Note to readers: I was asked to research the topic of why among people of color in every culture the darker are often lower, socio-economic class. I haven't spent a lot of time on this, but here's my opinion.
Although I don't like President Obama as a leader because of his regressive 19th century based social and economic policies where citizens are considered pawns and tools of the state, there are three positive cultural check marks in his column as a role model for American blacks. 1) He is educated and employed and thus a positive role model for young men who may find glamor and self-esteem in a gansta life style. 2) He is married to the mother of his children, and lack of marriage of their parents is the number one reason for poverty among children, whether black or white. 3) He did not use skin tone in selecting a wife. This is a huge plus for darker skinned, African American women, and certainly can't hurt him at the polls.
He's one of the few high profile blacks in American culture of any age, time, income, or profession who is married to a woman darker than himself. When you analyze that, it's not hard to figure out why. He was raised in a white culture, by his white mother and grandparents, and in that culture any black person, regardless of skin tone is simply . . . black. Not so for black men raised culturally with African Americans. For them, a lighter skinned girl friend/wife is preferred.
And this isn't an exclusively American phenomenon, although some would like to brand us with that and link it to years of racial mixing with the slave masters.
See this biased link whose authors apparently have never traveled. Sorry folks, that war ended in 1865 and black men are still choosing women of light skin tone to be the mother of their children. It also happens in Brazil, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and also in India and many Asian countries. It was also apparent among Russians, where many Russians were ethnically part Asian or descendant from people who had worked the land for centuries. In India, the caste system is also a system of color. In China, before the Communist revolution, the higher better educated classes were very light skinned. The Laplanders of several Scandinavian countries are all darker and of lower social/economic class than the majority Swedes, Finns, Norwegians and Russians with whom they share citizenship.
It's called "pigmentocracy." My theory is it's roots are in labor--the darker a woman was, the more likely her family worked in the sun; they were laborers, slaves, serfs, servants. The freedom to choose a spouse based on relationship or love is just a little blip of recent history even for Europeans and Americans. If a man's wife and children didn't labor in the fields or mines, he had status. For most of history, it's been an economic decision made early in life for the betterment of the family. If you can't change your own skin color, you can change that of your children by selecting a fair skinned wife. Now it's an economic decision made by media--have you ever seen the women hosts of Spanish/Hispanic TV? Or even the desk clerk in a hotel in San Antonio compared to the maid who cleans your room?
Shadeism from Shadeism on Vimeo.
This video was made by a woman whose family is from from Sri Lanka. But notice the young black women shown on this documentary, who apparently haven't seen the pigmentocracy among their own people! The young Bangladeshi woman had discrimination even among her own siblings and parents. If it's in your own family--do you really want to condemn dead colonialism and society years later? In south Asia, colorism existed long before the British arrived as one gentleman observed. The Hip Hop culture really promotes shadeism. Ironically, Nayanni (film maker's name, I think) will get better attention and coverage because she is light skinned.
I've seen one exception and that's the Berbers of North Africa which DNA studies have shown to be Eurasian, not Arab, not African. I used to help in an ESL class a lovely hazel eyed, fair skinned Berber from North Africa who told me they came to the U.S. due to extreme discrimination in her home country. Although they were Muslims in a Muslim country, they were fairer skinned than the majority. They were the last educated and the last hired and they wanted a better life for their children. There is speculation that Berbers descended in part from white European slaves, so whether it's true doesn't really matter if that was the perception.
This woman wants to be the first female President of Mexico. Look at the color of her skin. If she were more Indian, more ethnic with darker skin, instead of European, what would her chances be?
Posts
