Colorism

A difficult subject on many levels but still the elephant and gorilla combined lurking deep in the closet that must be dealt with. It's not an issue solely for the African American community but also raises its hideous head in many Asian and Latin American cultures too.

From the Washington Post...

Colorism began during slavery when darker-skinned blacks were relegated to field work and lighter-skinned blacks, often the children of slave masters, were given housework. For years after, many blacks, some say, internalized the declaration that the lighter one was the better one.

Nobody wants to talk about colorism. And yet everybody talks about it.

"Colorism was venomous because it did so much damage to the psyche," says Alvin F. Poussaint, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

The attitudes toward dark skin have progressed as a result of discussion and the civil rights movement. But those attitudes have not been completely corrected. They linger in the recesses of human culture. Though circumstances differ, colorism is an issue in countries all around the world: Vietnam, Brazil, India, Japan and Mexico, for instance.