In 2011 more black people all over the world still struggle with identity. Some have lack of cultural identity some struggle with spiritual identify and some suffer from pigment identification. Calling ourselves African American would be sort of a farce seeing that we are descendant and not directly from Africa. Being called black isn’t really accurate because very few of us are the color black.
I remember asking my cousin what color he was when he was about 8 years old and he responded “I’m brown” and I remember me and my other cousin dying with laughter after thinking that he was foolish, but in hindsight we were the foolish ones.
Most people will say that there are three shades of “blackness” light skin, brown skin and dark skin. When you categorize things you make people try and fit into molds. People who are deemed light skin are viewed to be more beautiful than their dark skin counterparts because of their tendency to have more European features. Dark skin people are viewed as lesser human beings opposed to their light skin counterparts due to the tendency for them to have more African features. And how can we forget the brown skin people not light enough to be light skin nor dark enough to be dark skin, this person will be neutral and won’t really identify with being dark nor light.
These molds are reflected in media outlets daily to reality TV shows to commercials and everything in between, I can’t count how many times a dark skin actor/actress was replaced in a show with someone of fairer complexion( Vivian from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air comes to mind) or how the video vixen is mainly a fair skinned exotic looking woman. It is becoming a better as there is more shades of blackness on television but it’s not enough. What do you think?
It shouldn't matter but this is America. Slavemasters deliberately placed house(light) workers inside and field(dark)workers outside. This country was built on a "divide and conquer" mentality and sadly continues today.
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