There is this conflict between skin color in the African American culture. The same conflict exists within other ethnicities, but this one has a name. It's called "Light skin versus Dark skin." This simple trend of African Americans competing to be cool comes from a deeper root and has come from a mental bias. I am reading a book called "The Color Complex," by Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson, and Ronald Hall. It breaks down the connection from the separation of African Americans via skin color. The main root to these biases within a race is slavery. From there the bias grew and became more developed until popular culture was able to create a name for it.
When Africans were taken to America to be laborers, there was excessive breeding between the two people. This created tension in legislation because this complicated the morality of the slave trade. This phenomenon raised questions like are mixed individuals free or are they slaves? To demolish this confusion legislation mandated rules and laws like
I observed that the laws they mandated only made the interracial mating rate grow. "... the colonists voted in 1662 that children in Virginia would have the same status as the mother." This means that the freedom of a mixed individual depended on the mother. So if the mother was a slave, then the child was a slave. If the mother was a white woman then the mixed child was free. This law only encouraged Slave owners to mate with female slaves because it gave him more slaves for labor.
Since it was harder to pllace a label of slves of mixed races law makers had to come up with a way to properly label who is black and who is white. In the Color Complex on page 14 says thart "In the upper South including Virgina and Maryland, legislators decided that any person with even a drop Black blood would have the same legal status as a pure African (Russell, Wilson, Hall)." Mulattos or mixed children needed legal identification identifying their race because it was important to keep white and black races as separate as possible. Lighter skinned African Americans whether they were mixed or not were deemed as more intelligent, and civilized. Most were granted a spot in the house to directly serve the slave master. The term used to describe them were "House negroes." The term used to distinguish darker African Americans was "Field Negroes."
To make matters worse, the immigration of Creoles who emulated the appearance of light skinned blacks came to America and distinguished themselves from regular blacks in a superior tone. This distinction contributed to the divide in color. People who are Creole are born in the Caribbean and are of mixed Latino, French, Black and white descent. In the book 'The Color Complex' it states "The Color conscious creoles quickly rose to positions of power and influence within the Colored Community...(Russell, Wilson, Hall)." In their culture, they arrange marriages and sexual relationships in order to keep the Creole bloodline pure according to the book. Due to their light skin, it made their rise in status easier when they migrated to America.
Fast forward past segregation to integration and we have arrived in the present. Now we are faced with our own psychological biases that favor fair skinned individuals. The only difference is that bias is now present of all people, Black white, Latino etcetera. Now that we don't have the same racial unjust laws perpetuating this bias. It's being continued by media. These outlets include the most influential host of media which is tv. On Atlanta Star.com it states "Looking full Black seems to be getting less acceptable. More and more, Black roles are being limited to those who look biracial or multiethnic. "This what Gail Trotter has to say about skin biases in media.
"Magazines always show the same images. Light skin models with exotic features and hair to their buttocks. What about dark skin females? Why are we forgotten?When I was younger, being dark skin was hard, especially growing up being the darkest child. I was teased all the time about my skin color and people often did not believe that I belonged to my family. - I was angry that my sister and mother were deemed prettier than me because of the color of their skin."
In conclusion, lighter skinned African Americans in a lot of cases were treated better than the original African American slave. It started with the slave owners and their separate treatment of slaves. The addition of creole culture further established this divide. From slavery, these biases continued through media and go unnoticed. This division amongst African Americans is obvious and affects all aspects of life.
