The Light Skin Complex

Anybody who knows me well, or well enough for that matter, knows I was going to write about this at some point...smh...

Why do Dark Skinned Black people hating on Light Skinned Black people? Without Frederick Douglass, we would probably still be slaves. Without Jesse Jackson, helping out MLK jr,, White people would probably ignored him. Without Thurgood Marshall, Clarence Thomas wouldn't be Judge now. Now we got Obama as President... and you know eventually we will have a dark skinned African American President. Bush looked at Colin Powell, made him Secretary of State, then gave Condi Rice a chance. See... Dark Skinned Black people should be grateful that we Light Skinned Black people are making their life easier...Agree?” - Yahoo Answers Poster

I have grown to accept that many African-Americans don't have a genuine desire to learn or embrace their history and heritage. I have become accustom to one's “Blackness” in America being more so defined by their clothes and vernacular and taste and music- this is the new Black Pride, at least among younger people.

What I still find increasingly difficult to accept however, is what I refer to among my friends and associates as “Light Skin Complex”. Like most things in life, there are multiple dimensions to this phenomenon- you have the light skin blacks who perceive light skin as a default certification of beauty, you have the light skin blacks who think that all darker skinned people are out to get them and envious, and you even have light skin blacks who believe, as the Yahoo Answers passage above illustrates, that light skin people have somehow carried the weight of Blackness on their backs. It's not all light skin Blacks, obviously...but with the advent of social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, the Light Skin Complex is not only more visible, it's openly glorified.

"#tbt" refers to "Throw Back Thursdays"; on Thursday many Instagram/Twitter Users 

post old photos from childhood. How shallow must you be to remind us that you're light skin?

The younger generation is so oblivious, so ignorant of what it means to be Black, that we now have terms like, “team light skin” or “team mixed”. (you can find 'team dark skin' or 'team caramel' on social media as well but the prevalence is drastically lower and often the context is far less narcissistic). There are even entire Instagram and Tumblr accounts dedicated solely to the proliferation of light skin beauty. What significance is their in reaffirming your skin color in a photograph when the photograph makes it obvious? I have to assume stupidity unless you're a child.

I refuse to get preachy about this issue- anyone of any race who has studied American History knows how sad and disgusting this is. But I do think we need to be less dismissive. When people post things like “#teamlightskin” on my Twitter timeline I tend to unf-ollow them instantly but maybe I should use moments like this an opportunity for constructive debate (I use the word 'debate' very loosely) and education. Some people are going to crucify me for saying this but I didn't write history- the dark skin experience and the light skin experience for blacks, among others, are largely different. It doesn't matter if we're talking about field slaves and house slaves or the representation of color among music video vixens, light skin blacks, like white people will NEVER understand what it feels like to live day to day with dark skin. You can disagree if you want but that statement isn't just about Black people- it's about Dravidians, it's about Aborigines, it's about darker skinned people across the world and throughout history. That withstanding, it still doesn't negate the fact that light or dark- you are still Black to the world.

I forgive children caught up in the Light Skin Complex but if you're a young adult or older, chances are you just unknowingly self-hating and stupid. As far Blacks in the United States go, I hope more of us come to realize that there's a lot of dark(and light) skin people dead and gone and forgotten who sacrificed themselves for us all because of what it meant to be Black, not just dark skinned.

“Even if you in a Benz, you still a nigga in a coupe...” -Kanye West

For what it's worth, I honestly don't care what color a person is. And I've never found a legitimate reason to arbitrarily reaffirm and broadcast mine, especially when it's obvious.

-P. Maestro


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