What Do You Think? Wednesday
Once this woman, over dinner, told me that she was glad her husband was light skinned because she didn’t want her children “to be as dark as me.” My heart sank, feeling compassion for her low self-worth in that area and anger that those thoughts were coming from a 30-something woman in the 21st century. By all accounts this successful professional in the medical field was a strong black woman, planning her career, making her own decisions and never holding her tongue, sometimes, like that evening, making comments revealing her insecurity. I wish we lived in a land where dark skin prejudice was not an issue, where skin lighteners, hair straighteners and plastic surgery only had their place because of need (or even convenience) that had nothing to do with trying to look white. But the hatred remains and is a reason this film can stake a claim in the movie market in 2011. This film comes 335 years after the official end of the legal enslavement of blacks in the United States and almost 500 years since the beginning of this demonic system that created divisions between light and dark-skinned blacks. Have you seen the preview of Dark Girls? If not, take a look and tell me what you think, particularly from a biblical point of view?
Dark Girls: Preview from Bradinn French on Vimeo.
actually i wanted to write about this for years. I am (fairly) light brown-skinned woman with ‘straight’ features for the most part. I wanted to write about this ‘wide noses and thin lips’ I have been abused for being too light and for being too dark and not light enough. Its a demon discussion which causes division. It is a work of the flesh, FACTIONS, divisions. And the Lord HATES it. the book i was going to write deals with it and the relationship to Burundi and WHY over a hundred thousand ppl were slaughtered. it largely has to do with the Belgian coming in and separating the people based on characteristics of whether they were acceptable to whites or not. read if you haven’t already left to tell by Immaculee, tells of the way they were cruelly slaughtered and how STILL the media and white america seemed to ignore this and treat it as a ‘tribal’ family issue, when really they are as much to blame. This caused rifts that when deep and know one knows or will acknowelegde why. All I know is that ppl died and ppl have still not taken responsibility for it. Apartheid is still in South African/ Coloureds versus blacks no matter if you are both in the same family. it is from hell and no different than Hitler in Germany. #thatisall. Why should I be afraid to be how God created me, for fear of death, or being beat down, or have to put skin lightening cream because you have a problem with who or how I was created. #thisisme.
Only under a demonic system could you receive any level of skin tone prejudice, but you received it on three levels. Wow. You bring up great points how dark skin prejudice is not confined to the US but can be seen throughout the world. It would be great if we all recognize that we are hating God’s creation when we hate the way others look. But too many of us, even Christians, dishonor God so it’s easy to dishonor each other.
Growing up in a community that was predominately white, the “dark girl” was always prevalent; I was that girl from third grade until twelve grade .So I was somewhat sheltered by the hatred among our own race against darker skinned girls and women. I too also believe that it stems from slavery and how we as a people where taught to hate ourselves. To be inside of the plantation home you had to have a lighter shade this somehow made the lighter blacks feel superior to the darker skinned slaves in the fields. Oh God we need you now, every hour and every second of our lives.~Blessings LaDonna Ross
I absolutely love your comments and Dark Girls, it stirs my soul and makes me angry too because black women don’t see who they are and decide that their determines their person. biblically God sees heart and there is Jew nor Gentile, bond or free. To me as I discover who I am in Christ, I discover my worth in life color does not matter. Thank you for sharing this on your blog
Thanks for commenting LaDonna. We need God so bad; this self-hatred based on skin color needs to cease.
Thank you so much, Claudette, for your compliment and taking the time to comment. You are so right about our identity is about who we are in Christ. I praise God that is where your focus is. We all need to see that so we get away from the foolishness of privileging one skin color over another.