Colourism

It is hard to deal with something that makes you feel less attractive, less inteligent and less visible

It is pretty rare to find someone who has never dealt with insecurities. From all the people I have met in my life, I came to realise that we all suffer from insecurities of some sort, and most insecurities are hard to be content with.

It was in 2015 when I learned about colourism. My friends and I had a conversation back in high school about how hard life is for most people and that it might be hard for us to even get employment. One friend, asserted that her friend from back ekasi once went to look for a job at a certain resturent and was unfortunatly told by the manager that they only prefer to hire "yellow bones" because they attract customers and they look clean. Imagine the nonses.

I really thought that she was joking or lyieng untill I met a friend in college who told me the same thing happened to her.

She told me that her life back in high school was a bad experience. She faced discrimination and was continuously insulted by her educators and peers because of her skin tone. Most dark skinned people deal with difficulties in accepting themselves because they are told explicitly that a dark skin is unattractive.

What is colourism?

Colourism is a preference for a light skin. It is discrimination within a race agains people with a dark skin tone.

Who do we blame for colourism?

The media.

Who owns/controls the media?

The society.

We, the society, internalise perception of beauty and worth from the broader society and those perception are continued to be communicated to us through different forms of media like news, films, commercials, megazines, and billboards.

Thousands years ago during slave trades, dark skinned slaves where sold at a lower monetary value than slaves with light skin.

In most countries that have been colonised, colourism is a big issue. In the mist of fighting racism, we have to deal with colourism. Opportunities are offered to people with light skin. Qualifications dont really matter because executives hire people based on looks. This however, does not apply to all industries. You dont need to be pretty or cute to be a lawyer or a docter.

The industry that perpetuate colourism is the media industry. Yes we have people with dark skin, but how successful are they compared to their light skinned counterparts? How prominent and well established are they in their career and how influencial are they?

We, the people of colour, can openly talk about racism but very reluctant to talk about colourism. Untill we can openly talk about colourism we are not going to see any changes. The first step in alleviating this issue is to raise awarness for its existence. We must stand against colourism . We can stand together and hold the media accountable for perpertuating this undue premium on lighter skin tone.

Discrimination agains dark skin is a serious issue. The issue runs so deep that our sisters are bleaching their skin so as to look beautiful. It is so sad that something so natural, something that no one has control over, can make you feel powerless, voiceless and imcompetent.

People with dark skin are almost erased in the society because there is no image of themselves and anything that symbolise them in mass media, as a result they feel like they dont belong or they are not good enough. It is then hard to tell a dark skinned person that they are beautiful when the media tell them everyday that they are not.

We are all guilty of colourism. Interms of interpersonal relations, we unconsciously and explicitly manifest colourism. We judge people and our selves based on the standards of beauty and worth in our society.