we do not live in a post racial society. the advent of Obama was not the waning of the racist moon. the traditional racial lines have not been erased. not while color still means so much to us. not while our children still associate white with right. not while dark people are taught that their defining features are ugly and unacceptable in 'polite' society. until the locks and earthen tone of the dark continent are deemed equal to the euro-centric mainstream in this world, we will never move beyond race.
Obama did not write the final chapter to america's racial story. quite the contrary, a new can of worms was opened with his election. within this can were the innate bigotries that lay dormant within the hearts and minds of the american populous. for the first time in more than four decades people had to face their own issues with race. you could feel the collective cringe of those who had to finally admit to themselves that they couldn't vote for a black man. you could taste the bile from those who swore that the was a muslim, as if praying to Allah, the God of brown men, was a negative mark. we all heard the disenfranchised howls of the birthers, who knew that the election board had mistakenly allowed a foreigner to run for president.there was even tsalk of session from the most radical of the bunch. and to think all of this venom because a black man dared excerise his constitutional right to seek the presidency. how dare he.
but recently, harry reid, the senate majority leader, gives us a good teaching moment that sums up obama's true effect on the racial discussion. reid said in so many words that america was ready to embrace a "light-skinned" black man with no "negro" dialect. you can infer that this statement means, that in the eyes of americans light is right. light colored skin is considered acceptable because it is close to white skin. this raises an important issue in the racial discussion that is too oft over looked. in this country, and indeed the world over, colorism, or the preference lighter complexions, is a more important factor than race.
in the black community it's nnot uncommon for one to hear for their whole life how much better light skin is than dark. we associate dark skin with the things the euro-centric mainstream deem ugly about our ethnicity: dark skin, 'nappy' hair, wide noses and big lips and buttocks. we associate light skin with positive aspects of the culture: fair skin, straight hair, slim builds, and success. what has happened is that all things that define the black race physically have been deemed negative by the prevailing culture. this idea leads to bigotries even within ethnic groups by deeming certain members of the group superior. it's effectiveness is compounded when the distinction is made along visible lines like appearance. it causes people to teach their children that light skin and straight hair are desirable as opposed to kinky hair and dark skin. it is a control method used by slave traders and owners in order to create mental slaves (enslave the mind and yoiu dont need shackles). it was at this time that fairer skinned slaves (born of white fathers) were called superior and allpwed to live in the big house, while the darker toned (pure african) slaves were forced to toil their days in the fields. the house slaves were more likely to gain access to education than the field slaves, compounding the idea that light skin was superior.
the sad truth is that this mental slavery that was imposed at the end of the gun barrels and whips of european slave traders was more effective than they could have imagined. to this day these slave ideals that light skin and straight hair is superior to dark skin and kinky hair have prevailed throughout the black community, and, yes, the nation as a whole. the idea that in order to succeed as a black person in this nation one must shun their african features in favor of a more european appearance and persona. we are post racial indeed.
this problem is universal, as i said. name a brown nation on earth andi can point out examples of colorism. in many asain cultures, darker skin is associated with poverty and is deemed undesirable. in some latin american nations european descendants are considered more desirable than african and native descendants. even on the african continent, the hutus and tutsi are embroiled in a centuries old dispute based on european preference.
we do not live in a post racial world. and we will not until we can accept ourselves for who were designed to be.
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