Skin color long has divided races and caused bigotry and hatred. But color also can create problems within the same race and culture.
In many cultures, lighter skin is preferred, and tension can exist within the same family, dividing the lighter-skinned members from the darker.
This is the case in many black, Hispanic and Indian cultures, and it has caused severe self-esteem issues for children living with this intracultural discrimination.
“Being the middle child was a pain, but it was nothing compared with being the darkest child,” says Desiree G., 19, of Ft. Lauderdale. “It was like always having to prove that I was as good as my light-skinned sisters. I always felt ugly and depressed. It took me a long time to figure out that I was pretty, because growing up I was never told that.”
Desiree has two younger half sisters who are, like her, full African-American. But her sisters’ complexions are fair, while Desiree is much darker. She says her two younger sisters were praised for their beautiful skin and long hair, while she felt like the family outcast.
Even in school, Desiree says, she felt inferior to lighter-skinned girls, whose coloring seemed the popular standard of beauty. She was labeled “Blackberry,” a nickname she inwardly hated, but accepted and answered to out of shame.
However, after she made friends with girls of her own complexion, they taught her how to appreciate her darker color, she says.
“My dark-skinned friends would always answer to taunts like ‘Blackie’ with the saying, ‘The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice,’ which was corny, but made me feel better,” Desiree says.
Discrimination is no longer a black-and-white issue, but one with shades of gray in cultures and families who have decided that one complexion is better than another.
With her long, loosely curled black hair, big brown eyes, toffee-colored skin and slender figure, Nicole O., 17, of Coral Springs, Fla., is striking, and has modeled for a few magazine ads. Her mother, Diana, is Puerto Rican and her father, Robert, is Dominican. Nicole is darker than both of them.
“My mother’s side of the family is much lighter than my father’s side, and my mother’s side has always acted distant to me,” Nicole says. “I always knew that it was because I was darker than them. My dad always said that I was beautiful because I had the ‘exotic’ look. But I didn’t want to be exotic. I wanted to be normal.”
As a fair-skinned African-American, I have had difficulty finding my place in my race. Because my skin tone is just a few shades darker than a white person’s, I was often called “white girl,” a name to which I became accustomed.
Although I have felt the favoritism of being light-skinned, I have also felt a deep loss of connection with my own culture. I was left being too dark to be white, and too light to be black. I was somewhere in between, without a true sense of identity.
For some time, my skin color was a source of shame. It was not until later that I began to love my skin, my culture and the different culture of others.
But it is not always family and culture that enforce this standard of beauty. Comparison with peers of lighter skin color or different races can make self-acceptance much harder in an already difficult time of life.
“I grew up in a neighborhood that was mostly white and I was the only Indian,” says Ali J., 16, of South Florida. “The kids were basically nice to me, but it was obvious that I didn’t fit it.
“I would’ve given anything to be pale so I wouldn’t have to worry about the kids staring at me or thinking that I was any different from them.”
The issue of skin-color prejudice within cultures and families seems ridiculous, but it affects many kids growing up in an already superficial world.
