On today’s episode of the say table there are the four sororities of the divine nine the Zetas aka these deltas and Sigma’s east sorority has a history and we’re here to listen to the stories of the women and their colorism experiences hello ladies how are you today okay so today’s especially gets over
Colorism amongst them but specifically within sororities so colorism is a topic that affects learning the most and so we have one or two representatives for the voice for these and the divine that you have conducted the statement is ADA a KA so women in general can relate to eliminate
The sugars that we go through it so we always meant with specific beauty standards seen in the media besides music use for men who think that when they can be better than them or just as critics then and the overall pressure to just meet all of the
Standards that society has laid out for us so within our own community we also they’re things that women of our own skin color or music bachelors or put us down for any reason that they see fit and that includes skinca so it’s black with me do you find yourself beating
Into the skin tones or stereotypes or that’s another that’s for myself um skin tone aside I really plan to UM now I do have to be honest bark bashing I mean I put my mom and I talked about cost airport is one of the best things is people watching and so if people
Watching I am judging so I mean I feel to it and as I’m being more self reflective I do understand that is something I do so with me in my sorority if somebody’s not doing something like or like they like care the ideals of the
Founders I do have a group of people I feel comfortable with saying different things and it’s not so much maybe that person kind of what they do but I have been guilty of fashion I don’t have to say for me I don’t I don’t think I’ve ever gotten into
Colorism I just generally love people of color and have nothing like it’s happening to me before yes no I feel like it’s happening to me from African American women absolutely and so that’s kind of like the hardest thing to deal with because for me I genuinely feel like we are all sisters
I’ve never ever played into another like she starts and she’s like saying I’m never if I see a woman I feel like she’s beautiful I’ll say that I don’t like and I don’t I think just ain’t growth I said oh you’re so pretty their skin and so does it so
You know beautiful I really didn’t mean anything by it I just thought that her skin was beautiful or if she was lying her skin maybe because she didn’t have any blemishes or just different things that we’ve all dealt with before but it was never ever for me comes to me a
Personal attack but then I realized that it could have been and so now and I just simply say hey you’re a beautiful how your premium just to make sure that I’m not trying to make anybody feel you know in a negative way just I’m giving them a
Positive a compliment the pene take it as a negative light also I’m pretty cuz I’m dark you know I think you’re beautiful just and I love your skin tone it’s just that for me my grandmother was really fair scheming I was really dark in her siblings very and so so I’m not
Sure if I’m engaged it was actually because in my family we’re all different colors again I really getting no family reunions liking African family members afghan-american so really growing up and even as an adult being gay twice about different skin tones like fashion or anything but just as
Very I’m a darkish thing gonna do notice that there are less dark and brown skinned women during movies it’s just a fact it does kind of hit a little bit when ever I’m back at school I was I think Omega from calendars and you know have my skin tone listed and for
Everything she just said it makes me more cotton so I don’t find myself bashing but I find myself probably prejudging someone because I want to protect my child hmm and so you know if I think back to myself and blowing up at the top of the lightest person in my family and
Probably still am from grandmothers you know and so I never to everyone else’s plan I never felt it because they probably felt the need to protect me and you know they’re instances were being outside world has come in but Nam I’m always on guard and having a child of a
Browner perspective runner complexion it puts you on God really does make sure that she’s protected so you are stating that in your family this can’t go there there it’s like you had white Africans African Americans so usually what you see that you still get some form of
Colorism but you say that you didn’t so came like am I right on that lawyer I guess I wasn’t raised that way one star in particular my grandmother I was with my grandmother’s store and a kid walked up and he acts my grandmother couldn’t touch her ski and he was totally so
Little white boy he was told that if you touch a black person that they were and so that was like my first time ever experiencing any type of prejudice racism anything like that maybe I was sheltered me I was protected everyone just didn’t pay attention but you know
She said sure I mean when I said she was lighter than you she could really go for a white lady get really long flowing or here I but I miss you all I know is issues black that’s all I need is that she was flats I never thought about my
Guitar or anything like that it could have been on just shelter but I didn’t I didn’t know the difference I guess because every shade I didn’t know I was dark the other I never thought about it your light your dark because we were just like people living in a city but
Mostly like you didn’t see shades you saw the one story when you touch like a fella gets stuck out with me and I first saw him on the whole child um but my grandmother had four children and I and I see this and I have two daughters and
Their skin they have the same father you know but their skin tones are different but I try to make sure that they stay connected because my mom and my are so far from each other but I realized that it came from growing up my is very high
Yo and they called her to yell banana and they called my mom the black I don’t sneak and so because there was some favoritism there and their fifties they still fight like because of that and I just had to come sexual my mom I was
Like you do that your mom is getting on and I don’t know where it came from the names cuz other time but you guys have let that control you all’s relationship now and it has affected me because when they fight then they pull me in the middle but I don’t think they realize
Their fight is it really about them but it was about how they were raised and they can kick you know pity towards each other and so now I have to tell my daughters that’s not how you gonna try definitely never tough fellow and it is my other daughters take care
Texture is different from the other part but and I have three children that have the same father but they all have the same father but they’re just different but I never say hey X Y Z I say you’re sisters this is a different family but it’s hard
Because when you hear that you’re like you do that it’s family to each other not it’s not even outside this is family and now they’re playing women with issues because they were little girls that experience that from inside their family and then outside their family I
Still hear people say that now I’m just like that’s so ignorant I just I don’t understand it and so for me and like you said I feel like I have to protect my children from hearing that so that they don’t start with that with each other
You know being into it because I tell what I’m going you guys need each other knew what it meant because around me so I know what that meant just because of that but I always noticed great I think that was wonderful everybody ate my school doctor wonderful
Great and then I realized that other people had an idea of what colorism meant because although I’m smart enough to know what it meant I hated school the difference was in sorority life like skiing no anything else but you mean I’m not great I’m not great you know you don’t fit the
Model you want did you know of course they don’t tell you that you just know what so I experienced it from my sisters I’m not smart enough because I’m dark intelligence because you don’t need some my girls and listen they’re dark names going up were beautiful he never heard
Me column basically the name what they were trouble because beautiful you know not right you know it it’s all in the mind my younger girl daughter we made the transition from a little Daryl to middle school looks like that awkward kind of things her siblings with same thing story they
Will say things because although we’d like to say that college doesn’t doesn’t even in our own communities sometimes well we perceive something different based on a person scoop and that’s unfortunately if the large community does it in our own communities unfortunately and that’s what makes it difficult growing the first cousin
If she was a lot better than you and people used to make differences in us because always you know I consider my start of landing hurt and so I hear people say that’s why you’re black and I just thought that was play you know and to this day she still has self-esteem in
Very not 40s and you still can hear someone another you know based on that but someone ingraining may because again the way we grew up we just black people right there was my mom looks like white lady giving darker over at one family and so people adults meteors yes yes
Because we didn’t know any better right someone told us there was a difference in our skin side so don’t ask it it kind of sounds like my mom in my situation which I think there’s more than you get with that do you feel how do you feel
Like you to work they would overcome and or do you feel like you uh without all the fighting or being like jealous of each other are putting each other down like what work for you all being work we fought a lot because we were compared along yeah over here
Different I’m gonna choose a senior I was considerate later she was considered dark but people pointed that out and so it took we were probably in our late 20s before yeah she had that conversation like a what happened tonight we talked about it you know where the jealousy
Might have come and differences at home others hit us it’s just one another and we talked about it in that was the end of you know leave being closer every since but we also didn’t talk for years but didn’t know why country music’s someone an adult and went it in our mind
Then we were different because of the skin touching it just speaks to your experiences and I think that’s the key I think that’s part of them with my mind in my arm which was my mother’s only two ducks and they have the same mother and
The same father as well and I think for my eyes because she was like like my grandmother my mother is dark light so my mother talked to my grandfather of mine I you know was with my grandmother my grandmother’s parents I think my aunt there one one felt alone but it was that
Division and now it’s just my grandfather now I feel like they’re fighting oh it is just it’s crazy what color and division will do to your family you know unfortunate so for me I don’t want for generational times so I’m kind of like skin them into money these
Theories if you ever had my skin privilege I would say yes it’s more and so I think back to that’s a much younger age you know the first ask to the bananas or whatever and there would be a very beautiful competent young lady they could be sitting right there next to me
That they would gravitate to the lighter skinned individuals and so yes I have experienced that as I’ve grown and aged I see it as much from my own people I do however still experience it to this day in my professional kind of wider don’t
We – doctor with me do you feel like a lie skincare bleach you have you ever been in a situation where it has shrunk over here on the skin because you were dark absolutely took advantage of it well and you know in college we’d like
To go out and party and hang out and it’s like that and so my best friend very fair-skinned and so the guys would always probably takes a turn so we used it to our advantage you know we would like this to drink this thing you know
Yeah so you know that sounds funny but I don’t know if it ever really hurt but absolutely all the time actually but I just have to excuse me I am so it doesn’t bother me but have I had someone to just say when you’re dark he’s like so I’m going soon
No but I know it’s but uh yeah I did need an experience that into my personally experience I feel like they would always gravitate more towards like skin skin I personally have been affected by it it’s just out there sure yeah I definitely have not been affected
By a per se and just like my every day life I think that a lot of times there are certain situations so like dating or like relationships maybe guys do go and gravitate more towards but I think that I frequently get oh you’re so pretty for
A dark-skinned girl and that was one I don’t necessarily like because I think that I’m just pretty but that’s just it I think that other than in that situation I don’t necessarily notice that my lighter skin friends are you know being treated differently that I am person I can’t say that I experienced
That whatever experience is if I have to have a black person rather not have any black person but if I do okay we will take you more than the color part of it we just didn’t want african-american period o woman period and so I think probably if just a hypothetical
Situation but if they had to choose between the two and the background experience for the same that may have been a consideration but I don’t think it below that and some of our professions black we know not taking up much it will take you if you’re smart you have the background the experience
But I haven’t experienced that that’s an excellent point no matter how the privilege is perceived or in the beginning it all black so darker women have usually have the one side of giving less beautiful compared to a lighter skinned with me whether there’s personal preference from me or gifts within a community in
General but I just giving me that Sousa you can have my skin privilege while still receiving discrimination within your company right so I do is a means of not being into your community because well you know what yes not until I went to the South so I visited the sound man
She knows my daughter was with me but I went to the south and we were with family members who we had just become acquainted with and they were speaking very ill of their experiences of a Caucasian or with a Caucasian person and I wasn’t even part of the conversation
And they said but you know what and they said what they said is why does that gal is right there and I said oh you meet me like oh and I watched how and I had to ask my family did they start treating me differently because of their experience they
Associated me I just met you but it was very real and you know I was well into my forties before I felt it now I’ll say my brother who is very brown skinned had always explained situations in which if he and I were together his friends would
Say why you bring you the white little sister with you you know when he always said he would say yeah we found her in a dumpster because I didn’t fit what his friends thought I should think but again I didn’t feel her until in the south in
My 40s where I found myself defending myself for a situation that I had and then I think what to do with nothing so I think everyone’s experiencing about my skin understand I hear the the difference is obviously based upon color but the experiences of discrimination is still the same so I
Want to show you a clip right of this movie school days I have not I just heard about it like a couple of days ago But it is about colorism in authority right in [Applause] Based on that and that clip there were this already women called the gamma rays or does sleep like screaming the darker skinned women for their natural hair and the skin color right so you see that within sororities and some people might say that this represents a cave in the
Desert most of them thank you today yeah so the Delta sin may case you do this this is the representation of how may not have is too banal but how it was before so when I was in undergrad the faa’s were the girls of the life
And the deltas were the light skin long hair good hair on campus when I was there in the early 80s and so and I I was initiated in a London chapter because I didn’t want to be you know Delta but I wondered I thought I want to
Be okay because they look like me and I never met anybody who do you look like me you know so in the sororities looks like I don’t want to do that and then when I went to graduate school then in flip-flop you know it’s like okay well now that we
Look like this which is very different than going up and the experience I had in Mississippi then when I came to the Midwest you know everything was very different and so can I say pathetic there’s now I absolutely cannot even exist now but my experience but when I
Was growing up it was definitely the paper bag test and you know and not just that but you get your mom here too you know and so it was very very different than what I experienced not even for my daughter’s experience in their experience with Jackson State I guess
What bothers me the most about it is that when you look at the history of Greek life where the fraternity or sorority we only established our own because we couldn’t get in to the right to the white sororities and fraternities so for us to turn around and to do that
Take a bag test it’s like you take away from the principles of what we were founded upon we had to create our own because they wouldn’t let it seen and now you’re doing this to somebody else to say you can’t get me in and then I think that’s what bothers me with us
Just as people we’re so worried about what the other community how they classify us and look at us and talk about our color when we do it like you sit amongst ourselves I’m only 41 so I have no idea why there would have been a paper bag that now of
Course I’ve heard of I have family members that they don’t want to talk about they say it’s not true I know it’s true because I hear of people like you said cessation so I don’t understand that concept like why did we do that why did that happen if we created this
Form because we couldn’t the like people say we weren’t good enough to be in theirs you think about but colorism did start with us that’s when it likes you you were pitted against the darks Koran and so we have been perpetuated it unfortunately because color seems to have some kind of
Power associated with it so we just brought along with us and some of us haven’t been smart enough to say right yeah we fed it was a bad because right if Brian’s because of the light and got too worked in the kitchen and darkened so we brought all over so we
Just recreated what was happening in society because it brings power unfortunately it’s time to exit it closes up my grabs on my grandmother’s operating here Indiana my grandmother is actually she’s like very much likes me so I grew up on grandfather’s Catholic people I see so I grew up and they were
Very active in the Association in chapters in their in their City and so that was my where I lose but it was it was really dealt with so at that point growing up on my own is and as I got to know it was more about the
History to me but I had nothing was no doubt in my mind I wanted to be a ki would be even though I don’t look like my grandmother so that was once again never the situation and I feel like looking back over and it’s the opportunity to play in
College we had some technical difficulties sided intercept processed a more when I completed my process as far as being a member of Delta Sigma Theta and so I can look at my 24 line sisters and you see again so I’m appreciative that that’s not the case now but it very
Much was my grandmother plays Texas College in Texas and you see the pictures of her chapter it was pretty much all I still women my grandfather was nice to him my mother’s dark and in fact when my mother married my father she might my father called me my
Grandmother was like oh you changed my whole family mango man remember the conversation he that she had won so I know what happens I mean my brother’s she was like my brother with more she’s pinching his nose but it was too big all of that I mean I heard that but I was
Just made a conscious decision and I’m not going I think I just want to lift wins point though that that that mindset did not derive from sororities and fraternities that is that is a historical you know issue that started back when they brought the lighter-skinned you know slaves in
Because that’s the one that the masters were with and we’re having children and then continue on and then the other piece that I want to live tips when we look at those pictures of any of our organizations we also have to look at who was being allowed into squat back
Because the admission of African Americans would also yielding this Ward in the lighter complexion and to your point it was because it was a sign of power and we we were perceived as non-threatening and needed to your pointed we were probably the ones that were sitting back
Ready to raise their fist and they didn’t even know to infiltrate and so many things you brought up a good point about the paper bag test so back in the day against where allegedly said that you can’t suppress the paper bag set to becoming a game and so being the darkest
Game then we will go to the deltas so is that true so I would like to say I don’t believe it’s true I don’t remember reading that in any of our history books at all and we have quite a few history books I don’t remember ever hearing that
From any older soror I see more seasoned story at all is it in any of y’all’s history books at all that you guys had to be doctor well that wouldn’t now be written down that’s why that’s in the unwritten God ranks that we just pass on as traditions they’re not house isn’t
Seizures and I wouldn’t say they were true or not true back in the day they may have been true but certainly it wouldn’t be something anybody would carefully articulate in writing right so yeah I have a so this is an article that I found yes and I think 28 and it is
Article about colorism within the source and specifically on the bigger vectors so I’m going to read the article and it’s highlighted what I’m going to read so ever in turn on rumors and reports come out of our colleges and Institute’s that color prejudice is in evidence and color discrimination practice writing in
The hilltop a campus publication for student Edward H Taylor the legends that the Greek letter organizations are behind the movement which results in splitting up various classes into groups of different shapes yellow brown and black according to this young man the light-skinned students are sought after by the fraternities and sororities
Particularly the latter as members and the darker ones passed by the darker brown students then formed their own cliques while the blacks are left in the code Negros young and old everywhere in the world today and particularly in the United States have got to clearly understand that whatever the graduations
Of color in the group they are all Negroes we hope this charge against these the fraternities and sororities at Howard University is not true although this is not the first time it has been heard of so Ali to your point in the fact that you said it wouldn’t be
Vacuuming I do believe that issue and honestly I don’t really know too much about Greek life but I do believe in the Pepperdine says not just within sororities but it was implemented in any institution whether it was white people doing or the fact that like they were
Doing it to their own skin colored people so we acknowledge the differences that have happened that mean and what is to become now so within your own sororities have you have any instance where back in the day you have heard other people your order so it’s saying that they have done
Discrimination or have you felt like you have done any discrimination within your own story I been waiting from mics in the dark I never once heard or even seen any anyone be discriminated against because of the color of their skin so I don’t know whenever I disappeared stuff
Like that it’s like if the first sentence says rumors or reports it’s just your opinion so the first I heard of the paper got attention so actually my grandmother non-greek very little education and so again I don’t know that anyone can clearly state that something did or did
Not occur but I will say that from my experiences even in talking with all their source in our organization we’ve always been so cognizant of what could pull us all apart that we take it you know in all of our organizations we do everything we can to a blip it’s almost
Just our values in any of our organizations seem to be you know in defense of this type of you know propaganda that’s out there not to say that it didn’t occur again we talked earlier about in slavery you had the lighter complected slaves brought into
The home and so that it existed it’s a part of our history you know as people but I from what I know of my organization and every other beautiful and wonderful organization of disabled it’s our purpose and values that we you know continue to uplift one another
And dispel this type of active order yeah I would say that things that may cause confusion or division or angst announcer wardens aren’t colored in 2019 in fact we embrace every single sister regards of skin tone those are the things that we know is when they’re helping to deal with in
This age that might still be happening I can’t imagine that abuse the things that we have amongst women are so petty mean so different and be that we focus on those things and certainly not in my opinion the color aspect of all and I
Mean add on to that I know that and our sorority we have you know people all in so it’s not just black women it I mean historically yes it has been but we have you know international and international region so it’s not just black women I just like not just dark-skinned women
But we have a little bit of everybody something I’m around the same I think I pursue for this conversation I can honestly say I probably never had and just as soon as I’ve not had a conversation there are people who still probably subscribe to this and may not
Be open but in conversations you know they’re having it like oh be like I can think back to probably some conversations with my family like I don’t want you bringing somebody home okay you know so it’s still there so to be aware and acknowledge we’ve got to
Understand that this may be fine they may not be open with it either but they’ll say it so we need to be aware of just a different biases so looking at colorism within sororities and colors and once women in general what do you think that the african-american community as a
Whole can do to end the cycle Curtis I think that a lot like just be yourself and just be loving like open to starts it might soon it doesn’t really matter it’s just like seeing kids on a playground mm-hmm everybody playing with everybody yeah they get out now given that little you
Know Daquan over here I mean not francs you nine equal per se like they’re everybody’s the exact same so I think that just looking at everybody and just taking them for how they are right and who they are in loving them regardless even Colorism and things like that but already starts being careful as the parent an adult what do you say when you’re teaching I think creating opportunities like this for the conversation safe space because there’s somebody who still believes it’s waiting why not but if you’re around a circle of
Your sisters then a circle of your sisters and then hopefully you can sing it and they can check you in love and that because you mean it but it also takes people not to have group because typically you’ll be around people the same way some of you diversify the
People that you’re in friends with and we’ll take it as I just want to make you better we have a problem we have bigger issues then whether we’re like scanted our skin you know or whether you know we have just larger issues and much weight among
Our kids and relationships and so we can have safe spaces like this where we have the conversation and you feel comfortable like well I don’t know if I have what maybe idea that I think that that would be instrumental in making something because we still have work to
Do it’s so much work to do and continue to advance as a people so the opportunities that you speak of I can better provide opportunities to my sisters in my mid a position in which I can do so and so starting at home starting himself the you know honest and upfront with your
Own insecurities in your own experiences but creating habits of opportunity for everyone around I really do thank you all for coming and supporting me with my capstone and for those who are watching if you have any comments questions or concerns please feel free to give me as much feedback as you can
And let’s make the beginnings a new way of there gets covered
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