(ThyBlackMan.com) I’ve never liked that “Ebony and Ivory” stuff.
Many Black people describe each other as “dark-skinned”. As a child, I never really thought about it but when I was confronted with white people who call all people of color who aren’t pale “dark-skinned”, I began to think.
Maybe I really will be a teacher or professor one day in an “official” capacity and that’s why I’m thinking about this on this level. Maybe I just think too much, one of my overwrought idiosyncrasies.
Whatever the reason, I have adopted a policy of not categorizing brown people as “dark-skinned” based on some theory of relativity when comparing oneself to milk and white chalk. Unless there’s a point, I will not write stories comparing Black people to consumable or exotified things like chocolate, caramel, leopards, cheetahs, lions (no big cats from jungle or plain in general), animals in general, darkness, overdone comparisons and conflation with nature like trees, wood, plants, flowers, and soil.
I will question when people call myself or others “black-skinned”—as in the color, not the socio-political identity (‘B’lack)—in my presence.
I will find other ways to describe brown skin.
There is an entire spectrum of brownness. Unless it’s painted or treated somehow, I don’t even think ebony wood is actually ‘black’. Even coffee isn’t black; anybody who’s ever looked at coffee before (or spilled it) can tell you that coffee is brown—even espresso. All my life I’ve had this threshold in my mind that stops me from thinking of ‘B’lack people as literally ‘black’, even the most beloved brownest of us.
We need to change the way we think about our skin tones, complexions, hues, color-coding, and what have you. I believe that mitigating racism and other forms of oppression means being active about changing the way we think about our bodies on emotional and psychological level. It means breaking down our pathologies about our skin and the overvaluation of “white” skin.
We have to start asking ourselves “What do I/they mean when I/they use the phrase “dark-skinned”.
I love the color black. At one point, most of my wardrobe was black in high school—I was really emo[tive]/empathic in those days. However, even though we may identify politically as ‘B’lack, not literally, the color is perceived in many negative ways and has many negative connotations such as lowness, hypersexuality, darkness, evil, and disease, when it is mapped onto our skin literally. White folks have spent centuries coming up with and solidifying new ways of turning us ‘black’ because we are not white.
Maybe this is just a long way of saying we need to start re-teaching people their primary colors and how to discern nuances.
Staff Writer; Shannon Rucker
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I agree with blackbeauty. The term “dark skinned ” just means that you have dark skin, a physical property, like the term “light skinned” means that you have light skin. Even though white is associated with goodness and sometimes Our “dark skinned” race has trouble with stereotyping just remember all the good things that are black, such as nice cars, tvs and coal before it becomes a beautiful diamond. In my opinion the color black is associated with sofistication and importance, just remember that you are a hidden diamond!!
I think it’s stupid to sit here and say we don’t need color classifications. If color didn’t matter then God would have made us all the same color no matter what climate we lived in.
How can the police narrow down a suspect if they didn’t have color? How can we have statistics if there weren’t classifications?
White people didn’t start color classifications, God did so if you got an issue with it then take it up with him because he invented it.
As a “heads up” the Latinos have now coveted the term “brown people” for themselves.
This prejudice is prevalent among Blacks as well. I once had a guy tell me I was a pretty “dark-skinned” girl which made me wonder if that meant that there weren’t many dark-skinned pretty girls that was mostly reserved for “light-skinned” females. However, life is too short to be concerned with things that have no negative bearings on my life. It’s what is on my inside that makes me unique, intelligent and successful not my outside.
@BlackBeauty:
I was disappointed to see that this was the only comment here and the first one at that. Out of this sheer disappointment, I decided to respond and leave it at this:
I’ve heard white folks conflating ‘black’-skinned and dark-skinned–when they do this, it almost always connates a negative outlook on how they view brown skin and anybody whose skin isn’t pale. The saddest and most infuriating thing about it is that Black children, teenagers, young adults/grown folks, and people all around do the same thing.
I think asking questions about why people refer to us the way they do and choosing to name ourselves in more specific ways as opposed to blanket terms/pejorative terms like “dark-skinned” and “black”-skinned (as in the color “black” in the most negative ways as mentioned in the article) is a step towards seeing [white] racism for what it really is, seeing the many ways in which it manifests itself, and calling it out.
Oh and by way, I’m pretty sure that the net has plenty of space for my tiny little article along with your negative, demeaning comment attached to it. I’m just sayin’. That’s the beauty of it.
This article is totally relevant and I get the point of the author. I hope that one day people will stop to talk about color. White people could have called themselves pink but we know why they didn’t. They are the one who started the human classification to preserve their supremacy. Everything white is supposed to be pure and we know all the negativity attached to the black color. There is only one race, the human race and nothing else.
Just what do you think it means?
Dark skinned means that a person, no matter their race, has dark skin!
Why is that so hard to understand?
Your entire commentary is worthless, unnecessary, and frankly a waste of space that could have been used for something more productive.