Rebranding Blackness: Reversing The Curse of Colorism

Black people have struggled with colorism for a long time.

(Not) Breaking News: Black people have struggled with colorism for a long, long, long time. As a matter of fact, our struggle with colorism predates our identity as ‘Black’ , ‘colored,’ or ‘Negro’ (whether capitalized or not). Colorism emerged when our foremothers started delivering babies planted in them by their white enslavers. We were all the same ‘niggers’ before that. But when the babies came, colorism came with them.

I should be clear about what ‘colorism’ means as I use it here. Colorism is the intra-racial discrimination between Black folks based on a person’s skin complexion. As tempting as it is to assume that you know how it works, I will not risk making an ass out of you and me. In nearly every imaginable context, darker skin has been disfavored, and lighter skin has been favored. This is a simple but profound truth in Black life.

As scholars, writers and anyone who is a legitimate stakeholder in the quality of life for Black people, we should retrain our language and replace the descriptive ‘dark’ with the descriptive ‘rich’ when it comes to explaining the complexion of one of our sisters or brothers. The word ‘dark’ will always carry more negative connotations than positive ones, no matter how much women may shimmy with desire describing Idris Elba or Michael Jordan.

‘Dark’ is quite often negative, but ‘rich’ is always used to describe something positive or desirable. Even if something is TOO delicious, as in a dessert being described as “rich.” And ‘rich’ is every bit as accurate a description as ‘dark’ is when it comes to our people blessed with skin with a high concentration of melanin.

We should not underestimate the powerful conditioning of our subconscious when we use words. You may not even be particularly attracted to the aesthetic of a light complexion, but doesn’t the descriptive “fair” just sound nice? Describing someone as “fair skinned” carries no negative energy whatsoever. And I am suggesting that the same would hold true for describing someone as having a “rich complexion” or being “rich skinned.” Since we in the Western World have been conditioned to wealth worship anyway, we may as well channel that conditioning to serve the evolution of our people.

Everybody who writes for a living or as a hobby knows the critical importance of the words people use to describe what they visualize. That importance increases exponentially when human beings are the subject of description. I extend a heartfelt apology to any of my folks out here who may like being described as “dark-skinned.” I mean no offense whatsoever. I beseech you to charge my error to my head and not my heart. I have always wanted to reverse the negative narratives surrounding our people in all things, including what the world sees when it looks at us. And even more importantly, what we see when we look at ourselves.

I am unashamed to say that for me this is personal. I am sure that I am not the only Black father with a daughter who had to navigate the self-esteem mine-field of colorism. And when your daughter does not value her rich complexion because it seems that others around her do not appreciate it, the weakness and helplessness you feel is its own circle of Hell. It would be really fucking sweet if I could write a short essay, suggesting a simple linguistic tweak, that somehow caught a strong wind and flew all over the world, changing the words people use to describe us. But it always has to start with us. How we describe ourselves will certainly not solve every problem our people face, but it will definitely impact every one of those problems.

Of course, referring to many of our folks as ‘rich-skinned’ rather than ‘dark-skinned’ will not close that stubborn generational wealth gap. But it will make a pretty young sister be a lot less likely to hear how cute she is “for a dark-skinned girl” or any of the other garbage that girls like her have to process through their minds, hearts and souls while getting to know themselves and the world. Good luck being free from bitterness after listening to that bullshit through your teens and twenties. But it won’t just help them, it will help us all. Because aggressively attacking self-loathing everywhere it can be found will be a true reflection of legitimate progress for our people. This is a great place to start.

And if we do it right, we will build a pedestal high enough for all the world to admire the rich-skinned beauty of Deborah Ayorinde, Tika Sumpter, Vanessa Bell, Ari Lennox, DeWanda Wise and all the other sisters in our society who have not gotten their just due for their beauty.

I focus on this change specifically for women, but by no means exclusively. Brothers bearing the brand of ‘darkness’ have not had the same burdens, but that does not mean they have been burden free. My man Derek Luke said it best as the titular character in Denzel Washington’s directorial debut film, Antwone Fisher.

He described the hard realities of being a Black boy in the foster-care and adoption system this way: “The light skinned girls always go first. Then the light skinned boys. Then the dark-skinned girls. Then sometimes they get to us.” The point I am making is that just because our brothers of a deeper hue found that they could get laid when they grew into young men, does not mean that they do not carry the scars of colorism from when they were young boys.

So there you have it: “dark-skinned” is out, “rich-skinned” is in, and an enormous sigh of relief can be heard all over America as Black folks finally set down one of the heaviest burdens strategically placed on our backs by the most corrupt class of people in recorded history. All slave-traders, plantation masters and overseers who pitted us against each other so effectively for so long, will finally have their pool-party in Hell crashed by the horrifying news that Black people have finally and truly embraced themselves and one another, honoring the beauty and the gift of melanin-rich skin.

Now, about that wealth gap…