Color•isms

It’s funny how a song can make you revisit a scene in life, causing you to dig up the pits from your past. While delving through my memory’s museum, I toppled onto an incident that occurred sometime last summer.

As my roommate and I sat in boredom one afternoon, we retreated to a celebrity gossip site to spice up our day. Somehow in our quest to find the latest and juiciest gossip, we stumbled across a radio snippet featuring an ignoramus rapper named Young Berg.

My blood boiled with anger, my eyes bubbled in disbelief as he aired his distaste for dark skinned women, in favor of those with light skin and even lighter eyes.You mean, all this time I thought the most unique aspect of “blackness” was our assortment of skin tones ― ranging from honey hues, almond toasted toffee to velvety chocolate?

I couldn’t believe this man denounced an entire spectrum of women and referred to us as dark butts. I reeled the interview back several times to make sure his comments resonated and this wasn’t a mental trick. He then proceeded to share his spin on the antiquated brown paper bag test of the early 1900s.

He coined it “the pool test” and outlined the precise criteria for distinguishing the good-haired from the nappy-headed: If a woman waltzed out of a pool with perfectly coiffed ringlets, she was fine, fair-skinned and for him. For any reason, if her hair morphed into a kinky afro ― she was deemed dark and undesirable.

After the first five minutes of his despicable remarks, I weaved together my thoughts in a heated editorial. I assumed every chocolate girl in America would lock arms and burn down his home, slaughter his dog or commit some other act of cruelty. I guess I was the only one that held such vengeance and disgust over his comments. Day after day, his one hit saturated the airwaves and continuously topped 106 & Park’s video countdown.

Sorry for the personal anecdote.

I’m not attempting to feed you more jargon about the woes of dark skinned women nor is it my desire to cross examine the psyche of a color struck rapper. I will, however, tip my hat off to an extraordinary lyricist named Wale. In his song “Shades,” he tackles his struggle with self-acceptance, an insecurity stemming from the jiggaboo vs. wannabe paradox.

I know all rappers don’t rhyme about copping candy painted cars, chasing model chicks and stacking cake. Some rhyme about delinquent fathers, domestic violence and political issues plaguing society. [It’s categorized as conscious rap] But never in the history of rap music have I heard any rap artist address colorism from a male perspective — if it wasn’t to defend a casting call featuring vanilla crème girls with hair touching their ankles.

I digress…

Despite Wale’s highly anticipated debut, I didn’t know much about his personal life before I listened to “Shades.” Besides his strong Nigerian roots and hometown allegiance to D.C., I knew little else…

Little did I know, colorism crippled his self-esteem for years as he harbored resentment towards the “light-skins.” When the khaki-colored guys snagged the pretty girls, he cursed his soiled ebony skin for not availing similar advantages.

For some reason, society’s typical depiction of colorism never fails to reference a black girl [named Pecola, preferably ] who picked up a mirror as a child and balked at her licorice skin and course matted hair. By conditioning, we cast colorism as a “black women’s thang” and never acknowledge the scores of black men suffering from the divisive mindset. And for that reason, I commend you, Wale.