Colourism is something that to me, will always be a factor in your life when you're a person of colour, and as a woman I feel it can hit you 10 times as hard as it can hit a man (in certain situations)
From an early age it is made clear that you are different. Why was I being told by every relative no matter how close or distant that I have to work 10 times as hard in school? As a young girl being told you're different on a regular basis is strange, when you look at the bigger picture as a child what do you even really know? But I, as well as many other girls, got told I was different.
When it was the beginning of a school year and you were welcomed into a new class, the teacher always seemed to be able to pronounce every name under the sun except yours, or maybe you took on a completely different name, your "westernised" name just for convenience.
I do believe because we are told from such a young age that we are different we quickly fall into the categories that we think we are meant to fit into at school. Black children stick together, Asian children stick together etc. Now obviously this is a large generalization but unless you were lucky enough to go to an extremely utopian school it is a common case. This isn't because one group dislikes another but it's often just because they feel more comfortable with their "assigned" groups, their families have made it the norm and they seem to have more in common, the anecdotes they tell to each other make more sense because POC to POC it's relatable.
When I was in school I didn't always fall into this norm and I can tell you people did remind me that me hanging out with a more mixed group, was different. I'm sure I've already spoke about the term "acting white" so I won't go too indepth with it here. But it's a term that has got thrown around alot in my adolescent years.
When you get a bit older and dating comes into play, if your preference isn't the same skin tone as you this can sometimes cause some issues to come up in your household, as forward thinking as people are the idea of bringing a black man home to your traditional Christian family or a black girl home to an arabic Muslim household can be something which fills the child with fear and dread. First hand I know this fear and as me and quite a few of my friends have been in this situation and the topic has come up many times. When talking about meeting the parents the same issue comes up "I don't think they'll like me because I'm insert race of your choice here"
Sad but very true we can often feel stifled by our own skin colour and believe that somehow it makes us less worthy in the eyes of some older generations to date their precious babies.
Now whilst it can make us feel stifled I can say it very rarely deters, I know there are relationships which never live out to their full potential because of the judgement of others but I also see many survive as well as seeing the determination from both parties to have the relationship succeed because they know that their skin colour/their partner being from another culture/religion has very little problems. If anything, it can be beneficial as you will forever be learning new things about another culture.
Edit as of June 2018
Lately on socials there has been so much talk about blatant colourism within the entertainment industry, old tweets being dragged up, certain singers reaching fame quicker than equally talented darker skinned sisters. I am an avid twitter user as many of you will know if you follow me I am not silent on this issue. Colourism has always been a thing and whether you were a dark skin black or asian girl or light skin mixed race boy you felt that. When Maya Jamas old tweets resurfaced, I was disappointed. I felt sad that someone we all root for had a dirty past where she refused to love us how we loved her. But I wasn't wholly surprised. If you look back at Facebook and Twitter (if you had it) a few years ago it was pretty savage. No one was really safe and dark skin women were often in the firing line. It was her apology that was the real sore note for many people, addressing all woman instead of those who were targeted in the abuse. After listening to her on The Receipts podcast I understood that this was a young girl being very ignorant. However I still don't believe it's justification for the offence caused. As a Black woman I cannot begin to explain how frustrating it can be to see this kind of slander, it's part of our everyday life and it shouldn't be as commonplace as it is.
Have you ever thought about colourism and how it has possibly affected you growing up?
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