So for quite awhile I've been wanting to do a series of shorter videos
where I can quickly sum up sociological terms and ideas and topics that often come up
in feminist circles and discussions of social justice.
I want to be able to use these videos as quick resources that I can link people to when I'm talking about
more in-depth topics, because sometimes I want to have a discussion about one thing,
and I don't have time to define every single word or idea that I use... so it'd be nice to have a backlog of
shorter videos that I can just link people to, to make the discussion easier.
I was thinking about calling it Four Minute Feminism because I would be talking about
feminist terms in under four minutes, but if you guys have any better ideas for names,
please share them with me, because I need help... with names. I'm not very good at naming things.
So the topic that I wanted to talk about today is colorism.
I super-briefly alluded to it in my, Do "White Passing" People of Color Experience Privilege? video.
There's a lot of nuance there, and it can be really confusing.
But while I gave one side of the argument, I didn't really go into depth about the issue of colorism.
I simply said that light skinned people have certain privileges, but I basically left it at that,
and I was called out on it, a little bit, so that's really why I wanted to talk about it today.
So according to racerelations.about.com : Colorism is a practice of discrimination by which those with
lighter skin are treated more favorably than those with darker skin.
In the United States, Colorism first came about during times of slavery,
in which light skinned slaves were typically favored over dark skinned slaves.
Aside from this preference stemming from simple racist reasons,
a lot of the time the lighter skinned slaves who received privileges like being able to work within the house
received those privileges because they were direct offspring of their white masters.
White slave owners would rape enslaved women, and it would produce lighter skinned mixed race children.
So, like, some pretty horrible origins.
While European colonialism definitely left its mark on the United States in a lot of really terrible ways,
colorism actually predates European contact with the United States.
We saw this in a lot of Asian countries, where darker skinned Asian people were typically
associated with being working class, and living in poverty.
While light skinned Asians were typically part of the ruling class.
Unfortunately, colorism continued to plague communities of color in the twentieth century,
and even still today.
One example of this is the "paper bag test."
This test took place in the twentieth century in many African American upper class social institutions,
such as, sororities, fraternities, churches, and other types of social events.
Basically, if a black person or a person of color had skin that was darker than a paper bag,
they were not allowed entrance.
You might be thinking, "Well, that was in the twentieth century, and it's 2015... so what about today?"
In 2014, the actress Lupita Nyong'o said, "European standards of beauty are something that plague
the entire world--the idea that darker skin is not beautiful, that light skin is the key to success and love.
This is the message: That dark skin is unacceptable. I definitely wasn't hearing this from my immediate
family. My mother never said anything to that effect...
But the voices from the television are usually much louder than the voices of your parents."
On top of this, according to a Villanova University study that surveyed more than 12,000 African American
women imprisoned in North Carolina, "Lighter skin black women receive shorter sentences
than their darker skinned counterparts.
Previous research also found that darker skinned black defendants were two times more likely than
light skinned black defendants to get the death penalty for crimes involving white victims.
Another study also found that light skinned Latinos make $5,000 more on average than dark skinned Latinos.
And let's not forget that there's skin bleaching and whitening creams widely available in the United States,
in Asia, and in other countries. News reports actually found that Mexican American women in California,
Arizona, and Texas were suffering mercury poisoning from using skin whitening creams.
It just like makes me so sad, and completely blows my mind.
There are tons more examples of colorism affecting the lives of people of color.
I'm definitely going to link all those sources below if you want to check them out.
Also, if you want to share your own experiences. If you have questions or ideas for future videos topics,
then please let me know. Thank you for watching this video. If you enjoyed it,
please give it a like and subscribe to this channel for more videos like this one.
Also, this is completely voluntary, but if you would like to help support this channel,
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