Google photos
I’m sure for many years, most of us can relate to the term colourism as much as we understand racism but before I get into such a very serious discussion such as this, I’ll live to widen our understanding of colourism. According to Google, colourism can be defined as the “prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.” Colourism and racism go hand in hand as racists show a bias towards a particular race of people thereby denying them several opportunities due to the colour of their skin. From my little research and understanding, what differentiates them both is that racism is done by people of a different race while colourism is done by people within the same race.
The reason why I want to talk about colourism is pretty obvious. It sabotages the black race in general and some of our people in diaspora avoid this topic due to self denial or ignorance. I’ll go straight to the point to avoid making this write up too long. From careful observation, I’ve discovered our people are in mental chains which is one of the reasons we behave like our former colonial/slave masters. Wether it’s in terms of marriage, politics, education, business, career, entertainment, we limit ourselves very terribly with the way we create division amongst ourselves due to favouring people with lighter skin colour, looser hair Texture, thinner nose or lips. I know some people are aware of this but for those who aren’t, colourism has brothers or sisters such texturism and fearurism. Texturism involves the favoritism shown to people with looser hair texture or people whose hair are close to straight than those with thick curly hair. Same thing goes for featurism where black people with thinner nose or lighter eye colour are more respected, promoted and acknowledged generally than black people with black eye colour, broader nose and lips. So you see that they all go hand in hand because these “isms” I previously mentioned basically involves promoting black people with dominant European features than black people with dominant African features. This short lecture will be divided into cause of the problem, it’s consequence and a practical solution.
CAUSE
Going deeper into this discussion, I have to acknowledge the negative psychological effect of slavery and colonialism on black people worldwide. No matter how many black people want to deny it, there’s no way during slavery, the lighter skin or biracials will be told to work indoors as house servants all day while keeping the darker skinned slaves to do the harder jobs out in the sun and we think it won’t negatively affect the self esteem of dark skin blacks. Even years after colonization, we began to notice lighter skin people get more attention in the music industry, movie industry which gradually became absorbed into the mindset of the average black person. Talk of the damaging effect of imagery on us (I’ll elaborate more on this in another post). Let me not forget that religion helped our people develop the mindset of worshipping light or white skin. Representing God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, saints, angels as white while the devil being black does something to the people’s psychology and like it or not, racism will be fueled and black people keep hating themselves as long as dark skin is portrayed as evil. Entertainment especially in Hollywood even worsened situations by intentionally limiting dark skinned people to certain roles in movies which are usually debasing. From Roles that project black men or fathers being the weak irresponsible dummy to roles that project black women as masculine to black men being feminine to black women acting all crazy and ill mannered which was how the mad black woman stereotype developed just to demean dark skinned black women.
Of course Hollywood content isn’t just entertainment else they won’t be intentionally projecting dark skinned black people in poor light while lighter skinned black women or even white women get the better roles, portrayed to be more feminine,sweet and fragile. It’s all agenda. People watched tv and even started doing that as far back as the 40s and 50s. Of course after a while of watching these type of content especially as black people, imagine the damage it will cause in future. Little things we take for granted are our major problem and sadly we’ve being major contributors to our destruction. When nollywood was born, dark skinned actresses where getting job opportunities as much as light skinned ones but after a while, they borrowed the idea of colourism from Hollywood and started denying dark skinned ladies job while the lighter skinned ladies have been more promoted. This forced the dark skinned actresses in Nigeria to start bleaching just to get roles which is so ridiculous and mind blowing but colourism is the demon here so I won’t judge.
Consequences
Having discussed the major cause of the problem, highlighting the consequences is another part of the lecture that lets us understand the damage being inflicted upon us mostly by ourselves. I’ll just summarize it into bullet points.
*High crime rate
*Failed parenting
*Lack of fathers
*Irresponsible youths
*Deep self hatred
*Skin bleaching
*Organ and tissue failure from skin bleaching
*lack of job opportunities which can drive people to go to any length to survive
*Division instead of unity
*Loss of critical thinking ability
*High limitation: The potentials for us to get better collectively as a race is very limited because we choose to ignore and even deny people with diverse talents simply because of their dark skin.
Solutions
Every problem in this life has a cause therefore must have a solution. We can’t dwell on our problems forever without thinking deeply about the next steps as well as practical solutions to solve it and combat any more problems in the future. No matter who contributed even if it’s the whites, as a people, we need to take responsibility and not allow anyone dictate to us how to represent black culture neither should we even expect the white man to portray us in good light. We owe ourselves and our generation that duty. So instead of complaining about how the white man is using Hollywood against us, let’s think of practical solutions.
*Public awareness/enlightenment: Every black person should take one another’s problem like theirs and speak up for each other. When our people do wrong, let’s correct each other with love and be more concerned about the collective of black people than being individualistic. Let’s educate ourselves thoroughly on the brothers and sisters of racism which I’ve mentioned previously and create content speaking on these issues boldly without fear of gaslighting from our fellow black people or even other races.
*I think anybody who is inclined to entertain such as singing, acting, dancing or even comedy/skit making and can’t get opportunities due to colourism definitely has other options. All thanks to YouTube, TikTok and other social media platforms where people post content and make money after a while. This time, make sure that you differentiate yourself from the industry and don’t repeat the damage that Hollywood, Nollywood and Bollywood have created in case of colourism. Use your content as an opportunity to promote dark skinned people equally as light skinned people are promoted. This also goes to cartoonists who are telling beautiful stories with very beautiful AI images. Most of you are doing greatly showcasing the beauty of black men and women in diversity and all I can say is……….don’t stop!!!!! You all are amazing. These stories will build our children’s self esteem while teaching them about good morals and family values at the same time. Wonderful!!!
*If you are modeling, create a platform and market your products with equal representation of dark and light skinned people too. Same for any other business man or woman too.
From all I just mentioned, The best gift we can gift ourselves is awareness and knowledge because knowledge is extremely powerful and the best way to achieve this is via the media. Back then it was through Tv, newspaper, radios and magazines. Today it’s a combination of those stuff and the internet of which the internet has major impact than the others. This is why I need my people to take advantage of the opportunities the internet provides and use it for our advantage not to our detriment. If we can contribute to our destruction why not our greatness, sovereignty and success. It’s not by shouting “one day Africa will be great” and going to sleep. Yeah of course it’ll be but it will require our hardwork, patience and sacrifice. Let’s start from somewhere and keep striving while ignoring distractions and every plan to kill our efforts because like it or not, these things are expected in case some of us are not aware. Our problems are caused by a combination of foreigners and sell outs amongst us. This is why as a content creator promoting Africa right, when you blow, be mindful of the opportunities the industry especially Hollywood starts offering you. The offers may be very juicy but may be a huge trap to dim your light especially if they see you have huge influence on your people and your content is undoing the damage they brought upon our people for years. If I were you I’ll say you should not sign any record deal or contract in any industry but if you must do, be very cautious and PRAY!!!
I’ve said my piece, you’re free to add yours. Thanks for reading to the end, you’re really patient but I see you have a hunger for knowledge, don’t stop please.
No comments:
Post a Comment