Research Paper on Being a Racist on Your Own Race

Research Paper: Light vs. Dark in the Black Community

Women are faced with discrimination all the time due to their gender and appearance. The African American woman has it twice as hard because she is not only judged by other races but by her own. This sort of discrimination has recently been named colorism by Alice Walker, who is an African American author and poet who focuses on this topic. Within the black community the color of the skin is looked intensely. This is not something that just started in the present day society but something that was started even before the Civil War (Jones 1). This is due to the white society making the African American people feel like they were not good enough and less than human; therefore the closer the African American people were to having a white complexion the more the people were looked at as being beautiful. To make this situation worse the black woman is still being judged by their weight, height, hair length, and complexion.

The black woman is faced with the hardship of not being accepted in her community because of something that no one has control over. The darker black women has it harder to find someone to love, to get a better job, get in a club , or even be looked at as a beautiful woman. In a recent article it was documented that a club promoter in Detroit decided that as a promotion the lighter black woman would get in the club for free (Clark 2). Within this article it shows clearly how the darker woman in the situation felt less than a woman due to the discrimination based on the color of her skin. Black women stated that this issue reopened old, deep wounds as word of the party spread through the Internet (Clark 4).

The black community has made it where the light skinned or mixed girl is what is considered pretty. While watching music videos, commercials, and looking through magazine articles there are very few darker women that are being used as advertisings. For instants, in the most recent cattle calling for CIROC, which is owned by the successful black man, Sean Combs also known as Diddy, Puff Daddy or P. Diddy. Diddy was quoted saying "White, Hispanic and Light-skinned African American women to represent his vodka" (Combs). Not even this black man gives the darker woman the same respect as lighter skinned women. This could be an active problem within the younger dark girls, because society is clearly showing them that the dark girl is not what is pretty.

In a recent study known as the "brown paper bag test "which exhibits that the darker skin African American woman are faced with a lower self esteem. This test is using products to try to make the darker women lighter, cutting or suicidal thoughts, eating, disorders and plastic surgery. This test consists of sitting several young African American girls at a table with dolls and then having them choose the doll they feel is most pretty. This test shows that when the young girls are being asked the question instead of saying that the doll that the most popular pick is the doll that is the brightest. This same test was done with young white girls and these young girls picked the doll that looked like them. The young women should not to be faced with something as dramatic as this, but be reassured that being dark is still beautiful. It has been documented that people spend more time worrying about discrimination against other races instead of looking into their own race to fix those flaws (Hochschild 2).

It is no longer common for a black man to choose a black woman to be with. They are so influenced by what is being shown on TV that the black woman is not even being chosen. This really has nothing to do with the race of the person someone loves, but if the black man does not even appreciate the beauty of a black woman , who will? This shows the breakdown of the black community. The black woman can be perceived to not be good enough or pretty enough for the man of her kind.

Being a woman is hard enough without being judged all the time by what men see on TV. Rather it is from the way people are dressed, what their hair and makeup look like or the color of skin. The black woman has to carry herself in way that she looks confident no matter how she really feels about herself. Even though the black society is telling her she is not pretty enough because she is not light enough and the white community discriminating against the black woman because she is black. This social problem is not receiving the attention that it needs for it to change. There are women who believe that they will never be accepted for who they are because of the color of their skin.

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