This Monday night OWN will air the documentary Light Girls,
a follow up to their Dark Girls documentary that aired last year. Looking at the previews it looks like it will
be worth watching. The topic of color in the Black community has always been
fascinating to me.
The roots of this issue are deep and go back to slave days
when the lighter skinned slaves were in the house and the darker slaves were in
the field. But the operative word in that sentence is SLAVE, no matter how
light or dark you were our people were all still in bondage.
Today, the wounds from that experience still run deep,
especially for girls and women. In the dark girls documentary, one woman talked
about the day she, her mother, and a
friend of her mom’s were riding in the car – her mother told her friend how
smart she was, how pretty her eyes and hair were, and she was loving it. But it
was her final statement that ruined the entire experience for her and still
bothers her to this day – it was when her mother said, “could you imagine how
gorgeous she would be if she were lighter?”
Recently, my sister told me about a daughter of a friend who
was devastated because she is several shades darker than anyone else in her home
and feels she isn’t as pretty. She says her family doesn’t understand because
they haven’t experienced being darker skinned.
In the light girls
documentary, actors Raven Simone and Whitley talk about how they were often
made to feel as though they weren’t black enough, or that somehow their lives
were easier because of their skin color.
In a preview of the documentary women said they often felt shunned by
their own race because they were lighter; yet because they were still Black
(just lighter) they were also shunned by other races as well.
I long for the day when our darker sisters aren’t made to
feel as though they don’t measure up because of their skin color, and our
lighter sisters aren’t shunned because some feel they have it easier.
With all of the outside prejudices we already have to deal
with, why in the world would we divide and discriminate against one another
because of skin color? Black is black – whether you are light skinned,
red-boned, high yellow, dark skinned, in society it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, you are still Black
and WILL face discrimination is some form because of your race.
I hope both documentaries will continue to spark
conversation and help us to examine our own prejudices towards each other and
get rid of them. I hope that our sons and daughters can all learn to be proud
of their beautiful skin and realize how wonderfully God has made us. I believe
He made us in all shades to show the world just how wonderful Black really is.
I know darker-skinned girls feel that lighter-skinned girls
don’t understand what they’ve been through and vice versa, and well, that may
be true. But in some way, way, we’ve all been hurt or judged because of our
skin color and we can all understand the sting and hurt we felt. That pain and
rejection has no color.
If we can remember that, maybe we can continue the dialogue
until we get to the day that we realize that the mantra of the seventies is
really true… BLACK (no matter the shade) IS BEAUTIFUL.
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