Afro-pessimism in the creation of colorism

 

Gelazhia Atkins

Afro-pessimism in the creation of colorism

ENGL 2017 – 64187

5/1/2023





Colorism is the discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone and is prevalent in the black community. Colorism is a product of slavery due to black women being raped which created mulattoes. During the slavery era, dark skinned slaves had to work in the fields while light skinned slaves took care of the house. Texturism and Featurism are the cousins of colorism. Texturism is discrimination based on how close natural hair is to white people’s hair. Hair styles like box braids, cornrows, and fros are not particularly accepted in the workplace and can determine if a black person will be hired Bonnets are used by black people to protect their hair, but they are seen as ghetto in society. However, when white people wear them, they are seen as trendy. As a result of texturism, some black women have stunted their hair growth by perming, hot combing, or flat ironing their hair to make it like white people’s hair. Featurism is the prejudice against Afrocentric features and a preference of Eurocentric features. Lil Kim is a perfect example of featurism because she had face altering surgery to make her nose and lips smaller. 

The brown paper bag test was a test where whoever was lighter, or the color of the bag would be allowed to join organizations and enter places. Similarly, the pencil and the comb tests discriminated against dark skinned people as well. The pencil and comb test tested if a pencil or comb would be stuck or go through your hair. 

Celebrities of lighter complexion get richer and further into their career than those of darker. Rapper Saweetie is a light skin woman and is very successful despite her inability to rap. Alike Saweetie, Ice Spice is an inadequate rapper that is light skin. Their raps don’t have any real meanings and it shows their subpar penmanship. On the hand, there are two darkskin women who are rappers, Monaleo and Flo Milli, who should be further along in their careers. They have great penmanship and have been in the game longer than Ice Spice. 

In the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Janet Hubert was replaced by a light skinned woman. Janet Hubert was told she was being too difficult on the cast of the show and was instantly replaced. This shows how colorism has masculinized women of a darker complexion. It would have been easy to replace her with a woman that looked like her, but lighter complexions are favored. Janet Hubert even reported that Will Smith told you’re-so-black jokes before the show began to the audience. 

In Martin, there is a significant amount of colorism. Martin always talks down to Pam by comparing her to different types of animals throughout the series. The character Shanaynay and Pam are always prepared to fight and talk “ghetto” while Gina is the mediator and talks properly. Another thing to point out is that Pam and Shanaynay talk louder than Gina. Shanaynay and Pam wear tight fitting clothes that bring attention to their figures while Gina is dressed professionally. The show Martin made fun of darker skin women and played into the stereotype that women of this complexion are ghetto and are like animals.

In Kindred, Dana’s aunt is a colorist because she would want Dana’s children to be light skin rather than dark. She also believes that dark skins are inferior to light skins. In A Different Drummer, Dymphna and her mother shows colorism when they couldn’t believe that Bethra wanted to be a maid because she is light skinned and only big darkskin women are maids. Because Bethra doesn’t look like the average black woman, they figure she has an education. Dymphna basically calls Bethra ugly because she says that since she is black, there will not be any competition when it comes to boys. The afro-pessimism concept is shown through the creation of colorism from slavery because the difference in the treatment of light skin and dark skin slaves carried on into today’s society with celebrities, social media, and tv shows.


References 

Butler, O. E. (2022). Kindred. Beacon Press. 

Carlton, G. (2022, April 22). The history of the Brown Paper Bag Test, the discriminatory practice used to exclude dark-skinned black people. All That's Interesting., https://allthatsinteresting.com/brown-paper-bag-test 

Kelley, W. M. (2019). A different drummer. Anchor Books. 

Sanaalysem. (2023, January 11). The first example we have is the critically... Colorism In The Black Community on Tumblr. https://sanaalysem.tumblr.com/post/156607164973/amp 

A short history of hair discrimination. Halo. (n.d.). https://halocollective.co.uk/halo-background/

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