Minorities Debate Colorism, Skin Bleaching and Appropriation | VICE Debates

that is a very clear experience an example of colorism like it is real it happens like you're lighter yeah people treat you differently like that's why this conversation really needs to Center on why is it societally that being lighter skin has very clear material advantages [Music] hello everyone we want to thank you for joining us today my name is Alexis Johnson I'm a correspondent with Vice news and I'll also be acting as our moderator for today's panel we first want to put out the disclaimer that you know we've done our best to get you all here today of different ethnicities different shades different skin tones to talk about this topic but we realize we can't represent everybody in this discussion okay today we're going to be discussing a topic that you know as a brown skin black woman moving throughout the world it's something that I think about a lot it's something that I hear being discussed a lot both in real life online in the media today we're here to talk about colorism what is colorism and how do you define it hi my name is KOA and I identify as biracial I think about colorism as a distinct hierarchy that is anchored in a proximity to whiteness interesting I think colorism is internalized racism I'm Kelvin West and I am an American okay hi my name is Maya I usually then pronouns and I'm black so I actually think that colorism existed before racism and the fact that historically for example if you look at Europe or Asia like surfs peasants people who were in the lower classes had to work in toil in the Sun and those who were royalty or Aristocrats or whatever tend to be lighter skin and so there has historically been a privileging of lighter skin over darker skinned individuals but I think that with the onset of global white supremacy fueled by European colonialism 1492 onward it was an absorbed into racism yeah I completely agree as well I identify as Iranian as someone who's from like an Asian country that wasn't technically colonized we even have colorism in that idea even without people coming in and telling us that so it's almost like a preconceived idea that's in our heads I'm a mixed race Puerto Rican and in the Latina community community uh it's you can understand it very much as a caste system where there is no shame to address uh darker skinned people by slurs okay there are personal consequences for colorism there are also systemic consequences and colorism has implications for public health Beauty and all sorts of things in society okay so you said that you feel like it is internalized racism the blackest experienced anyone can any black person can have is another black person that telling them that they aren't black and that is something that happens to lighter-skinned black people because there's this idea and that I've lived a different life because I'm a lighter skin and that to me is the most anti-black thing you can do to anybody Maya what are your thoughts on that sorry I saw you had a little bit of a reaction oh me yeah um so I think often when lighter-skinned people talk about experiencing bias from darker skinned people I think that my first thought is just like remember that colorism is an ism and like when something has that ISM it means institutional power plus Prejudice darker skinned people as a class of people do not have the ability the institutional power to for example put you in prison for longer sentences because of being lighter skin or you know having less access to employment there's actual statistics where like a darker skinned person with a master's degree usually has less employment opportunities or is less employable than a lighter skinned person as a bachelor's and it's not to say that like bullying is like I know that hurts like it's it's like personal sentiment I know that that actually feels bad but I think that it's important to remember when we're talking about whether racism or colorism or anything that's an ism that there's an element of institutional power that is added on to the Prejudice I do feel like when darker skinned people Express their frustration to lighter-skinned people that their lives might be different harder I think you sort of have to acknowledge your privilege you know or else it's very ignorant even though we're both black What specifically does that mean like I I've had experiences in my life that have not been great and and I can assume that it's because the color of my skin right we talk about these ideologies right which I think we get lost in sometimes and we have to just bring it back to reality of like well let's talk about your situation for a second have you how has it affected you specifically and the answer that you get are I didn't get an apartment I didn't get a job I didn't get that promotion which happens to everybody right they can always talk about somebody else and what's happened in history but they can't talk about their own lived experiences and that's important I have plenty lived experiences I mean we could go from like uh for me I'm in the beauty industry The Beauty World so I get invited to have influenced their events and if I look around and I'm the darkest the darkest black person there's still a problem there you know what I mean that's a perfect example of that and you might not realize it but white people lighter skinned people they might be more willing to approach you because you are of lighter skin that's that's another sure personal thing that have you realized that yes I can I can acknowledge that that may be the maybe the thing here's the other thing that happens the other side of that the other perspective on that is that I've done a lot of things in the acting world I haven't gotten I've missed roles because I'm not dark enough and there's a lot of black people who don't know that they have no idea that your skin tone is actually highly sought out for but I feel like that's acting you know they're looking to fill a specific role whereas if you're just applying for a job you know a lighter skin person might get that opportunity over a darker skinned person testimonials from Young dark-skinned black girls who very detailed about how colorism affects their life so obviously colorism is a systemic issue but I think an important part of it is the personal battle like young black girls endure these girls are being bullied some are as young as 14 13 years old having really like mental health crises in Middle School like there's also so much research about how colorism um shows up like systemically like there's research on public health and the different Health outcomes darker skinned black people have as opposed to lighter-skinned black people and there's one about pulse exometers like being used during covid and how the devices have a harder time registering darker skin and you can imagine the implications for that and we know that the black community has been disproportionately affected by covid in terms of like deaths I don't think those that evidence can be divorced from the anecdotes you know because the anecdotes just supplement that evidence they help put that evidence into context and I'm so like fascinated by like the growing like scholarship around colorism because I think it's about time people treat colorism with the same seriousness they treat racism Lamar what are your thoughts when you come with Statistics like that that that's the kind of supporting arguments that we need as opposed to kind of moving away from the anecdotal in my opinion right because we're talking about something so big and so huge that affects everyone who is alive I'm in the middle you know colorism exists for sure I just think there's a lot of confirmation bias in our personal experiences that might drive us right to that term when it could be a number of other things but she's talking about how particularly darker skinned women engage with structures engage with power engage with institutions per that exact point there are continuing studies that show that in instances in which darker skinned women do report intimate partner violence domestic partner violence bruises on their body strangulation marks are harder for police to see nurses to see Physicians to see because a lot about how they are trained and the way they interact with those victims are attuned to look for those marks on lighter skin tones and so that also impacts a lot in terms of who is seen as the victim who gets resources who gets proper medical attention a lighter-skinned woman who presents like I do who walks in in with something that reads very clean cut is likely to get more attention in an already deeply misogynistic and racist and sexist body than a woman who is much darker than I am so they seem to have presented a lot of evidence and studies as well as well as as well as self-made testimony as well as anecdotal evidence it goes back to how you feel about yourself I feel like it it sounds like you're saying racism is like a choice almost how you respond to racism is absolutely and I know that that's uncomfortable and I love this is my wheelhouse trust me how you respond to racism is is a choice I'm hearing particularly on this side of the room this idea that you can make an individual Choice outside of the context of History culture politics structures I don't believe that personally I think when anybody buys a certain product Styles themselves a certain way decides to not style themselves a certain way read a certain book use certain words in a job interview approach a politician I think all of that is informed by history literally all of the time yeah we don't want to talk about anybody's individual individual experiences of it unless it's an experience that is affected by colorism in the way that you guys are comfortable with it colorism also happens on the other hand when I talk about the internalized racism and how lighter-skinned voices they don't get hurt they don't get pushed out within the black community that I get I get eye rolls I get you know people there's a there's a reaction to that that is very negative and not and not welcoming and I'm not in the business of denying people their lived experiences like who am I but I think we can also acknowledge that those things happen um like lighter skin people have like certain experiences where they feel invalidated because of their complexion and we can also um and you acknowledge that colorism affects lighter skin people there's no such thing as reverse colorism same way there's no such thing as Reverse Racism reverse sexism any reverseism that's what I believe okay that's your opinion I agree in the sense that the experiences you're talking about that circulate around like all this coded language of like you're not actually black or you're not black enough or like you know quantifying questions I'm sorry I just want to add to your point go ahead um I have experienced versions of that myself and I do not consider that to be colorism colorism is distinctly about a system and resources and visibility and autonomy within those systems like that on what she said like about the whole bullying and things like that actually does happen like I've been bullied just for well I I consider myself as brown skin but back then I was like really dark like really dark skinned and I did lighten up like probably two shades maybe three Shades because of it can you tell me why you started to bleach your skin it's like you're growing up in school you have mainly mainly guys making fun of your skin color and calling you charcoal calling you dark so growing up you just start to feel like oh okay so okay no one likes me because of my skin color like okay I see so that kind of does something to your head you feel me and also we have social media they do praise lighter skin women Latinas whatever pale skin women so that kind of makes you feel like you're not desired you feel me so and that's why I started bleaching my skin that's why I started skin lightening because because of it you know and you know I do people that do buy my stuff like they do tell me that it's helping them feel more confident I know it's kind of sad but it's like that's the society we live in now So when you say when people buy your stuff can you talk about your business and what it is that you sell I I sell skin bleaching cream pretty controversial I know but I do have negative comments people saying you hate yourself you wish you're white this and this and that um your follower like just just a lot of stuff but I don't really like listen to it I don't really I really don't care I guess how Society sees dark women like we're basically the the losing team like who wants to be on the losing team I felt like lighter skin women they they were more desired and they get away with more and they have more privileges than I did and also I so thought that personally I also thought I look prettier lighter um and for me I honestly don't I don't think it's a big deal because I feel like people want to be darker and people want to be lighter so I don't see why it's such a taboo I'm not ashamed of it because it's kind of I kind of see the hypocrisy in it being a lighter person I do experience a tremendous amount of privilege and I'm not denying that of you at all I think what upset me about the skin bleaching is that a lot of mothers do it to their daughters and from my own experience sometimes your parents do it to you and you don't have the consent of the child or someone like me could end up much lighter than I was in my childhood and kind of have an identity issue and it's just for me it's a matter of consent and also I feel like you have to ask yourself what's the goal you know the goal is to end colorism racism I feel like you changing your skin tone it's just feeding into the cycle and also I think making money off of that is very kind of shady some people just personally feel like they look better lighter just like some people feel like they look better with makeup on why not you just tell everybody love your natural skin you don't need makeup from not wearing makeup though whereas someone with darker skin might experience hypocrisy though yeah and that's not fair I also don't think we can just ignore that there's such a terrible history of racism and colorism and that's why it's a bigger deal to people when people are bleaching their skin versus when people are putting on makeup and yeah I think for me when it comes to skin bleaching I'm a lot less interested of the personal experience and more just like why is this a multi-billion dollar industry like why why is dove you know something in the U.S that you know they just sell bar soaps here but in Asia they literally are selling skin bleaching Asia and Africa the Caribbean like we need to talk about how this is like a capitalist Enterprise that is invested in people liking their skin like that to me like I think that that's why it's important to like remember like who benefits from people painting their skin like I think the the conversations like we need to talk about class and capitalism along this as well so why does make them get a pass one is literally the same concept they're internalizing the idea that being lighter skinned is prettier and I get why like obviously like I'm very privy to the societal pressures that would drive one to skin bleach so I'm not trying to judge but but you are though you are and so and we just have to own that let's just own it I don't know how I'm judging I'm just I literally acknowledge that I understand why like skin bleaching is a thing I have like a lot of family that skin bleaches I'm not sitting here pretending like oh just love yourself blah blah like or even questioning that you like don't love yourself like I I understand there are so many pressures that would make someone want to bleach their skin in the first phase I just think that it is a consequence of like internalized like anti-blackness like you've internalized something and it's not to say that it's your fault it's just like we live in a world and we absorb the various messages and we are all impressionable I don't have much to add but I do think that what I would like for this conversation to do is less of focusing on like your personal experience of skin bleaching in the business and more of just like you as someone who like had a lived experience of being darker skin like you saw and like you like had like the material experience of like receiving discrimination and like feeling less desirable and like once your skin became lighter like it opened up opportunities endorsed you I think that that's what this conversation needs to focus on of just like actual like that is a very clear experience an example of colorism like it is real it happens yeah people treat you differently like that's why I think this conversation really needs to Center on why is it societally that being lighter skin has very clear material advantages of both Beauty desirability romantic relationships economic socio-economic opportunities like this is real who here has had pressure from their mother or their family or have heard those messages uh from within the household about colorism and who wants to share that experience so I think one of the experiences of colorism that has stuck with me and I know that like my mother of course like she said this offhandedly but you know as a child like that's something that's rooted in you but I remember one time and she was just like you don't need to marry somebody that's like you're a shade or darker like your kids are going to come out too dark and I just remember being like damn like is there something wrong with me moving here after 9 11 there was a huge push I think in the Middle Eastern Community to look as white as possible so it wasn't necessarily that it was the beauty standard but rather a way to not get hate crimed or to kind of stay under the radar and so my mom would tell me things like tell people you're Russian and things like that so kind of like keeping a proximity to whiteness was seen as a safer idea hello for me in my family Dynamic it didn't come down to skin as so much as hair politics so my hair when I was a child was very thick and straight like a tapestry of hair and then it got curly with puberty and as my hair got curly my mom without discussion stepped in with the executive decision that we would be straightening my hair there was an assessment made on me as a child and then as a younger woman of like oh like you're almost there like if we can control your hair if we can get your hair a certain texture you could be mistaken for white and that reflects well on us anybody else want to share their experience of colorism from from their families when I was younger my little brothers were much like lighter than me um so I think at a very early age I understood that Society ascribed like lightness to like femininity and like Darkness to masculinity I think a lot of what I struggled with when I was younger was like blaming myself and like not like being confused as to why I was being treated differently so when I was old enough to understand what colorism was and how many systems are at play and that it really has nothing to do with me and everything to do with how people like are conditioned I think it was liberating for me that really helped me um start thinking of myself as beautiful for me um many would probably assume that my parent like pushed it on me but it's definitely the opposite like my mom she she always tells me that I'm beautiful like even when I was darker like uh she always told me I was beautiful she never said I had to use cream or use anything to lighten my skin I just got influenced by the media honestly yeah I have a similar experience my mom she really um embraced my hair told me it was beautiful and up and encouraged me to grow it but I just remember watching like TV Disney Channel and all of these things and asking why can't my hair look like that why can't it be straight so for me it's the same I I saw more through the media but I was still getting that support from my family that you know that encouragement it's pretty obvious per meeting for me is like information and accessibility to that I grew up in the Bronx so like I you know people are around people that look like them for almost their whole lives and so they don't it's like so embedded that way it's so embedded like they stay in the projects forever and you know I I managed to leave like I went out of the hood to get an education and you know and I've already you know I already didn't look like them because of my fair skin I'll go back and I've been having these conversations these kind of like esoteric seeming conversations that people that I grew up with have never had before I think that's interesting I'm sorry I just gotta I gotta be I gotta be the odd man out again I guess what I'm hearing is is that because you've had a different experience you think that the people who stayed home because people just stay home they don't leave their hometowns you think that they've been held back because of their race and now that's not what I'm saying at all no that's not what I said I racial experience will change depending on where you're located I think is what is all I'm saying and so um people might not have as much of an awareness of how they are different from others if they're in a homogeneous environment so it isn't until they experience something different and are an environment of diversity and of different experience that they see oh wait maybe I am of marginalized experience and then they bring that back and you know they can try and pretend like they never saw that but you know and try and integrate back into their home life but that's impossible you can't unsee it so we've talked a lot about some of the systems that contribute to colorism but let's talk about the media and the cultural aspect I noticed like there's like an oversaturation of like lighter-skinned biracial um woman who are sort of like meant to be like the representatives of like Blackness on TV I also think representation definitely can't fix any everything right but I I think seeing more dark-skinned women in the media like Lupita nyongo who's just like gorgeous I was like well if she's beautiful it's like why do I think like dark skin is ugly and I think it's becomes frustrating when you feel like you constantly have to wait for representation like everyone will get representation before you and even when we are presented we're presented as ghetto and loud and like we're not meant to be in a relationship like we always like stress our partner out we're annoying like We complain a lot and it just sucks like like I was saying like it does do something to your head um and I personally I personally feel like black women are at the bottom of the barrel like nobody wants black women like nobody desires black women they basically think we're trash and that gets to your head especially when you have a whole bunch of you know even celebrities like men black men like wanting to be with white women or lighter skinned women it makes you feel like you're just not wanted and it makes you feel like you want to join the the hype we have made a lot of progresses in the campaigns you do see a wider range of Shades but is that why is that all of a sudden a trend you know what I mean I'm happy it's happening but I feel like this is something that should have been happening you know and also a lot of a lot of the time you can put these wide ranges of Shades in front of the lens but my question is when I show up to set what's the crew giving you know where where there are people of color helping formulate the formulas of the product you know it's so much deeper than just what you see in front of the lens um I do worry sometimes like Isaiah said there will be and again I use this word very intentionally moments but it often gets translated back into the culture as a trend Trends are not lasting Trends are not legislation Trends are not resources Trends are not restructuring of ideas and resources let's bring it back to social media for a second um what do you think uh first when you hear the word cultural appropriation cultural appropriation to me is not um it's not breeds that are being stolen or something or things that you know people if somebody can do braids and they want to do braids they can do braids that's not cultural appropriation to me it might be cultural appreciation and I think that that's something that is looked over a lot I think that cultural appropriation comes in place where like like like political parties will use struggles of black people to get laws passed or something like that that to me is cultural appropriation um when it comes to cultural appropriation the reason why for example indigenous peoples of the Americas don't want to wearing a headdress is because what has happened in the last 500 years like literally acts of genocide being put in boarding schools like literally being killed and discriminated against and experiencing real harm for like being able to wear their cultural Traditions we're talking about the black hair textures discrimination legally because it happens because there are like for example schools like workplaces like various forms of employment that say that like you as a black person having this black hairstyle will not be accepted like we're not okay with that and so when I see a white girl wear Fulani braids or type of braids whatever type of braids I'm just like you're never going to experience in the way that like a black person is for wearing their own cultural Traditions like real like socioeconomic discrimination like I don't know I just think that I'm over it I kind of wanted to touch on like the idea of cultural appreciation and for me I do love when people take certain aspects of my culture and when they credit it to mine and I think oftentimes we can see on Tick Tock and other media is like sometimes white people act like they thought of an idea that's like historically existed and that to me is not appreciation anymore the line for me is just um between appropriation and appreciation is benefiting you know what I mean if you do something that a culture has been teased about put down about and then you put it on now that it's a trend and you're benefiting from it you're getting these followers you're able to raise your prices because of that all of these things are really detrimental and they you know they're kind of Heartless with these platforms that are new and are emerging the same Dynamics are mirrored back to us whether that is racism colorism misogyny islamophobia when we have new platforms like this they are not bigger than these things they do not exceed these things they literally just mirror back these same realities these same problems these same Dynamics if not amplify them and if you're looking for racism you're going to find it if you're looking for colors and you're going to find it and I think and that that's not I'm not trying to negate anybody's lived experience but I think that there's also a thing in life that if you're looking for something you can speak it into existence some kind of Mark yeah so to speak to that let's say me and Kelvin were in a group chat with a non-black person and they sent a gift that could be considered a black gift I think it's and I I accuse them of digital blackface but he doesn't and and so pause it there because you you guys are saying like just because something's happening or like if we have different feelings on it whose point of view determines if something is actually happening or not or if we're still in the realm of opinion and feelings I think as a non-black person if even one black person told me something's not okay I would listen to them it could be one out of a hundred I would really think that's dangerous I'm sorry to cut you off you don't think that's dangerous because you're giving me the power to determine how you interact with but it's really not that much power to not use a gift that's not meant for me who said it's not meant for you if we create content as black people we're not posting it on a website where only black people can get into we're sharing it with you I think people get offended when you when when people misuse the in the the the content that we have and abuse it but I can't tell you what gift I mean if it has the n-word in it real big I'm gonna take offense to that but you already knew that you already knew that but if it's like if it's like a niche popular black person who does comedy and you're and you post their gift I'm not going to say well hey hey slow down like I don't I don't have that kind of power to tell someone that and it's dangerous I feel it I feel like you're like um devaluing people's like feelings you know what I mean it might not offend you but let's say you're in a group chat and it bothered him why can't you just acknowledge that it bothers him and not you you know what I mean some people have different feelings on different things but here's the thing simply disagreeing simply disagreeing does not mean I'm not acknowledging your feelings agree because I'm sorry I'll just finish real quick yeah if you're saying is determined by the viewer I think in general like Jeff's like reaction memes um there's a sort of like flattening of people because it's like we only know that person in that context to make us laugh but I think with like black digital blackface or whatever you want to call it there's the added um like aspect of like historically black people being used as like comedic relief like whether if you think back to like like actual blackface shows and like white people painting themselves like pitch black and like doing things that they think will make other people laugh like different like a black stereotypes so I definitely think like there's an aspect to that Destiny how about you how social media affected your view of colorism um like with social media lights light-skinned people who are important and they're you know they're pretty and this and that and that's the same thing I want to feel so and you know there's a lot of benefits that come along with it and I want the same benefits and I'm be honest I want the same benefits like I don't care how do you feel hearing that Maya interesting you asked me um first thing that came to mind was thinking about little Kim and how like so many people in 2022 be like you look so good when you were darker skin I'm just like but y'all treating her like sorry for cussing but it's the truth like she literally said like all the people I was dating would leave me for white European girls like y'all like talked about my nose he talked about my features futurism and just she wanted an easier life so I'm just like I think about like why are there so many material benefits to being lighter also how do we make a world where darker skin people don't have to do this like don't have to like I think that I'm interested in creating a world of like moving towards a world where we don't have like these very clear like straight up pigmentocracy like straight up like like hierarchies of shade that are like rooted in anti-blackness that like are influenced by white supremacy all these things like that are interconnected with one another I feel like it's Never Gonna Change like we wanted to change I wanted to hope that it'll change but is it really Gonna Change I really don't think what do you define as change like change as like you want people to this fair game for also dark-skinned people like we all are on an equal level and I feel like that's never going to happen let's talk about dating for for a second and has colorism affected your dating life made it easier or harder I think often people push aside the conversations about like romantic relationships for darker skinned people and how limited and how isolating it feels to be darker skinned and experienced people ridiculing you or saying purely like I'm not interested in any darker skinned person even though there's Millions upon millions of people in this world who are dark like you know making clearly those preferences I think that we also need to like really really sit and think about like what does it mean or like to feel like you're going through an entire life without experiencing like the Romantic care that because we live under capitalism often the care and like just feelings of love that we receive are regulated to romantic or familiar relationships I think that this is larger than does colorism like what does it mean to not receive care because of how you look I can't go inside the head of every woman that I've ever encounter and determine if my color mattered or not and even if they said it it might not mean anything it might not be true it sounds like it has an affected colorism specifically has an effective I can't I can't say definitively because is there anybody who people in say colorism has it affected their dating go ahead um well when I was a kid no one like looked my way I think it's also dependent on my features and the country I came from but also I was Many Many Shades Darker and as I got older you know I was more I could say palatable to the white man the people that might come up to me at a bar feel more comfortable coming up to me rather than someone who might be a darker Middle Eastern person and I've been told things like oh you're Middle Eastern I thought you were white like you're so pretty for a middle eastern and it's like what like that's such an odd thing to say to someone but I have gotten that many times in my life when my skin tone changed so for me it's reverse in the gay world it's uh it's it's different white boys want uh they want the BB the BBD you know the the you know what I'm trying to say and that's that's just a true phenomenon that we navigate in that if you're light-skinned in the gay world you're not you're not sought after like you are as a dark darker male from that you're not sought after from white men or white men like other black men absolutely absolutely because that's just they want they want the darker darker the berries through the juice like that's that's what's that's what's sought after in the gay World um and that's that's specifically with white men I don't I haven't you know how do we feel when people talk about preferences you know somebody might say you know I don't have anything against darker skoned women I just prefer light-skinned women I just prefer to date them like I just really like implore people to interrogate why they have certain preferences like we don't live in the vacuum we're all like interacting with the forces at play all of the time so we don't come and arrive to our preferences um independent of racism and futurism and fatfo Beyond texturism um I think it's all connected so I think that's what confuses me and I think um people are really dishonest about the fact so I would just say if you have a preference for a lighter skin that's colorism like it's literally color resemble because how do you determine why someone likes something and so so I want to ask you a question so in the beginning you said if you're discriminated if you're choosing someone because of their color your discrimination so if I say that I only date much much darker women is that a comment that warrants a deep dive in my head like what do I have against lights I see women or is it only in the reverse and and at what point again at what point is someone's preference Up For Debate if you have a preference for a lighter skinned woman and this we're all agreeing I think that colorism exists I don't understand how you could come arrive to that preference independent of colorism the system I think more people prefer lighter skinned women than darker skinned women and I don't think that's a coincidence who will you date says a lot about who you will advocate for who you trust who you believe deserves support who you're willing to show up for this is why I said desirability politics because it is political because of like who you deem as pretty like goes into like these other characteristics who you deem as ugly goes into these other negative characteristics so it's like yes like who you desire like who do you want to like who you're attracted to goes beyond just romantic intimate sexual relationships that also very much so Blends into your platonic relationships as well your relationships with your co-workers all other elements of your life like I think that's why like it's important to think about colorism as not just like straightly around dating or just around like preferences but also just like how do you treat the dark-skinned people in your life I think everybody should ask themselves that how many dark-skinned people are in your life or in your friend group like how like how do you treat darker skinned people individuals of all Races like like when you meet them on a day to day like what your interactions look like what are your thoughts about outcome the type of attention that I have received societally professionally and culturally is unlike anything that the darker women on my side of the family have experienced it's very clear that when white people approach or engage with us or or interact with us in any way I am the one they feel comfortable talking to I am the one that they want to take the order from I am the one that they bring the bill to I am the one that is deemed not non-threatening I am the one that is never loitering I am the one that could never be doing anything wrong and I feel like for the darker women in my family that's extremely painful thank you for sharing that so it's clear that you know we obviously have different views on this topic if we have so many people that are on different pages about this issue how do we move forward as a society and changing it I personally feel that colorism is never going to end honestly but if I was to give a solution I would say people should just you know promote like all skin tones and have everyone on at an equal level and not one higher than the other one solution or one kind of like tiny bit into the solution would be just more media representation yeah I also think it starts of course in the home the way you talk about it but I think people that are in positions of power need to use their power whether that be black people or white people use that power to show darker skinned people in the media you know we need to see more of it the first thing you want to do is accept yourself um and then I think you're a little bit better equipped to fight against these things I think I want to kind of Empower folks who don't think that they can make a difference yeah and encouraging people to be more critical about their proximity to whiteness and how they take up space is one where like at least at the local level we can maybe start to see some shift in change get out of your Echo Chambers if you are if you're around people who are saying the same things and they're thinking the same way that you do you are part of the problem I I think that anything that we do to address or Not address colorism will happen collectively and will happen across gender across Race Across class acrossability and that purporting individual Solutions is false and also very seductive yeah I would say I implore people to believe that change is possible on many fronts like on individual level like changing internally how you feel about yourself your self-esteem and also on a systemic level demanding that the systems serve people who historically have been antagonized by the system I think those two things should not be divorced from each other in terms of solutions to colorism I would like to seem these conversations prioritize the voices of like not just darker skinned people who have the lived experiences of colorism but also like folks like usually it's narcosystem people who've like done research and like have expertise on like understanding the system of dominance like I think that I'm really really tired of seeing lighter skinned people like say the exact same things and parrot the voices of Darker skinned people and get claps and Applause by darkest skin people received antagonism you know replicating colorism okay I want to thank you all for giving us your time today day I know it was I got pretty intensive time it's a difficult conversation but it is important one I don't know if we changed any minds but I definitely learned a lot from listening to you all today and hopefully our audience will as well so thank you thank you for coming on thank you for facilitating I'll be free to move thank you I can't wait to watch it uh well Where Do We Begin I actually think it went pretty well makes it people uncomfortable so I came what I did to do I saw some other parts were kind of reductive in some ways the panel got a little bit spicy and also the rawness no fluff you know keeping it real I think it's impossible to talk about colorism and not get emotional I wish I didn't have to speak on colorism but it affects too many people for me to be able to sleep well at night not to it's definitely a layered topic I think that my face sometimes betrays me I was laughing at some of the more absurd comments that were made during the panel colorism is sad but it's a society we live in now so we can't really do anything about it we all have to believe that change is possible for a change to happen colorism sucks it's real that would be my final thought [Music]

Channel: VICE

Views: 902,988

Keywords: documentary, documentaries, docs, interview, culture, lifestyle, world, exclusive, independent, underground, videos, journalism, vice guide, vice.com, vice, vice magazine, vice mag, vice videos, film, short films, movies, skin bleaching, black women, skin lightening, black lives matter, colorism debate, light skin privilege, what is colorism, colorism in jamaica, dark skin, light skin

Id: Nzn2f9FVuKo

Length: 43min 20sec (2600 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 08 2023