Bonding With the 'Light'

For all those who saw this coming after the last post...don't email me! LOL


I sometimes fume. Yes, it is hard to imagine a 'goddess' losing her cool, but a few times I have allowed the illogical and the biased to singe my breeches. Recently, I was reminded of one such time...

It's the reason I do not have a subscription to Essence magazine any longer.

I saw an Essence in my aunt's home with Mary J.Blige on the cover. She looked like the chanteuse goddess she is, with eyes that have seen too much and gained wisdom from it. I read the insert about her and enjoyed the article. But I could not help thinking about the last time I had my own subscription to Essence and why I did not renew it. Flashback to January 2003: It was roughly two years after 9/11 and the unity had faded from all our lives. But I never realized the ugly face of bias that would return after this loss of unity.


There was an article that I thought was about interracial dating. The title was "When Our Men Choose Other Women" or something of the like. I had several friends who'd just started expanding their dating options and was curious; I'm an old hand at these relationships so there really wasn't much they could 'inform' one of. The article began with observations made by some of what the contributing editor/author of the piece described as "dark-skinned sisters that are friends of mine". They spoke of their heartbreak and exasperation at being 'dismissed' in favor of what they described as "other women". The tone was a bit exclusionary, but they didn't seem to be saying anything too harsh about my 'sisters from other mothers', so I kept reading. By the end of the article I was heartbroken- and angry! Some people simply will never agree with interracial dating: it is like they got stuck on that pre-school game concentration where you match the little cards' image with their exact likeness on another card. They can't see that we are not sheep to be matched with sheep, we are humans with emotions and preferences and socio-cultural backgrounds that together may be determining factors in who we mate with, yet not strictly. But that is not what made me angry...I got over THAT when I got married.

One of the 'other' groups listed with the Asians, European Americans, Latinas and Hispanics was "light-skinned women". It struck hardest because this was a contributing editor for the magazine expressing more opinion than information! She included herself in the ranks of "Dark-skinned sisters dis' and dismissed for other women". That is how she chose to describe sisters of HER RACE with lighter complexions- she didn't bother to add that they too are African-Americans; and writing a piece like the one she wrote, maybe she should have called it "No One Should Date Black Men But Dark-skinned Women". Did something happen during the 2000 Census that I was unaware of? I recall my Creole relatives attempting to strong-arm me into signing a petition in 1998 to have "French-Creole from Louisiana" made a category during the Census, but it failed. I never signed because, although I see the richness and character that makes Creole culture unique, I do not see myself as any different than the other sisters of my race. But I must be the only one.

One has heard any number of asinine comments made by the jealous, the lonely. But for some reason, the ones that stick 'like glue' are the ones like, "Look at them! They must be trying to have a white baby- two people that light should have found dark-skinned partners" or "I can't believe he is that cliche- showing up with that light-skinned girl with his black ass!" No matter what complexion my date is, I still get insulted. I know the history...better than they do obviously because I refuse to play into it. I can assure all that I am not a 'house nigger', nor am I an 'Oreo'. But the funny thing is, if I was four shades darker, I would not have to preach.

Remember Old Hollywood and the African-American goddesses that paved the way for more Blacks in Film? Dorothy and Lena to name a few. Remember some of the most militant African-Americans from the Civil Rights and Black Power movements? Angela Davis, Huey Newton and Malcolm X? But the Civil Rights movement didn't begin in the early part of the Twentieth Century, it began with people like Fredrick Douglass. The father of the Civil Rights Movement, was a self-professed bi-racial baby. These people are our heroes and heroines, championing our cause throughout their lives to be noticed for our character...why are we now allowing those in our race to segregate us according to complexion?

I am calling out to everyone who has ever negated true love because of the lovers' complexions...start thinking outside yourself and your desires and embrace your lighter-complected brothers and sisters of ALL races. Truth be told if the portion of the population labelled "light-skinned" 'defected', African-Americans wouldn't even be the second largest minority group, they would probably be behind Native Americans in numbers. Dark complexions are beautiful, exotic and hard to come by, but they are not the definition of Blackness. That which defines our blackness is held within our history, our hearts and our intellect. Whether the light-skinned African-American children of slave owners were the reason Black colleges were sometimes funded by Whites early on, is pure speculation, and so is the idea that ALL lighter-skinned African Americans are treated 'better' in some way by eurocentric societies and prized for their 'lightness'. Live "The Dream" and judge people on their character; that guy may be all over that light-skinned girl simply because she is not all hung up on complexion.


To those who have stumbled onto this blog by accident, I hope you learn something. To those who know this blog...answer the call and don't let melanin rule you.