Colorism In African American Women Research Paper

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African American women have struggled even within their own race. Colorism is the discrimination against people with darker skin tone within their own race. Colorism is shown more in the Black community. Women who have a lighter tone are more acceptable to the African American community than woman with darker skin. As outrages as this sounds it is true. Darker women feel alone in the world because the Black community views them as uneducated, unattractive, and aggressive. Colorism has existed back in the slave days. Audrey Kerr’s article “The Paper Bag Principle” says, “Light skinned women were often described in slavers’ records as gentler, kinder, more [beautiful], smarter and more delicate” (273). Slave owners favored light skin slaves the most. The darker slaves were left with hard labor and unfair treatment. For instance, the lighter skin slaves were more expensive than the darker skin slaves. Beth Turner’s “Colorism in Dael Orlandsmith’s Yellowman” mentions, “Light-skinned black women were often considerably more expensive than their darker sisters, thus the ability to purchase a light-skinned slave served as a symbol of wealth and prestige for slave masters. Frequently, these light-skinned women worked within households of their white masters-as domestics as well as concubines-rather than in the fields” (19).…show more content…
Dark skin women usually feel unwanted when it comes to Black men. Yes, people have their preference of whom they would like to date, but the pigment of a person skin should not matter. This leads darker women to wanting to have children that are mix in order for their children to not go through what they are going through. They feel as though their children will feel more acceptable to society, which should not be the case. Women, in general, should have children with the man they love, not a man that could provide them mix

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