light skin vs dark skin problem

light skin vs. dark skin. I recently read an article by Khaya Dlanga, on his blog about light skin and dark skin with the black culture. How the lighter skinned blacks get better treatment within society as a whole. How the lighter skinned blacks are held in more higher esteem then the darker girl. As someone who believes in the beauty of all woman, i wanted to explore this topic on my own. it is a topic that has been covered over and over. So I  juxtaposed a number of articles together to find out more about what is being said about this topic and the reaction of different people within the black community and within our own culture.

 

 

It is only normal the first article would be that of Khaya Dlanga, who got me interested on the topic.

 

The lightness of being light skinned*

 

"This is an age-old discussion that has gone on in the black community for some time now. Light-skinned people are automatically considered beautiful simply because they are lighter skinned speaks volumes about the insecurities that we have as a community."

"What does this say? Is this a legacy of the past? I guess when William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never buried. It’s not even past,” he knew what he meant. The past it seems is still light skinned, even amongst black folk. I got nothing against light-skinned folk. I mean, depending on the weather, I too become a couple of shades lighter."
http://khayadlanga.com/tag/light-skinned/
 

 It's all so true that the lighter you are the more beautiful you are said to be. When i spoke to some of my friends about this topic, they gave me a different way of thinking about it, they said, take the light skin girl and make her darker, would she still be as beautiful as she is thought to be? Good question , but one thing they need to realise is that, that light girl will never be darker, because that is how she was created. Instead of them imagining them darker, it is important that we as a black community embrace our skin colour whatever shade, for our pigmentation has a story to tell, a history and a legacy. It is true what Khaya says, the black community is oppressing themselves the same way they were, because of there skin colour. It is a cycle that is not stopping.

I read another article on this topic on Essence  I took out this part, because there is nothing more powerful the recall of someone who has experiences the prejudice first hand, in a family situation.

"My best friends are chocolate women who have stories that make my blood boil hot like fire whenever they tell them, painful memories of grandmothers preferring one child over another because of lighter skin or elementary school classmates taunting with names like “African bush boogie.” That’s not including the mess that men and the media have offloaded on them as they matured into beautiful but fragile young ladies. But I can’t help but feel like focusing on just some Black women’s experience with colorism works to reinforce the same divide that colorism creates in the first place."

http://www.essence.com/2012/01/31/the-write-or-die-chick-dark-girls-light-girls-most-brown-girls-have-a-colorism-story/

 Media is also playing a big role in the self confidence of many darker skinned women, being torn apart. Looking at celebrities like Beyonce or Chomee who bleach their skin, promoting the image of lighter skin being better then darker skin.
There is nothing worse then being treated different within your own family, because you do not look the same as some of your family members. I know within my family there are different skin tones, with my brother being the darkest, and a sister being lighter.
 

















my sister Makaziwe and brother Ntandazo

The light skin vs. dark skin problem need to be sorted before a new generation of young blacks grow up with a mentality of that one shade is better then the other. It is up to the black society to break these stereotypes. No tone of blackness is better then  the other, nor more beautiful.
We need to realise beauty more then just pigmentation.