A couple of years ago I wrote a post about how the media rarely discusses the topic of colorism. In comparison to the number of open conversations had about body image in general, self-esteem, peer pressure, bullying, violence, drugs, teen pregnancy, racial profiling, etc, colorism was virtually non-existent in the mainstream media for a long time. School Daze, of course, not withstanding. But now, I’m happy to write this post on the media’s increased attention to colorism.
Over the past few years, there’s been an influx of media attention to the role that skin color specifically plays in societies and within racial groups. I’d say the biggest media project has been the Dark Girls Documentary. The most mainstream attention to colorism has been Soledad O’Brien’s Black in America 5. Because of Soledad’s presence on CNN, the issue of colorism finally hit a main stage and all sorts of people began discussing it on social media, websites, and more. Many people were even hearing about the term and the phenomenon for the first time.
But most recently, as in the past several days, I’ve seen six different television segments where colorism was a prominent theme or talking point, all within the span of a few days. Granted, five of those six (Dark Girls, Oprah’s Next Chapter, Imagine a Future, Girl Talk, and Being Mary Jane) were on so called “black” channels like Centric, BET, and OWN. The other was on MSNBC, but still part of the show anchored by a black woman, Melissa Harris Perry.
Regardless of where or when these segments aired, six distinct presentations of the theme of colorism is exponential growth compared to what was on television when I was growing up. So, hooray for younger generations coming of age today where they’re more likely to see their experiences validated in a major way.
I should also acknowledge that with this increased attention comes more contention. There are still those who say that colorism either doesn’t exist, is not worthy of our attention, or is the fault of an individual’s low self-esteem rather than something structural. I have a feeling though that this is merely the necessary growing pains that every movement goes through. The more we continue to talk openly about colorism, the less frightening the conversation will become.
That’s why I finally, after more than two years of wondering what my role in this movement could possibly be, decided to launch a site dedicated to continuing that conversation. When I searched the internet for colorism, there wasn’t one prominent site that people could return to every day for updated information, discussion, and inspiration about the topic of colorism. Many sites have featured pieces on colorism, but always in the context of a larger focus, like race, or black women’s lives in general, or current events, etc.
But here, you can count on finding new content about healing from colorism.