barbie dolls i just never seen or found one that was like me for a long time and i think i was maybe six or seven when i found out that hey i can't even find a dog that i play with like me so something is something's not right something's going on here i really wasn't aware of the term colorism and the definition of it until like honestly like eighth grade or my freshman year even dealing with my family some of us were almost damn near white some of us were chocolate like my my great aunt she's white indian and black but she is probably the darkest person out of all of us this was such a normal thing for me you know like seeing all those different shades and all those different colors was so normal for me from birth that i never really saw an issue with it i wouldn't say i was aware of it because it was like i was so like engulfed in it and i didn't even realize it until i got older like wow a lot of like what was said that was supposed to be kind of like not too harmful ended up being very kind of very not really good to put out there i would say my mom is like the most nicest lady in the world wonderful woman and like and she didn't even realize what she was saying was possibly in a negative tone or whatever but uh i remember i would be outside you know playing football or whatever and coming back inside from summer and she's just like oh you didn't got so dark and it's like it'd be a jokeful sense i laugh it off but little did i know that was okay affecting my mind to start to think that like oh if i stay out here like and i get too dark i'm gonna be like ugly and stuff so it was just it's a crazy thing to see like how how it kind of shaped and molded me and stuff if you see me i feel like i'm not necessarily dark but like i remember i growing up felt felt so so dark and i felt like it was like not a good thing and i would always like to try to like not be in the sun too much and stuff and i remember at one point i was actually like editing my pictures like to like tone the brightness up and stuff and that part to me is crazy because i really didn't i didn't even realize that i wasn't i was just like thinking that was just the norm of instead of seeing like oh i love the way my skin looks i became aware of colorism or aware that i was a part of the conversation in high school because of the things that i felt and then college is when i was like got introduced to the term and the idea and i was like wait a minute i was i was a part of that on the wrong side but yeah i don't think i was aware as a child [Music] i wouldn't go there i think that i've hit quotas i don't know if that's a benefit or just me getting slightly closer to what i should be getting anyway i think in the negative stereotype that dark-skinned people are aggressive dark-skinned people are mean where i have not been tried if you will as much as other people other women my age but i also had a sense of relief especially when i was in college that i knew that for the most part people weren't going to bother me and then also i'm taller than most people so again tall and dark skin there's just an intimidation factor so it's it's actually it's like a negative in a positive like i felt safe in the cocoon that my my physical image deters people from bothering me but also sometimes when people would speak to me or interact with me they talk to me very rough or try to handle me very rough and i don't like that i'm still a feminine woman um nothing wrong with being a masculine woman but i don't present myself that way and for people to assume that you know punching me or hitting me as form of greeting or like talking to me like they're talking to a male friend was okay and i didn't like that i was just like um i i need i need to set a boundary because you're making assumptions and even if that wasn't the case i felt that maybe colorism played a role in that because other peers will not get talked to that same way i was aware of colors and when i was a teenager and i would realize that a lot of the singers that we see and a lot of a lot of them just kind of all looked about the same trade i was too young to understand even racism because i was in africa and so everyone else is black so we know the words were white we just don't black is just everybody else and then when you move to china there wasn't really you're just what you are and most majority of the population was chinese but then my material is when i started no i noticed this i the idea that if you're lighter you're perceived as prettier and the thing is colorism does exist in african countries but as a child you're not aware of it until you're put in those situations my mother is darker skin my father is lighter skin and she told me years later that if you were a darker skinned woman you wanted to marry someone who's lighter so that your children will have better opportunities than you you know that kind of broke my heart in society i have to admit it has made me feel like because i do have a lighter complexion that i do have certain advantages i grew up i'm originally from i say charlotte but i really live in cornelius north carolina predominantly like rich republicans trump supporters so when you're surrounded by white people if you're not you know way like a very dark skinned person they feel a little bit more comfortable around you at least from my experience even towards white people like i feel like it's a different demeanor from them towards someone lighter than darker it kind of helped me fit in a little bit they knew i was black but to them they're associating being black with being dark skinned because i didn't fit in that narrative i feel like i was more accepted than some of my peers they didn't associate me with black people i think that when you're darker everything you do is more like intense and so i'm already kind of an intense person i don't know if the combination is always helpful for me because i think that if i were to say the things that i say or do things that i do that were lighter skin or light skin it would be a completely different it would be received differently you're treated more nicely because they're like oh you're beautiful or whatever and you're like am i really pretty i could have sworn like i i felt like i rolled out the bed today but you're saying that like a little odd to me i'm kind of like i hate this like the token black boy in certain calls um a lot of the shows i've done like i've always been that one black boy every call i go to like i make it to the end of the call and i'm like the one black boy i think that that's a problem i think that it should just be whoever is you know the best person for a job to just get the job i'm someone that has moved around to different cities i've had and one year i had like three different jobs and not just like jobs but like high level positions um within the education system that i know i probably wouldn't have gotten if i was dark skinned and i just think that just in general white people are more comfortable when someone is closer to their complexion i feel like light-skinned people can get away with much more than dark-skinned people when it comes to women when i taught an all-girls school and i fought a lot with like our darker skinned girls getting in trouble more often than our large-scale girls and so it just plays like a huge role and i think a lot of times when we do discus colorism we don't think about like the different ways that it impacts every aspect but like there are studies that have shown that black girls specifically get disciplined more for the same offenses as other people and so when you look deeper in and look at the the difference in skin tones amongst those black students you see that dark-skinned black girls are often punished harsher than their lighter-skinned counterparts whereas with men it's like everyone wants a dark-skinned guy because he's strong right that's the perception and because i'm more the darker shade of black men i feel like i'm perceived as more masculine and maybe more black whatever that means now this is really a good thing for guys too because i talk to mexican masculinity just because someone's darker doesn't mean they're hard and tough but i think that those are the terms and the ideas that are associated with with skin color and colors in general and you see that in television you see it in cartoons you see it where you know the bad character is always in dark and then light and whiteness is always associated with good my sister is a few shades lighter than i am quite a few shades and i was darker when i was younger and there was two societies i always wanted to be a part of one was jack and jill the other was girls friendly society but because my older sister was in jack and jill i wanted to go to jack and jail and you had to be invited you know you couldn't just be have been recommended even though your sister or your mom was part of jack and jill this was a generational i was invited so when i came in people started staring and i'm thinking oh it's because you know my sister so okay i get it i get it however after a series of questions everybody greeted me so sweetly you know they had appetizers i mean it was great and they said that i would be hearing from them now for me that was strange because with my sister it was oh yes you know come fill out the you know application with me it was you'll be hearing from us so i thought well maybe this is the way it goes i didn't even talk to my sister about it it was just like okay if this is what happens then i'm good however i got a letter and the letter said at this time we are unable to admit you and of course they gave some kind of excuse that immediately i said uh come on so my sister was like no no they're probably just there were a lot of candidates before you and they're probably just full not taking anybody at this time stop too sensitive and i thought okay but i had a friend and my friend because again she was a few shades lighter and her sister and she was one of the ones that became immediately you know let me give the application so i said to her do me a favor be honest with me do you think i'll ever get into jack and jill because it was a big disappointment and she said no and i said why and she said nobody's going to tell you this she said because i'm just learning it she said but in this society if you are darker or the same color of the paper bag then you're not acceptable and i thought oh wow okay okay and of course i went to girls really society but i was bitter i was angry and as time went on i just felt like i needed to do something about my skin that's how it started [Music] coming up i noticed that i've dated guys that were super light skinned mixed very bright all the girls that are being featured heavily are the light-skinned girls who have a very certain look all of that stems from what our definition of beauty is are we defining beautiful women as a fairer skin or lighter skinned woman or a darker skinned woman and her features [Music] there are many people on twitter who comment on how dark i am i'm i'm medium tone right i'm too dark for some i'm too light for others and for a lot of them i'm too round but our opportunity is to decide who we intend to be in the space and how we're going to treat others in that space with us because whether we see the prejudice or we see the privilege there are those who are making decisions about us and they are imposing those decisions on us when they hire when they fire when they send a preschooler to time out or when they send a teenager to prison those choices are being made so we can't dismiss that it exists but we can build the protections around ourselves so that we aren't doing it internally it affected me a little bit when i was younger a little bit i had some time where i actually thought light-skinned women um were prettier um honestly and that it was easier for them and i remember just coming to my mom because my mom is actually like me and i was like mom i wish i had the skin like yours and my mom was actually the one that told me like no you're beautiful you know embrace your dark skin and don't let nobody ever tell you anything and now now at this time you can't tell me nothing i think dark skin is beautiful it's one of the best skin tones like it you know it's not better than others we're up there with everybody and that's how i feel and now you can't tell me nothing i love my brown skin [Music] at first growing up i would say it did it it kind of kind of made me feel like i didn't want to i didn't want to get too dark in a sense or whatever or i would be like kind of and i don't know if it's even colorism i would say like oh i'm glad my nose is not too big and stuff and i just i would say it affected me more in a sense younger not while i was older because like when i got older and stuff i started to really just see like oh that's just that's just something that they want to put out in the media and i really just stopped paying attention to it i guess you just start picking apart the things that are different than you than somebody else anytime you try to compare to try to create your sense of identity so anytime i ever did that it was it never made me feel like oh now i'm beautiful because i matched this person it was always kind of like oh i don't have that so i'm not beautiful so it never made me feel like someone's beautiful because of their light skinnedness it was just like a lot of people i thought were beautiful were a lot of what the media kept putting up and a lot of those were people way lighter and way different type of hair i remember even just arguing with someone who was like talking about how kelly is not the pretty one of like destiny's child or like beyond like i was like what are you talking about kelly's beautiful my mom is darker so i always thought my mom's beautiful so in my head it never occurred to me just because your darker skin it was it was beautiful but i will say there is an implication of colorism when it comes to men and that the lighter skinned men thought themselves to be prettier or taught to be prettier or more attractive than darker skinned men and so a lot of the guys that people would talk about constantly in like school or anything would be lighter skin men there are certain features that society clings to i think that we are being more proactive and saying no this is beautiful too and this is beautiful too and this is beautiful too i never really had a big issue with my skin color because i never i don't know my mom she's a little bit lighter than me my dad's darker than me but like i've always been like i love the skin tone of dark skin i always thought chocolate was beautiful okay so like i was just like either i want to be like i want to be darker like a smooth chocolate you know i'm saying like for myself i was like i don't have a problem with you know being darker i noticed that i've dated guys that were super light skinned mixed very bright it was rare that i dated anybody that was my skin tone and that's when i started noticing colors i didn't really notice it within myself because i liked myself the skins color i was but i noticed it in like the people i dated more so hip hop and r b music videos and all the girls are light skinned all the girls that are being featured heavily are the light-skinned girls who have a very certain look all of that stems from what our definition of beauty is you know do are we defining beautiful women as a fairer skin or lighter skin woman or a darker skinned woman and her features i can see beauty in all shades my mom taught me that she's you know i said a dark skinned woman and growing up i thought she was the most beautiful person in the world i tell this to her all the time i just remember she was just a great dresser hair was done just done up it was always done i feel like when i was younger she just didn't have an off day and i think that probably was like you have to be better and you have to appear better because i i think that sometimes when i was younger if i had an off day like going to school it would be it would be called out and i'd be like yo like y'all wear sweatpants and and basketball shorts to school all the time and the one time i do it's like are you okay what's wrong with you you look a mess i'm like whoa okay it's laundry day y'all need to relax i had to you know realize that i am beautiful even though society isn't going to mirror that back to me and i even to this day have to keep reminding myself you're beautiful you're attractive like i mean it's fat my mom used to be like you're beautiful you're beautiful like she just told me that because she knew from her own experience you will not be told this society is not going to give you this and if i am told i'm beautiful it's usually from other black women because she definitely worried that i would suffer from self-esteem issues um because of my skin not more so more so than other things every woman has every person has um just things i worry about with self-esteem but she didn't want me being a dark-skinned woman um to be the reason it definitely has changed how i look at people and how i how i view even yeah how i believe in myself i will say that i said before i definitely didn't see an issue with darker skinned black people never saw an issue with them but for me and what society was feeding me what i was seeing what i was doing light skin was better being brighter was better and i think not even for me but for society as a whole over these last couple of years it's it's become more acceptable to be darker like it's become and i hate to say this it's become beautiful to be a darker skin i never even even with what society has has taught me i've never wanted to put those things on my fridge you know like i've never like um she gonna hate that i talk about her but my girlfriend she is a gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous chocolate woman and she has told me some of the issues that she's had being a darker skinned woman and i never i never want to make her feel bad about herself i never want to put her down i only want to uplift her because i i know only only a little bit of what society can can do to darker skinned females and i don't want to be a part of that like i don't i don't want to be a part of that group who makes another group doesn't make me cry oh i just [Music] i know how hard it is to be black already you know and to then have your people tell you that you can't fit in because you because you're too dark that hurts that hurts that hurts even me [Music] so i think society society is becoming more acceptable acceptable of darker skinned people but for a long time it was the light skin is the right skin so you you you ain't your white friend when you're darker than a paper bag you can't come with us you can't come with us and i hate that i genuinely genuinely hate that because i know my friend brynn gorgeous any skin color she want to be in gorgeous as any darker skinned woman a darker skinned man gorgeous as and there's there's no butt behind it there's no maybe if they were this no the way she is the way that they are gorgeous and that's all that matters that was the first brown skin yeah um beauty queen and what i really appreciated about that time is that i felt like vanessa williams opened that door for me but you know vanessa williams has gort she's gorgeous but she has a certain aesthetic yeah you know i'm very light skinned she has light eyes light hair she's very thin and when i came along i was kind of like the opposite of that dark skin you know i was curvy and um and i think that a lot of girls needed to see themselves and that's what we even today we want to see ourselves represented now whether that's in a pageant but now in congress or at the white house you know on tv hosting um talk shows we want a voice and um so people like vanessa opened that door for me and i hope and just by her comments and some of the things that i read i i think that i was able to open doors for other people and then you know you just keep paying it forward whatever your accomplishments are you just help other people to continue to see themselves when i was young there weren't very many blacks if any at all i think i was in early teens before i saw a black woman you know uh on tv you know i mean now let me say theater you know because you had uh black women who could just say jazz you know oh my gosh but you had to know to go there for me it's important that we know our history jazz for me was my history it didn't have to speak words all it had to do was go and i could tell when no one would get angry and when it wasn't angry you know what i'm saying um the blues you know you could tell when the blues was happening and the blues was sat so but but that's my background in the arts imagine if you weren't interested in any of that growing up you know the 90s kid i was born in the late 80s growing up in the 90s i saw brandon norwood everyone thought i was her you know i i looked like her you know brown spinning girl slim girl with the braids box braids i stayed wearing box braids i had the full lips um like brandy so i saw that i thought i could be brandy or she looks just like me so i loved melisha i loved everything brandy did about every hour i grew up watching martin now i know now that that conversation with martin and between him and pam and those jokes um but i always thought that sheena arnold was beautiful like i never even thought she was beautiful and martin was hating on her and i thought she had style she had swag to her i i wanted to be like p.m as well she was in marketing with gina you know or the proud family we have penn proud who's light-skinned her mom is life-skinned but you have dj her best friend who's treated like crap and she's basically the hood baby with all these stuff is like you come from like the projects but everybody else treats the light skin girl penny and lotianica like royalty and that's absolutely absolutely being pushed into our brains on purpose like it's not it's not by mistake it's all about design so just growing up with me media i saw women that i could've looked up to kylo pratt i loved one on one growing up matching shaw attorney at law like i wanted you know living things when i was a kid at the time of course but i saw i saw those complexions that um that mirrored my complexion and i you know had women to look up to i do think more of us more different shades could have been displayed looking back for sure but i knew i had some type of brownies and type of foundation i did have at least a brandy a kyla frag to look up to as a kid but now today i think they are i think at some point the 2000s maybe the 10 things kind of just went to the side i think now um especially the last year so they are you know being more branding is being more aware of putting us in the forefront i don't see it in tv i don't see it in films i don't see it in magazines um consistently they'll be one-off and then of course they'll be like a dark-skinned person girl and it's usually just not someone who resembles me fully well first of all in the magazines you only saw the very pretty girls that's number one and if they were black or ambiguous they didn't look like you they looked more toward the women who were not not black you know so there was a lot of times i think because i modeled when i was younger there were a lot of times i wouldn't go for jobs because i would all often say no they're not looking for my color they're looking for so-and-so you see so does it stop us yes sorry guys because i'm not gonna lie when i see someone who's like light light-skinned you know not like light-skinned or like ethnically ambiguous and they're black like the zendaya's stunning of this world i don't see myself like she's definitely black but like i don't look at her and go yeah like she did i can do it too like that's not a thing if i see you know like amber iman and i'm like oh yeah i see it you know but when it's when the spectrum is that big like that i'm like i don't walk into the room like we don't go when we on the room like we're not getting the same thing because we're on such far ends of the spectrum even though we're both black they only pick one a black boy for like the ensemble or even for like a specific role like for the world it's very rare that you're gonna the darker um male or female is gonna get the role like it's always going to be a lighter skin person every show i've done besides like dream girls or hairspray every like show i've done i've been like the one black boy and there might have been another black boy but he was like 10 times lighter than me i've always been like that black boy in the ensemble every other boy was either lighter or white so it plays a you like colorism is used in the entertainment world um i think of dream girls because clubhouse just had those dream girls auditions and your dreams just about to come true [Music] it's funny when i thought of dream girls initially because i saw the movie i thought beyonce right because she was dina but then once i started doing research when i was younger i was like oh my gosh shirley ralph was dream girls and it actually really changed everything seeing cheryl seeing the red vine that really i was like oh i was like so this is the original trip girls because after that after that movie happened that they did um like more productions attractions i would see dina was always light-skinned or all like light like is like beaut and she was supposed to be beautiful so that it's this idea that okay well deena's gonna be the light skinned one because she's beautiful and that in itself is a colorist like statement she doesn't have to be like again just because beyonce was in the movie as dina but i think seeing it that way set the precedent for like casting you know after the movie i mean these actors and actresses and musicians and things you see like that they're all lighter skinned yes there are dark skinned musicians and things like that but i feel like they don't get the same buzz as a lighter skinned woman does i mean it's even proven that when they do make those ads like magazines and things like that they lighten their skin like in editing and things like that like if you get on snapchat or instagram today and you put a filter on your face there's a filter that's always gonna make you lighter like the filters that everybody use they make your face lighter lighter smaller but i ain't never seen no filter that make your face darker or you know does things to really show like your complexion it's always lighter even in other countries like in like the asian countries they they want to be pasty white even in places like africa and things like that i remember watching a documentary in a class about how they do like skin bleaching in the islands and things like that and like they look up to people like nicki minaj and you know these lighter skin celebrities and they think that they're not beautiful unless they look like that and we all know social media is the main source of it all right now like you follow people on instagram and it's like damn your body looks very particular you know you got a very particular body type your hair looks good you know you can be famous now just knowing how to do hair knowing how to do makeup but it's like damn all these things play a part in it because it's like there's no reason why the most confident people can get on social media and feel lesser than all of our influencers are light-skinned or they're dark-skinned women with butt implants twerking all over the internet and that's fine listen i love good twerk i love a good quirk okay we can really get into it we do things because we know it's going to work you know because we'd be mad at it we'd be mad at it like that shouldn't be that shouldn't be how it is but then we play into it and i will say that i have been seeing dark skinned black women be featured more but i also have been saying a lot of light-skinned black women be featured as black women like as that is the only way that we see black women which is very annoying because i i would love to see two dark-skinned people together i would love that and we never see that we always see a dark-skinned black man my color or darker or maybe a little lighter and we see this light light-skinned black woman that he's with that he's in love with right who gets treated like she's royalty meet the browns there was a brown skin girl and they swapped her out for the light skin girl and that for the daughter they had yeah my wife and kids you see the light skinned girl they swapped out for the brown skin girl like certain certain things you're like dang like you want to think it's an issue but it is like yeah she's a black girl but no she has different features they got the black girl that's light skin with a nice fine hair like a white woman so she doesn't look as black she looks less black and issa rae on insecure really made it a point to have herself and molly be these points of romantic interest for everybody i love insecure so you're seeing the brown skinned women on there you got the one light-skinned girl but she's plus-sized so she's not a skinny girl like so you're we're breaking these stereotypes and bad stigmas i'm happy that we are we're we're starting to see a cycle break and i completely agree that there needs to be more there has to be more and i think that life scan women need to be making room for that to happen so i appreciate seeing that from her on that show because it's intentional and it matters i know that zoe saldana just apologized recently for her playing nina simone and literally putting on makeup to make herself darker and a prosthetic nose but that was a chance for her to make room for a dark-skinned actress to murder that role and to really step into that because i'm sure it's something that she that actors would have dealt with in real life [Music] coming up so some people see that dark deep beautiful skin and they're just envy of you they wish they had that flawless skin and a beautiful heel colorism is ingrained in our dna it's going to be a thing for like a very long time we live our lives in a negative world and we don't even let each other in how do we expect people that are non of color to accept us if we can't accept [Music] ourselves [Music] i hope the experiences that you've heard so far have had you thinking about your own experiences and how you may have dealt with colorism the last question i asked everyone is a big question but i knew it was worth talking about where do we go from here that is a very good question and i'll be honest i don't know the answer to it only steps i can think of is counseling like therapy that's the issue that is what it is it's therapy we have the transatlantic slave trade we have all of that in our genes we were shipped from africa and taught over and over again with jim crow law with all this stuff being into us for years through trauma and it's not gonna just go away like this stuff is ingrained in our dna this is literally ingrained in our dna colorism is ingrained in our dna we were taught that lighter skin people deserved to live in a house with air condition while black people stayed out and were getting beaten like that's what we were taught so if you want to unlearn something like that that is trauma and the only way to unlearn trauma is to talk through it is to get therapy is to heal from it and that is the only way it's not gonna just magically we take a class and then people are going to be fine it's not going to magically like one big culture shift and people are going to be fine and it's never going to go away i i need to like be like a debbie downer but like it's going to be a thing for like a very long time now you're feeding into the stereotype saying you're feeding into the by claiming that that's what's going to happen see we got to find the good we got to find that man we are so hell-bent and stuck on the negative that we live our lives in a negative world and we don't even let each other in how can we not let each other in how do we expect people that are non of color to accept us if we can't accept ourselves if we downplaying ourselves in our own community and making jokes about ourselves you can't expect white people just to be like that's wrong because they're not gonna do that they're gonna think it's acceptable because we're doing it to ourselves so you can't put on them would you not do it if you have a problem with the way black people are seen the only way to change how they're seen is shifting the standard no the next next lead for a black woman is not going to be light skin we're not gonna see another um interracial cut relationship where there's a black man feeding over a white woman we're not seeing that anymore claim that you know what i'm saying if he's just like oh this is the way things will always be this is the way it's gonna be well of course that's gonna happen one's like well you're feeding into the because clearly you believe that if you're saying of course then clearly you're believing that you don't believe that something can be different you don't believe that there will be a change you know so i feel like that's what things in general is reflecting inside and figuring out how you play a part in it i think changing perception is a step in the right direction how you go about doing that i don't know um because then it goes into this thing of like making sure that we meet quotas and like percentages and it's it's like is that genuine your skin tone does not make you better than someone else you can be you know the most evilest person with the greenest of eyes and the lightest skin tone but if your spirit is not right that doesn't make you better than someone else people are ignorant you know people are ignorant and know that you are a good person internally that they're just projecting some people are intimidated by your skin tone you know they say the darker the berry the sweeter the juice so some people see that dark deep beautiful skin and they're just envy of you they wish they had that flawless skin and a beautiful heel if you're aware of something definitely speak up about it if you see something wrong speak up about it and educate anybody you come in contact with not out of like fighting is just gonna drain your energy and they're not gonna get it so take people aside if you see them making decisions out of that kind of mindset if you just so happen to say make an intentional comment apologize for it right after like realize realize what just came out your mouth regardless of oh i didn't mean anything to buy it i didn't know i didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings the person that you just said that to feelings is hurt you just made them upset so take take accountability for all of your actions all of your comments even if you don't feel like there's anything wrong with it let these rappers and these producers and these casting directors know this is not okay we will not put up with this same thing goes for these these celebrities let them know i appreciate you guys for considering me for playing meekness alone but i am not the one i'm not the person and that's real and like yes you're you may you may be missing out on money yes you may lose some respect from your wild your white counterparts but you're helping to make your community better you're helping to make us better from the inside out i hope you were enlightened by the conversation shared in tonight's special just know the conversation does not end here and if you feel inclined to do so leave a comment below to share your own experience let's keep the conversation going thank you for watching all the way until the end and happy black history month before you go here's your first look at part two the conversation continues and because i have been in an all-white school i wasn't comfortable around my own people i equated like darker skin and all that with people who i was afraid of it's all about proximity to whiteness and it goes as far as facial features wide nose big lips you know things like that dark complexion creates this look this unfair life for dark-skinned black women like all together like their whole life is completely different because of something they can't control like being dark but there have been girls who literally told me they didn't like me because i was light-skinned these are black girls someone has literally told me i know you have a pretty vagina because you're a lighter skin tone [Music] [Music] you

Channel: De'Ron World

Views: 13,402

Keywords: #COLORISM, #BLACKHISTORYMONTH, #DERONWORLD, #SHAREBLACKSTORIES

Id: xsl7votsGXY

Length: 52min 28sec (3148 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 01 2021