Judging people based on their skin color has been a practice for years, and not only in the United States. Coming from a Haitian background, I have been discriminated against by my own people because I come from European descent. Europeans have historically done Haitians wrong because of the way they look, and now I receive the same treatment because I'm a little French (god forbid). My African features are not as defined as other. I have even had people tell me I sound “white” on the phone. But does this make me less black?
Recently, I joined a Facebook group about natural hair. I expected to just learn how to better care for my hair, but a lot of the women and men in this group bring up a lot of relevant and controversial issues. One post really affected me. An individual posed the question: What do you consider black? And I thought about this a lot. I have always considered myself black because I have dark skin, textured hair, and maybe my African features are not well defined, but they are present.
Yet, there are others who do not consider me black enough. What does it mean to be “black enough”? Is there a scale for blackness that nobody told me about? Oh! No, I get it. We are reverting to the 20th century - we’re using the Brown Paper Bag Test. A test that compared the skin color of individuals to that of a brown paper bag to determine what privileges they deserve (or do not deserve). I’m darker than a brown paper bag, so do I get to be considered black now?
Do you see how wrong that is? I said this in the group, and I will say it again. Black people come in all different shades, sizes, and traits. Even in my own family, we are all different skin tones.There is no scale of “blackness”. If you are a decedent of Africa in any way shape or form then who am I to deny your entrance into the black community. It does not matter what you look like. Two dark skinned black people can have a white, light skinned child if somewhere in their genes that trait is present. You cannot tell me that child is not black because they do not pass some test, or are not ‘dark enough’ on this imaginary scale of blackness. We as a people have been oppressed and segregated enough. Are we really going to segregate our own people too?
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