Posts in Colorism
The Invisible Cloak of Colorism “Concealing Black Girl Magic”

Colorism isn’t a new topic nor a new issue within the Black Community. Colorism is truly an international problem as lighter skin is almost universally valued among all racial groups. It is, simply defined by Alice Walker, the “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color.”

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Memories that Live in My Mind Rent Free

A memory that haunts me at night, is from my middle school days in English. I was in eighth grade and at this time of my life my hair was done by my mom and my attire was a school board mandated uniform. On this particular day, we were watching a movie in English. My teacher did the spill about how this movie tied into our lesson. An interesting fact about this class is that my English teachers gave us assigned seats. So, sometimes I was lucky enough to be sat by my friends or assigned by someone she thought I would not talk to. After she gave us the spill, she went to the back of the room to turn out the lights. A boy in my class turned to another boy and said, “where did Brooklyn go?” This was a joke that was used often in school.

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Black Don’t Crack, Or Does It? Black Women and Mental Health

Mental health is such a hush-hush conversation in the black community that when you do try to talk about it, it’s like you said a bad word. I can see it now, you come in from school with a grimace on your face and the first thing mama says is “girl, you better straighten up that face before you come in here! What’s wrong with you?” When you try to explain that you had a bad day, the response was often, “Ain’t nothing wrong with you. What you got to worry ‘bout, you’re just a child?”

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