Got A Light Skin Friend That Looks Like Michael Jackson, Got A Dark Skin Friend That Looks Like Mich

Got A Light Skin Friend That Looks Like Michael Jackson, Got A Dark Skin Friend That Looks Like Mich

"You must use the light skin slaves vs. the dark skin slaves and the dark skin slaves vs. the light skin slaves"

Except from the "Willie Lynch Speech"

Of the many schisms within the African-American community, we have created our own color line, perpetuating mainstream stereotypes and fallen into traps that allows us to publicly fight a war against our own race. There are many battles that happen within our community, the middle-class vs. the poor, those classes vs. the elite, generational, regional, and the beat goes on like Scotty from The Whispers would say.

I am not exempt, has anyone seen a pattern in my choice of female companionship? What's the big deal; we're all black, well ain't we? The origin of this internal race war most likely traces back to the plantations when lighter skinned slaves, most often the product of Master creeping (sing it for me four times, creep, creep, creep, creep) into the slave quarters late at night to have his way with a female slave, were perceived to be treated preferentially or given jobs in the big house.

Octoroon, mulatto, redboned, hi-yella have all been used to describe the lighter shade of black over the years. Mainstream media has made it the "accepted" shade of Black beauty by pushing Lena Horne, Halle Berry, Beyonce, Tyra Banks and other light-skinned women as sex symbols. I suppose the fairer shade of our people have it bad, still Black, yet despised by many of a darker hue. When so many women are wearing weaves, faces caked up with makeup, eyelashes extended, along with their nails and the enhancement of boobs and bootys, gastric bypass to replace good ol' fashion Jenny Craig, who's image of beauty are we living up to? Black, white, dark or light it all seems silly to me.

Spike Lee famously depicted the divide in "School Daze" with the classic "Jiggaboos vs. Wannabes'" song and dance routine in the hair salon. Is it really about long hair vs. short, curly, straight vs. kinky (nappy)? Don Imus' off the cuff remark about nappy headed hoes on the Rutgers women's team was born out of the contrast to the appearance of the Tennessee women, most notably Candace Parker, who has light skin and long hair. It appears as if the media has decided what's beautiful to us (again!) and it really seeps into our psyche.

Remember when light-skinned Brothers went out of style? Right around the time Wesley Snipes laid in that bed with Angela Bassett, dark-skinned Brothers became the "IT" thing in the hood and Hollywood! Michael Jordan, Morris Chestnut and Tyson Beckford were among the beneficiaries of that trend. While El Debarge & Al B. Sure! fell off the face of the Earth.

“Your mother is so black, when she went to night school, the teacher marked her absent!”

It’s been there with us all along, whether it was called the dozens, cracking or hiking, jokes aimed at the darkness of one’s skin were a favorite, along with insults against intelligence and weight, but did we know then it was a form of intra-racism? No, it was all for laughs, all for that momentary win by putting down someone else. I’ve told your mama jokes about people whose mothers weren’t even dark or fat, but that wasn’t the point.

How are we to know what someone internalizes about the color of their skin, hard enough find comfort in being Black, but to compound it by being dark-skinned when the media and your community doesn’t value its beauty, has to be hard. Hard enough for Michael Jackson to diagnose himself with Vitiligo, to explain how he has morphed into a white woman over the years. Now, my great-grandfather had Vitiligo and it was most notable but the patches that he had on his hand and on his face as he got older. I guess Michael has a severe case, like West Nile Vitiligo!