I’m white. What does colorism have to do with me?
Actually, a lot. Being white you probably don’t think about your skin color often. If you do, you have the assurance it is the norm, or the best. Our culture says that - sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly as when politicians or groups demand we see whiteness as superior. Hence the name, white supremacy.
But whether this is an issue for you or not, on a daily basis, you have the privilege of NOT thinking about your skin color. You can walk into stores, coffee shops, schools, movies, hospitals, banks, etc and not think about the reaction other people will have to your skin. You are given the benefit of the doubt that, by being white, you are not as much a threat as you would be if your skin was dark.
Try this thought experiment: imagine yourself with dark skin coming into a meeting at work. Or sitting at your dinner table. Or on the bus, or hailing a cab, or raising your hand in class, or sitting with friends at lunch, or asking for a raise, or a date. Aside from the shock factor in places where you are known as white - like with your family - how does it feel? Do you feel a new pride? A loss? Fear? Awakening?
If loss, what is it you have lost? You have the same character, intelligence, abilities. But now they may be perceived through the lens of assumptions about skin color. Skin color is one layer of cells in your skin - that’s all - yet how much melanin that layer produces can effect your life in huge ways. Research shows the darker your skin the harder it is to get employment, the more often you are assumed to be guilty, and the longer your jail sentence will be. It also affects dating and marriageability. And, perniciously, it feeds a huge industry of skin lighteners that have ingredients like mercury and lye. People die trying to have lighter skin.
Skin color doesn’t affect the brain or character in a scientific way; if it did you would drop IQ points and become a greater societal risk when you got a dark tan because tanning is when melanin increases in your basal skin layer. So from nature’s standpoint, dark skin has nothing to do with intelligence, innocence, fertility, parenting skills, or ability. But expectation does. If you grow up under the cloud of assumption that your skin is a signal of weakness/danger/stupidity the way people treat you changes. It is one thing stacked against you, in the same way being born into poverty, fear, or chaos is. Only you can’t work your way out of dark skin. You can’t leave it behind and start over. The prejudice will follow you no matter where in the world you go.
In this sense it is up to white people to be aware of their pre-judgement (which is what prejudice means.) It is me, and you if you are white, who gain by being white. If we are unaware of what advantages this has given us we may unknowingly perpetuate the caste system of color that exists worldwide.
For more information:
The darker your skin the more likely you’ll end up in an American jail
Why dark-skinned black girls like me aren't getting married