“I always tell my daughter she’s beautiful,” said one father in response to our discussion about colorism. He, like many parents, believed that she was too young for any discussion beyond that. Like many parents, he thought that this vague show of affection was enough to ward off the world’s animosity toward dark skin and Afrocentric features. Yet despite his regular proclamations of his daughter’s beauty, she herself actually saw very little beauty or worth in dark skin. I could see it, but he was clearly in denial. If you really want to help your child deal with colorism, it’s time to stop relying on the easy excuses.
Why merely telling her she’s beautiful isn’t enough
The typical human mind processes negative feedback more deeply than positive feedback. It’s said that for every instance of negative feedback, it takes 5 to 6 instances of positive feedback to balance the negative. I first heard this in an intro to psych class in undergrad, and I’ve never forgotten it.
There’s a lot of negative messages about dark skin and Afrocentric features floating around our communities, institutions, media, family, and other places that our children frequent. Research shows that even if we told our children that they are beautiful every day of their lives, it probably won’t be enough to balance out all of the negativity that says otherwise.
Then there’s also the idea that a parent’s love is blind, that parents believe their children are beautiful because they’re theirs. For some children, the fact that you’re their parent may limit the effectiveness of you telling them they’re beautiful.
Finally, telling your child that she is beautiful doesn’t necessarily communicate to her that you think dark skin and Afrocentric features are beautiful in general. Remember that eradicating colorism is about more than individual self-esteem—it’s also about being able to see beauty in all its shades and forms. So even if telling your daughter that she’s beautiful causes her to really believe that she is, that doesn’t automatically mean that she’ll be able to appreaciate dark-skinned beauty in others. I’ve met a lot of dark-skinned girls over the years who see themselves as beautiful, yet believe that they are an exception and that light-skin is generally more beautiful.
Why you can’t wait for her to be the “right” age
Studies show that children can recognize differences in skin color, hair, and other features as early as six months old, and that by age four, many children have already begun assigning positive and negative traits to those differences.
My own mother often tells the story about how I was able to verbalize my awareness of colorism at the age of five. At age six I had already been called a “black n****r,” and was told by a playmate: “I like your sister better than you because she’s white and you’re black.” At age nine, a girl in my dance class said, “Eeww! You’re so black!” And those were only the blatantly stated messages of hatred for dark skin. Consistently throughout the years there were countless other messages about skin color, hair, and other features.
Many parents make the mistake of waiting until their child is old enough to have intellectual conversations, possibly even as late as adulthood. But the evidence points to the need for parents to intervene as early as possible before attitudes solidify and are thus harder to change.
As far as not saying or doing anything, just remember that ignoring an issue is the same as condoning it. Imagine what message you’re sending to your child when they can clearly see discrimination, but for some reason they’re parents act like everything is normal.
What it really takes to help your child deal with colorism
Courage. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to talk to our children about any tough issue, whether it’s drugs, sex, death, or racism. But the tougher the issue, the more they need our guidance as parents. Better they learn from us than from the media, or peers, or other sketchy sources.
It also takes honest and direct conversation. We must be honest about the fact that colorism and racism do exist and that they cause a lot of pain. We must not skirt around the issue or make our children think it’s such a taboo topic that they can’t talk to us about it. In order to let our children know that they can come to us, we must first go to them.
Finally, it requires proactive effort.
We must be careful with our comments about the attractiveness of others, including ourselves. If you always tell your dark-skinned daughter she’s beautiful, yet she never witnesses you acknowledge the beauty of other dark-skinned girls and women, what message are you really sending?
We must be mindful of how we treat others. Even without words, children can recognize preferential or unfair treatment, and they will recognize whether there’s a pattern based on skin color or hair texture.
We must also be mindful of who and what our children are exposed to. Limit their interaction with people you know are color-struck. Expose them to a wide diversity of skin tones, races, features, languages, etc. Limit their viewing of general media, and increase their viewing of racially diverse media, especially media that affirms the beauty of darker people.
In the end, you’re not doing any more or less than you would normally be doing as a good parent. For example, you’re probably already buying books for your daughter. Now just consider the kind of books you buy.
What do you do to help your child deal with colorism?