I thought I'd post this video of a short documentary, because it's something I have a problem with... and that is shadeism. Watching this video made me ask myself, Am I a "shadist" ?
For example I am more attracted to lighter skinned guys, even white guys, than dark skinned or brown skinned men. There is the occassional dark skinned guy that I find attractive, but in general, I don't pay them attention. My one friend sometimes makes fun of me for being racist against my own race [being that she loves a dark skinned guy, and I just don't], but it's not even like that [because at the same time, she doesn't like light skinned guys, specifically because she says, they think they're "better than"], because I don't even go out of my way to associate only with all light skinned people over darker skinned people; after all, I myself am brown skinned. But I find my obsession crazy to the point that, I envision a future of having children that are NOT dark like me. [Isn't that wrong? Or is it just a "preference"?]
However, I do find myself having an innermost issue with skin color/shade. Like this: my mother is fair skinned, whereas my father is dark skinned. And I came out a brown baby from that mix. I'm one of five, and two of my brothers are light skinned, while my sister, other brother and I are all darker. [Maybe I should 'insert family photo here' lol] Most of my maternal family is light skinned, and my paternal side is mostly dark skinned. I've often wished that my skin was lighter; [I'll be quite honest, since it is MY blog]. Even to the point where, when I was entering into high school, my mother bought me Fair & Lovely fairness cream [see it in the video below]. Not that I asked for it, but I accepted it without any questions. Although I haven't used it for a while, because she stopped buying them when they got expensive... Why is it that I want to be a lighter complexion? Do I really think that being dark is ugly?
Anyways, several issues stem from this thing called shadeism, including being racist amongst your own race, such as lighter skinned people only choose to be with lighter skinned people [because they are "better"]. I see this everyday too, where often a group of lighter skinned girls always hang together, with no dark skinned girls, save for that ONE dark skinned girl. They see themselves as better looking, classier, prettier, BETTER than anyone darker than them. And it's not even only girls that do this, men do it too, to the point that they WON'T date/marry a darker skinned woman. This probably isn't always true, as some people may say that I am assuming; but I think it's actually quite true. You can even see it in social networking sites like Twitter, where people will tweet #teamlightskin, #teamredbone. I often roll my eyes, because I'm wondering, What does that mean? Are light skinned people supposed to be better?
I'm going to stop there, because this issue can be delicate, and all over the place. Peep the video.
