I think by now we all know that
COLORISM is an important and detrimental issue that is seemingly ingrained in the very fiber of our bloodstained history. By us, of course, I mean the Black Community. I experienced colorism, or a preference due to my skin tone, as a child in a family of immigrants who wanted nothing more than to achieve The American Dream...part of which included living up to the Eurocentric ideals of beauty e.g. lighter (or whiter) is better. In fact, in our home country of Haiti, colorism is very real. We're very much like The Hunger Games in a sense. Those who live in the capitol have the class, power, money, and seemingly are all of a more French creole (white) descent. The rest of the country lives in the districts getting poorer and more rundown the further from the capital.
In this fight for equality, we ultimately have to address some in house issues. I'm not talking about this nonsense about "Black on Black crime". I mean the shackles that have been passed on generation after generation that keep our minds enslaved and oppressed.
COLORISM is one of the areas that we can rectify on our own with just a little bit of effort. It simply takes a belief that we are
WORTHY of praise and the emulation that comes from cultural appropriation. We've been so trained to hate our image yet we're allowing other races to siphon our very souls for monetary gain. I actually did a podcast some time last year where I touched on how colorism effected me as a child and my experiences with it [Listen to it here:
Colorism in Black Society]. Personally I'm
TEAM MELANIN, not
TEAM LIGHT SKIN or
DARK SKIN because we're all
BEAUTIFUL! If the narrative is gonna be changed we have to do it ourselves.
Out of solidarity for
TEAM MELANIN, I created a tee that says
STOP COLORISM on the front and
Flexin' My Complexion on the back. The shirt can be purchased as a tank, tee, or hoodie (in a few color options) on teespring [Buy it:
here]. Remember to love yourselves and each other.
WE ALL WE GOT!!! *fist in the air emoji*
Natasha Marie
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