Colorism is a form of discrimination against darker skin tones it’s an intra-racial issue that the black community has debated for centuries in this episode of crossing over black Greek life join me as I explore if colorism has been a problem in these organizations have you ever been told you weren’t good enough
In a sense colorism and texturism do that and it’s taught at a young age dealing with discrimination of light-skinned black versus dark skinned blacks not only do I have to deal with what goes on the racism from ignorant people who are of other races you have
To deal with the poor mindset of people who are African-American what’s good hair what’s better and why the term good and bad well the straighter the better is that what you think no I don’t think so personally but that’s what we’ve been programmed to think we’ve debated these topics for centuries who’s prettier
Who’s smarter who’s better but the bottom line is it hurts everyone No way my daily issues are what I’m going through and what I’m trying to get at in life since I was a girl I’ve heard rumors about colorism and texturism seeping its way into black Greek life I could never understand if it was fact or fiction
But before I pick apart this debate I wanted to make sure I understood the origin of colorism why do we carry this burden around in the first place so can you define what colorism is yeah so colorism is discrimination that occurs based upon one’s skin tone and it
Happens within a particular racial group and so colorism can occur across groups or can it can occur within a group so for example you could be someone who identifies as black and you could discriminate against folks who are darker skinned relative to folks who are lighter skin does it only exist in
Communities of color so definitely in communities of colors some might argue that it exists within the dominant racial group In America which is white people but it’s not something that’s necessarily unique to black people so the origin for African Americans is pretty straightforward it goes all the
Way back to slavery different skin tones started popping up in this time and it complicated the black community’s relationship with itself especially in places like Louisiana where there was a large mixed-race population but how does that affect organizations like black Greek life is there any evidence showing that four black people
It was difficult to get into schools or say fraternities if their skin color wasn’t acceptable I came across a book that Henry Lewis Gates wrote and the book was published in the mid-1990s but he was in part reflecting on his experience as a student at Yale University I believe in the late 1960s
And he talked about going to a party and when he was heading into the party there was a paper bag on the door and if you were darker than the paper bag you couldn’t go to the party here’s where it gets kind of murky there are several accounts of people saying they’ve
Experienced exactly what Lori is describing Audrey Kerr a professor who specializes in functional intersectionality says sororities at Howard University use things like the paper bag test to determine admission those stories are even used in the plot of the Spike Lee movie school days but on the other side of that debate some
Say there wasn’t much evidence to support these claims at all one of the major criticisms that black fraternities and sororities have faced over time is elitism and a lot of that was manifested in the stories about the brown paper bag test meaning people were denied membership in organizations if their skin was darker
Than a brown paper bag there are anecdotal stories about this happening and people have written about it but there’s really some conflict in terms of the research colorism and elitism are complicated topics so I thought I’d meet with our expert in person for this one it’s somebody who’s been to a lot of
Archives and looked at archival footage I’ve seen people much darker than me in those groups in the 1930s and 40s so I think In Pockets that happen but in terms of that being a unilateral motive for those organizations I mean I could think about members of Alpha Phi Alpha
That are really dark and that’s at the very beginning but for those organizations that did have those issues I mean were they primarily in the South were they in the north yeah I mean it’s a range of places I mean I’ve heard stories about some of the colorism at a
Place like how where that would happen um that’s DC and people decide where the DC is the South or not they go back and forth so just in different places but you didn’t have as much of that later on because when the hbcus in the South became accredited in 1940s and 1950s
They were really just trying to add members just limited to a couple places yeah it’s just I think just very limited like I said I I personally think a lot has been made of that probably too much it has been made of it because I think
That was a main plot in uh school days yeah that was one of the issues in terms of colorism and so like I said there was issues different places um but I mean it could have been an issue who got certain roles in the church I mean colorism played a role a
Lot of places and how people moved in society they were able to do certain things they saw that so that’s it both points exist somewhere within the truth but isn’t it a relief to know that we’ve grown past paper bag tests and skin color admissions I’m relieved and I’m also hopeful
And I think you should be too this episode is part of a special series called crossing over black Greek life we’ve got two more episodes airing this month on swi look forward to it great job thank you very much
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