I’m picking back up with a conversation I started last week on colorism and classism. Check out the previous post on color as currency if you need more context.
Last week I began by talking about Angela Davis as an advocate for intersectionality even before the word was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw. Angela Davis was a member of the Black Communist Party, acknowledging the need to consider race and class as interlocking systems. And I ended last week by acknowledging that Angela Davis is not just Black, she’s a very light-skinned Black woman with a loose curl patter and a middle/upper-middle class upbringing. I think even her life is a great example that color, in addition to race, impacts our class status.
So here are the 3 questions or subtopics I want to discuss today:
How color discrimination impacts economic status
- Impacts levels of schooling and quality of schooling, which then impacts job and career options and pay rates.
- Implicit color bias in the workplace results in more employment opportunities and career advancement for light-skinned people of color.
- This includes the entertainment industry. People think it’s “just entertainment.” Aside from the consequential impact media has on society as a mode of socialization and conditioning, the entertainment industry is also a career field. Colorism in casting is colorism in hiring!
- In all fields, the implicit bias attributes greater intelligence, competence, marketability, relatability, and professionalism to light-skinned POCs.
- Outright employment discrimination with explicit demand for light-skinned employees and greater positioning and benefits for light-skinned employees versus distrust or suspicion of dark-skinned employees.
- It’s harder to get away with this now, but it still happens. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has settled cases of explicit colorism.
How color has been a form of generational economic wealth
Employment discrimination based on skin tone has been happening for generations in both Black and non-Black school and work environments. Because light skinned people have historically been granted greater employment opportunities, they’ve had more opportunities to save and accumulate wealth. They then have the resources to provide their children better education and greater opportunities so that their next generation starts off in an even better economic position.
And this has been happening since the institution of race-based slavery. The mixed race descendants of white-male-enslavers were far more likely to be formally educated and taught certain trades and skills that they could use to build economic stability. They were also more likely to be granted their freedom and inherit property or assets, etc. And this benefited their offspring as well.
Though this did not always happen and was not necessarily a default practice, it happened often enough to create a separate class of freed people who were light-skinned with other Eurocentric phenotypes. They often created communities for themselves separate and apart from “Black negroes” that they deemed to be a different and lower class than them.
They intentionally kept their status, currency, resources, and growing wealth within their light-skinned community of mixed ancestry. They built communities, schools, and organizations that explicitly discriminated against and excluded dark-skinned Black people.
It was very common in Louisiana to see entire multi-generational families that were all light-skinned. It’s rare to see such a family that does not have economic privilege stemming from color privilege.
I emphasize that this generational wealth is economic because dark-skinned people and families have passed on legacies of so many other forms of wealth that have sustained us in many ways.
If color is currency, what can it afford You?
I’m glad you asked!!
I propose that color as currency can afford you any and all the things that money can buy as well as things money can’t buy. Here’s why I say that:
- We’ve already established that color can increase your access to money in the first place.
- Because of biases and stereotypes, light-skinned people are more likely to garner empathy, sympathy, support, and sponsorship from others. This may come in the form of monetary donations; the allocation of supplies, resources, information, time, or space; and networking opportunities.
- The heteronormative marriage market is a classic case of color as currency, especially for cis women. I mentioned last week how light-skinned women are more likely to have a marriage partner, especially a partner of equal or higher socioeconomic status as them. And dark-skinned women are more likely to marry a man of lower socioeconomic status than them. This amounts to increased economic stability or economic progress for light-skinned women and their children.
- Color as currency also affords social and emotional clout and affirmation. Things like seeing people who look like you well-represented throughout society and the psychological and emotional benefit of that. It’s priceless, really.