[QUOTE=monstro]
Yes, it’s very silly. But I guess no less silly than other kinds of racial prejudice. All of it is monkey dung.
I’ve had people wrongly assume things about me because I’m light-skinned (that I’m biracial, that I’m wealthy, that I’m stuck-up, that I’m not “culturally” black), but AFAIK, I’ve never experienced real hatred. As a kid, a stupid boy decided to call me “ole yella” but it didn’t sting in the same way as “tarbaby” probably does.
I do know people who are “color struck” and they irk me. I recently learned that my father chose my mother partly because of her skin tone (which he wrongly assumed would translate into “good haired” kids…not knowing that my mother’s nappy hair was hidden under her hairpieces and weaves! Ha!) My brother seems to have a thing for light-skinned women, but I suppose that doesn’t mean he doesn’t find darker-skinned attractive (but maybe sexual attraction doesn’t qualify in this discussion? I don’t know).
Black people aren’t the only ones who are like this. One day I overheard an Indian girl telling her friends that she wished she was lighter. The way she said it was so casual…almost like she was talking about her hair color. But you would NEVER hear a black person say this in public, especially in the company of other blacks. They may think it privately, but they wouldn’t confess to it. Skin color is hugely political for us…many of us carry some degree of baggage because of it.
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What you said about the Indian girl reminds me of something that happened to me a few years ago.
I am white…extremely so. My skin is so pale you can see the veins. Once, a friend of mine, who is Black, held her arm next to mine and laughed. “Girl, you are so pink!” she said.
Anyway, I own a business and a few years back was working with several Indian-owned hotel management companies. I had been working with one particular group for several years and had become very close with the owners. One night, we were at a party and it was me and say, seven male Indians. I happened to have received a call earlier that day from an Indian hotelier who was unknown to me who asked if I would meet with him. So, I asked my friends if they knew him and if so, would I like doing business with him.
They all knew him and looked at each other and smiled. When I said, “What?”, one of the men said sort of slyly…“He’s okay, but don’t let the “dark” rub off on you.”
I didn’t get it at all. That’s when they explained that he was of a “lower” class than they.
They liked me so much that they had forgotten who they were talking to.
It made me very sad because many of these hoteliers had hired me to represent them to the local business community because of the prejuduce toward Indians in our area.
I cried in the car on the way home.