"Colorism" by Michelle Harris

     The next group that stood out to me was the second group that went the second week of presentations.  Their research topic was on Colorism.  Honestly, this was my favorite group because the topic was so interesting.  It also brought on an even more interesting discussion afterwards and gave us alot to think about.
     They first started off by defining Colorism for us, which is the prejudice against or preference of skin tone in a race.  In other words, Racism within a race.  They explained how most black people have been brought up to believe that the lighter, the better.  They had a video to support their presentation, and it was very interesting to see what preferences were for both black men and women.  Most black men preferred lighter toned black women with long hair and a lot of black women preferred darker toned men.  What made it more interesting to me was that it was the darker toned of each gender that preferred the lighter toned and vice versa.  After the showing of the video, the discussion afterwards went in more depth of the topic by stating that maybe if we were brought up to praise darker skin there would be a higher preference for it.  This provoked a lot of opinions and thoughts throughout the room.
    I would have to agree with most of what this group said.  As black people and from years beyond our time, we have been brought up to be ashamed of our skin.  We were brain washed to believe that the lighter our skin, in other words the closer to "white" we are the better and the more accepted we would be in society.  I honestly believe that it is sad that we discriminate against each other especially given the fact that we have been and sometimes still are discriminated against today.  The last thing we need to do is turn against one another.  Personally I am proud of my skin and I think that black is beautiful.  This brings me to my next point which is I disagree with the whole lighter/darker preference.  I have no particular preference when it comes to a black man's skin.  I am more concerned with the person.  I think it is very sad that society has influenced us as African Americans to be ashamed of who we are and how we look.  They have tried to break our self-esteem enough as it is, so for us to do it to each other is quite devastating and extremely disappointing.  We have overcome so much, and to put down one another is a slap in the face of our ancestors.  We should be more accepting of each other and come together, rather than judge one another based off of what we have been judged for since the beginning of time: Color.