Colorism In African American Women

Belittling is a term used to regard or portray something or someone as less impressive or not important. Colorism is the term used to define the rift between light skinned and dark skins and was caused by slave owners who would have sexual relations with slave women and create lightskin children. In return all lightskin women men and children would be given special treatment and were allowed to work in the house to preserve their skin tone. In the United States African American individuals are targeted for being black by others outside of their race. Not only are African American individuals being targeted for that but to push it further African American women are being mistreated by the black community for being a certain color skin tone.

In the black community African American woman face the struggle of being put down because of the color of their skin, this is often described as colorism. Woman who are said to be lightskin are deemed to be wealthier, prettier, and less ratchet than their darkskinned sisters. Not only are these women being degraded by men of the same race, but this kind of mindset is affecting children as well. “Psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark designed and conducted a series of experiments known as The Doll Test,” (The Root par.1). The doll test was supposed to be used in the Brown v. Board of education case, but the people decided to not present the experiment. The experiment consisted of children ages 3-7 being shown white and black baby dolls and the majority of those children chose the white doll over the black one (The Root par.2). Many find that this test was pointless and proved to be invalid because children are not reliable sources and change their minds often. Others also believe that the children could’ve been pressured to choose a certain doll over another, but although those viewpoints were valid the Doll Test did prove that colorism is affecting the children in black communities. According to Nadra Nittle, “research has linked colorism to smaller incomes, lower marriage rates, longer prison sentences, and fewer job prospects for darker skinned individuals,”( Nittle par.3). It is said that many jobs would hire based on a stereotype of a certain black woman. Gabrielle Union describes in an interview that she still faces colorism today, for example at a job casting after she didn 't get the job things that ran through her head were, “ If my hair was different or my nose wasn’t pointy enough, or maybe my lips were too big, or do they just want light skin girls,” (Nittle par.4). Keke Palmer also experienced the harshness of colorism and stated to a news reporter that, “ when I was 5 years old I used to pray to be light skin because I would always hear how pretty the