June 23, 2020 • 25 mins
On this episode of RTT, Jada, Gammy, and Willow tackle Colorism, a rarely talked about form of discrimination that continues to divide the Black community. Learn why this hateful bias entered into Black culture years ago, and meet Jada’s lifelong friend Mia and daughter Madison, who reveal how they’ve been targets of bias themselves.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Red Table Talk podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Facebook watch show in audio, produced by Westbrook Audio and
I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
on Apple podcasts. Hey everybody, I hope everyone's doing well
out there. Before COVID nineteen, Red Table Talk had already
(00:20):
been filming, but once the pandemic hit, we realized that
we had to put those particular episodes in a vault. Well,
now we feel like we can share them with you
now if you see us close together, that's why. But
we love these episodes, and our first one is colorism.
And this is a subject we've been wanting to bring
to the Red Table for a very very long time.
(00:43):
So now we are on this Red Table Talk. This
is like the secret, the thing we don't want to admit. Colorism.
It's discrimination or prejudice based on skin tone from members
of the same race. It began during slavery. Owners often
(01:04):
raped their slaves who gave birth to light skinned children.
They were given preferential treatment. Lighter meant better, smarter, and
more beautiful. This hateful bias seeped into black culture and
continues to divide us whether you're dark, light, or in between.
The complexities and conflicts within our own race when it
(01:24):
comes to the shade of our skin are devastating, deep rooted,
and affect us. All. This red table is devoted to
our beautiful dark skinned sisters like my lifelong friend Mia
and her daughter, my niece Madison, who are revealing the
deep wounds caused by colorism as she got darker. I
was like, oh, this is a problem. Wow, my grandmother,
(01:48):
she definitely did not like dark skinned people. I've gotten
buoyed one kid in particular, he would always call me
like blackie, And we confront our own preconceived prejudices right
here at the table. They're gonna put you in a
light skin fair category. You consider me fair? Yes, the
(02:12):
conversation is really going to be intense. Maybe it's a
new thing, but I definitely feel like nowadays, like in
the dating world, dark skinned girls in particular feel like
they don't get as much absolutely attention as light skinned
girls get. Yes, And I don't think that's new. I
think that's that's been the case for years and years
and years. Yeah, I actually had the opposite in my
(02:35):
experience kind of being picked on for being light skinned.
And also I remember having plenty of conversations with you
and Aunt Karen about not revealing other heritage in my
blood that it was like, you're black and that's so
much about not revealing. It was like, don't get don't
get it twisted. Listen. Karen's like, don't talk about it
(02:58):
because it means absolutely nothing. Your black. Yeah, don't let
me hear you talking about you got this in your blood.
You've got that in your blood. You got that your blood.
She was like, it doesn't matter. People think it was
because you were trying to be like I'm above this,
Like I'm above back in the day, like you know,
you would always hear black people, Oh I got empty
in at me and all of this and not wanting
(03:19):
to be not black, still not owning our own blackness.
And that's just a result of you know, all the
brainwashing that has happened over the years that started from slavery,
with the perpetuation of white supremacy or lighter skin supremacy.
It's true, and it's not with just women. That's the
other thing. Then darker skin also have a very very
(03:44):
difficult timely. Darker Black men are targeted. Yeah, definitely, that
it is for them to negotiate the corporate world, corporate America.
My husband had to do it. My my husband, one
of your third husband, I think it was, Yes, your
third has been had to deal with that. Yeah. All right, ladies,
Well I say we take it to the table. Are
(04:05):
you ready? Let's do it? All right? Okay, gam that listen.
I know I'm stressed already. I'm stressed already. It's such
a sensitive issue. So that you know. This one here, okay,
miss me and Pitts is my lifelong friend, okay, And
we went to high school together. I did a year
(04:27):
of college with her before I quit. We have lived
together several times, we worked together every day, and so
she has been a big part of my life for
a long time. And Miss Madison here, this is her daughter.
We also grew up together like my niece. She and
(04:47):
Willow grew up together. So this is family right here.
And I really wanted to bring her on to talk
about colorism because she and I had several conversations over
the years about this issue, so I thought she would
be perfect. I know, it's chocolate thunder, Okay. It was
(05:10):
crazy because when I was getting myself together. I was like, oh,
this is kind of a plunging uh neck run here.
But it's also a part of the character that I created,
a part of my colorism issues that I had because
I never considered myself beautiful, so I always would go
to the other side of the spectrum of being sexy.
That was one of the ways that I could sell
(05:32):
myself in another way outside of my skin color. I
think it was a camouflage for not having being told
that from men, primarily like you're beautiful. When did you
start to feel like you had issues with your skin color?
You know? I really I didn't really realize how many
(05:55):
problems I had with it until we were dancing with
the Knicks and one of my be A friends says, Hey, listen,
you know, it's a shame that you're not going to
ever be able to marry an nbair an athlete because
they're not going to be able to see you because
you're so dark. We ultimately choose women that are lighter.
(06:15):
And that was said by a black man. Yeah, it's
always like, oh, you're so pretty for a chocolate It
wasn't full impact until I had madisone. As time went on,
I noticed that she was just getting darker. As she
got darker, I was like, Oh, this is a problem
(06:37):
because somehow or another along the line, you become inadequate.
And I just didn't want that for her, Like I
don't want her to have to have the same type
of scenarios that I did, like never being told that
you're beautiful, but I unconsciously started putting that on her,
(06:58):
like oh, you're such a you're so pretty, for your
skin is so beautiful, Like always over complimenting her on
her skin and to the point where it could cause
her to have a complex, like well, what's the difference
with my skin that you're always talking about my skin?
Every time Madison wanted a toy or anything, it would
(07:19):
have to be a black toy. If she wanted a
white doll, Oh no, no, no, no, we can't get
that doll. It's we have to get a doll that
looks like us. Like I went on a whole thing
of trying to find like all these beautiful black women
so that I could just show her the imagery so
she could feel good about who she was. Ultimately, I
was crushing her with too much of it instead of
(07:42):
just allowing her to be who she was without having
to have consciousness on her skin color. Yeah, Madison would
have been some of your experiences, well, you know, going
to like a predominantly black elementary school. That's why was
my first experience. I got bullied in one black kid
(08:02):
in particular. He would always say, like, your skin looks
like poop and like call me like blackie. And I
remember going home to my mom of course, like crying,
like what's going on? Like why would he do that?
Like why would he say that? And that's like was
my first introduction to it. And then when I transitioned
to like a predominantly white school, I was scared because
I was like, if I'm getting this from my own community,
what am I going to get from this? And I
(08:24):
didn't have any issues, So that was really shocking to me. Wow,
that is so deep that you were to see all
white school basically yeah, and had no issues. That doesn't
make sense. When I liked black boys, they never really
liked me back. So I always got that, you know,
I don't date I don't date um dark skinned girls.
(08:45):
And I was just like, okay, then I would just
forget you guys. Then I'll just date something else. And
then I kind of got that backlash for that, you know,
why would you do that? I'm like, you guys don't
even like us anyway, so what's the point the hurt?
Of course, and we have those little bit of lanes.
You're like, okay, like I'm not good enough, you know,
I'm dating black guys again, and now I'm getting that
(09:06):
like appreciation that I've always wanted. I don't I don't know,
like what changed in their minds or hopefully because being
more confident or me That's what I was going to
say that too. That's probably yeah, that you're more confident
you know and who you are, because confidence is very attractive. Yeah,
(09:27):
I've heard a lot of people say, I've actually read
about it too, that the best way to control a
group of people were to really just get control of them,
is to pit them against themselves. And that's exactly what
colorisms exactly. And that's that so it was all by
design exactly. Well, there's a fascinating documentary on colorism that
we wanted to tell you about. Skin color amongst the
(09:50):
black community is a huge issue. I used to wish
that I can't wake up one day lighter or wash
my face and think that it will change. Argie lighter.
I thought it was dirt. You're not trying to clean
it off, but it wouldn't come off. Certain people who
may have lighter skin try to boost their self esteven
(10:12):
to boost their you know, they're self worth up by
putting others down because they know that darker skin, I
guess isn't considered beautiful, and so they can that kind
of puts them up on that pedal stool like saying, hey,
I'm I'm more beautiful than you because my skin is fair.
Experts conducted an experiment to touch young children's attitude toward
different skin colors. The results were just heartbreaking. Shoot the
(10:34):
smart child, and why is she the smart child? Because
she is? Why okay, show me the dumb child, and
why is she the dumb child? She sat, well, show
me the ugly child, and why is she the ugly child?
(10:58):
Because she'd been like, show me the good looking child,
and why see the good looking child because she life skinning.
A friend of mine had recently had a baby, and
I was very happy for her, and so you know,
(11:21):
it was my first time seeing a baby and the
baby was beautiful. She said, girl, I'm so glad. She
didn't come out dark. And when she said it, it
felt like a dagger, like someone took a dagger and
stuck it in my heart because I was used to
(11:44):
expecting hearing things like that from other races, but this
was someone that I considered to be my sister as
a younger person coming up. White people really made me
appreciate my skin color. Black people made me question it exactly.
Now that's deep because Madison, you said the same thing.
(12:07):
The hatred of our skin tone is really just the
overall picture of the hatred that we have for ourselves.
And it's just so deep rooted, you know what I mean,
It's just so really deep rooted. Is a real testament
to how we feel about ourselves. We all have issues
(12:28):
with color, no matter whatside you on, and that's what's
so interesting. It even for you know, light skinned women,
you know, I know, just on covers of magazine is
always like, no, have your hair super straight? You know, no,
you don't cut your hair, you know, And even nowadays
that happens online like people saying, oh you light, you
think you're cute, you think you're And back in the day,
(12:51):
light skinned girls would get ben light if you were
light skinned, long hair. We call it getting a bank.
You would get banked for no reason, right, and just
think about how superficial that is. Okay, so let's talk
about this, right. So if we're in a room full
of people that are not black, right, they're going to
automatically put me in a dark skinned category, and they're
(13:14):
gonna put you in a light skin fair category. You
consider me fair? Yes, And here this is now we're
going to talk about gammies issues because but it's in comparison,
it's right. But my thing is is that it won't
be how you see yourself. It's gonna be how everybody
(13:34):
else sees you, right, And I hate to be the
very bad news gammy. This is what I had to
deal with when I was throwing what. I feel like
she had a lot of shame on having different cultures
and our blood because my grandparents, with West Indian, we
(13:57):
really didn't have an issue with color per se, more
so with class. Well, there was a little bit of
it with my grandmother, right, Yeah, she was um. They
were from Barbados and she definitely did not like dark
skinned people. I remember when I was really little, we
had neighbors who were very, very dark, and she didn't
(14:19):
want us to play with them, right right. Yeah. So
Chica A Cooro is a Harvard and Stanford graduate who
was studied and experienced colorism, and she did a very
personal ted talk that millions of people watched. Growing up,
I definitely felt the effects of colorism. Guys didn't find
me pretty. It really made me feel like I wasn't
(14:44):
good enough, like I wasn't valuable enough. The situation came
to a head when Chica discovered an offensive casting notice
for the movie Straight out of Compton that ranked women
based on their skin color. I was outraged. I was livid.
I felt betrayed. Turning her outrage into action, Chica spoke
out about the dangers of colorism until subdecide for those
(15:07):
with more favorable features light skin, light eyes, long, soft,
real hair. Chica, can you explain exactly what you saw
on the Straight out of Compton casting call? Yeah? It
was so mind blowing. So it split out the girls
from A through DEP so different categories. So there was
(15:29):
the A girls those are described as the hottest of
hot models, you know, long hair, beautiful, and went to
the BE girls those were African Americans. You had to
have real hair. It had to be your real long hair,
light eyes, light skin. They said Beyonce of the prototype,
which blew my mind that Beyonce was not an a girl.
She's a big girl. Then there were for the Sea girls,
(15:53):
it said you could wear weaves no darker than a
medium skin tone. And then the D girls. Those were
all Afrin America. Again, out of shape, poor and darker
skin tone. Yeah, welcome to how they would. I'm just
so surprised that someone wrote that out on an actual Yeah.
(16:13):
I'm just seeing that degradation and kind of thinking, oh, okay,
I guess I'm in the D category. But this is
like the secret, the thing we don't want to admit
that even within us there's division because we don't want
to talk about it stays undercover. We're not supposed to
bring it up. The history goes all the way back.
(16:37):
Everyone gets annoyed when it say it begins in slavery,
but that's where everything begin. That's our history here in
the US. That's where it begins. It's unfortunate because it
started with the mass rate of slave masters with the
female slaves, and so now there's this cohord of mixed
race children who have the more lighter skins, right hair,
lighter eyes, slimmer noses, like all the different you know,
(16:59):
typic character of sticks. And they're treated better, right, they're
given prefrontal treatment, get to work in the house instead
of out in the field. And that has all continued
even after slavery and just that classifications, separations, and that
is how opportunities or acceptance into different social clubs or
(17:19):
sorties or fraternities was based on these different features. Like
you know, we talked about the different tests that you
still see the aftermaths of it. Back then it was blatant.
There was the brown paper bag test. You know, if
you're darker than brown paper bag on the club one,
on the on the sorty paper bag is you know,
(17:39):
craol a brown and so if you're darker than that,
you know, there was a pencil test. They run a
pencil through your hair. It can't get stuck. I never
heard the pencils pencil test would have failed. Then I
would have failed that. That was one of the issues
for me growing up with my hair. That was just
a struggle. It was like it was always a struggle.
I was always looking even like my cousin, like my
(18:00):
cousins and my friends, and I alwas look at her
hair and be like, oh my god, like like if
someone like if I would just be so much prettier,
if my hair wasn't so kinky, or you know what
I mean, if I had longer hair, and it would
always just be such a issue. It all ties in together,
the hair sleeping, all that the approximation to white is
(18:20):
what is valued around the world. I've heard that you
feel a certain way about the different skin tony emojis. Yeah,
you know. At first I would always feel away when
I would choose the last emoji right, and then I
think it's great that there's all these different emojis. It
was a moment for me to reflect on, well, why
(18:42):
do I feel away? That he acknowled like, who's to
say that the very brown emoji is worse than like
so like, wait a minute, like why am I feeling
this way? When you have to really hune in on
how you want to look to the outward world, then
that's when you really have a chance to acknowledge how
you really feel about yourself. So Stacy started bleaching her
(19:05):
skin when she was just eight years old and continued
until she was twenty five. This is what Stacy looked
like when she was bleaching, and this is Stacy today. Yeah,
a completely different person. That's so crazy because I've never
really thought that it works. It was a common practice, huh,
(19:26):
especially in an island household. In my background. I'm Haitian,
So you find out a lot and people from the
islands that they bleach, and they see it as you're
more valuable if you're lighter. You know you will succeed more.
If you're a different skin tone, you will make it
more in life if you are not dark. The skin
bleaching business is billion dollar business. Skin Bleaching dates back centuries.
(19:52):
In ancient times, lighter skin was a sign of privilege,
in prestige the upper class who worked indoors, out of
the sun. Many dark skinned people used bleaching powders, paints,
or ointments an attempt to seem wealthier or aristocratic. I
can remember being in the bathtub asking my mom to
(20:13):
put bleach in the water so that my skin would
be lighter, and so that I could escape the feelings
that I had about not being as beautiful, as acceptable,
as lovable. Go to South Africa today and you will
see billboards promoting skin bleaching cream, even in the face
(20:36):
of knowing that it causes cancer. Wow, what caused you
to even think that? Because at a young age of eight, Like,
how did you think that you were not good enough? Then?
Because I've always been bullied. You know, it's either I'm
this big, dark, dirty girl, or in school, no one
wants to work with me because oh she's black, she
(20:58):
might have an adultude, or she's unwilling to cooperate. So
I decided to bleach. Do you feel like people treated
you differently when you were bleaching? Yes, the boys who
were picking on me saying I was dirty, I'm black,
are disgusted. I have an attitude problem. They found beauty
and this girl. Once I bleached, you know, I was
(21:18):
more polite. They see me as or you know, instead
of me being angry, I'm just passionate. That's why I'm
so outspoken, and I you know, I cashing it. I'm
not angry. You know, I don't have an attitude problem.
I just I can talk all day, you know. So yes,
people definitely viewed me like I'm more worthy in a way.
(21:40):
That and that's an issue with darker skins. We got
an attitude got an attitude, but every black woman, I know.
But how did your family feel when you were bleached?
And how did they feel when you stopped? They were devastated,
(22:03):
like I just committed suicide or something. You know. Up
until the point when I was engaged getting married, I
was hearing maybe you should start bleaching again because your
wedding is coming up and you want to be pretty
for your wedding day. And I'm like, oh my gosh,
like why are you killing me? Did the bleaching cause
any other medical issues? I broke out a lot, I
was dealt with acne, dark marks, high pigmentation, but once
(22:26):
I stopped, my skin became clear. And so what made
you decide to stop? My husband? Yeah, wow. When I
was engaged, I decided to show him my photo album
when I was a younger girl, a baby, and he said, wow,
you're beautiful. You're so gorgeous. Deep down in my heart,
I was so set. I'm like, oh, how can you
(22:48):
call that girl in a picture beautiful? You know? And
he didn't tell me to stop, but because he found
beauty in that girl, in my mind, I'm like, you know,
I have to stop. There's no way for me to
treat eat myself. That's the way if my husband loved me,
you know, keep on beauty and this little chocolate muffing,
you know, like I have to stop. Let's get him around.
(23:14):
So when he left, I went to the bathroom and
I cried, and I believe that's when my deliverance happened.
You know, I went to church all my life, but
my deliverance didn't happen at church. It happened in the bathroom,
my one on one I cried. I'm like, God, like,
how can I be in church? And I'm so insecure
and I have such a bad low sulf esteem. I
feel so depressed all the time. But that day is
(23:36):
when God literally removed that hurt inside of me. So
that is amazing. I really appreciate you guys coming to
the table to talk about this. To me, this is
just the beginning. This is just the beginning, because there's
so much to unravel, so much to talk about, so
(23:57):
much towards healing that you know, you almost don't know
where to begin and where to start, but this is
the starting point exactly. Thank you, ladies, Thank you. This
is great, awesome is great. Hey r t T family,
join our Red Table Talk group. On Facebook to become
part of the conversation, and be sure to follow the
(24:20):
show page to catch up on all our episodes. So
my fove when this came up to it, Yeah, you
can talk it. Take the day off. It's fine. Yes,
you did a great, great fee. I don't know, I
don't see. How did dad table talk that? That's too
(24:44):
much worse. To join the red table Talk family and
become a part of the conversation, follow us at facebook
dot com slash red table talk. Thanks for listening to
this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook,
WHI Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.
Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Red Table Talk podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Facebook watch show in audio, produced by Westbrook Audio and
I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
on Apple podcasts. Hey everybody, I hope everyone's doing well
out there. Before COVID nineteen, Red Table Talk had already
(00:20):
been filming, but once the pandemic hit, we realized that
we had to put those particular episodes in a vault. Well,
now we feel like we can share them with you
now if you see us close together, that's why. But
we love these episodes, and our first one is colorism.
And this is a subject we've been wanting to bring
to the Red Table for a very very long time.
(00:43):
So now we are on this Red Table Talk. This
is like the secret, the thing we don't want to admit. Colorism.
It's discrimination or prejudice based on skin tone from members
of the same race. It began during slavery. Owners often
(01:04):
raped their slaves who gave birth to light skinned children.
They were given preferential treatment. Lighter meant better, smarter, and
more beautiful. This hateful bias seeped into black culture and
continues to divide us whether you're dark, light, or in between.
The complexities and conflicts within our own race when it
(01:24):
comes to the shade of our skin are devastating, deep rooted,
and affect us. All. This red table is devoted to
our beautiful dark skinned sisters like my lifelong friend Mia
and her daughter, my niece Madison, who are revealing the
deep wounds caused by colorism as she got darker. I
was like, oh, this is a problem. Wow, my grandmother,
(01:48):
she definitely did not like dark skinned people. I've gotten
buoyed one kid in particular, he would always call me
like blackie, And we confront our own preconceived prejudices right
here at the table. They're gonna put you in a
light skin fair category. You consider me fair? Yes, the
(02:12):
conversation is really going to be intense. Maybe it's a
new thing, but I definitely feel like nowadays, like in
the dating world, dark skinned girls in particular feel like
they don't get as much absolutely attention as light skinned
girls get. Yes, And I don't think that's new. I
think that's that's been the case for years and years
and years. Yeah, I actually had the opposite in my
(02:35):
experience kind of being picked on for being light skinned.
And also I remember having plenty of conversations with you
and Aunt Karen about not revealing other heritage in my
blood that it was like, you're black and that's so
much about not revealing. It was like, don't get don't
get it twisted. Listen. Karen's like, don't talk about it
(02:58):
because it means absolutely nothing. Your black. Yeah, don't let
me hear you talking about you got this in your blood.
You've got that in your blood. You got that your blood.
She was like, it doesn't matter. People think it was
because you were trying to be like I'm above this,
Like I'm above back in the day, like you know,
you would always hear black people, Oh I got empty
in at me and all of this and not wanting
(03:19):
to be not black, still not owning our own blackness.
And that's just a result of you know, all the
brainwashing that has happened over the years that started from slavery,
with the perpetuation of white supremacy or lighter skin supremacy.
It's true, and it's not with just women. That's the
other thing. Then darker skin also have a very very
(03:44):
difficult timely. Darker Black men are targeted. Yeah, definitely, that
it is for them to negotiate the corporate world, corporate America.
My husband had to do it. My my husband, one
of your third husband, I think it was, Yes, your
third has been had to deal with that. Yeah. All right, ladies,
Well I say we take it to the table. Are
(04:05):
you ready? Let's do it? All right? Okay, gam that listen.
I know I'm stressed already. I'm stressed already. It's such
a sensitive issue. So that you know. This one here, okay,
miss me and Pitts is my lifelong friend, okay, And
we went to high school together. I did a year
(04:27):
of college with her before I quit. We have lived
together several times, we worked together every day, and so
she has been a big part of my life for
a long time. And Miss Madison here, this is her daughter.
We also grew up together like my niece. She and
(04:47):
Willow grew up together. So this is family right here.
And I really wanted to bring her on to talk
about colorism because she and I had several conversations over
the years about this issue, so I thought she would
be perfect. I know, it's chocolate thunder, Okay. It was
(05:10):
crazy because when I was getting myself together. I was like, oh,
this is kind of a plunging uh neck run here.
But it's also a part of the character that I created,
a part of my colorism issues that I had because
I never considered myself beautiful, so I always would go
to the other side of the spectrum of being sexy.
That was one of the ways that I could sell
(05:32):
myself in another way outside of my skin color. I
think it was a camouflage for not having being told
that from men, primarily like you're beautiful. When did you
start to feel like you had issues with your skin color?
You know? I really I didn't really realize how many
(05:55):
problems I had with it until we were dancing with
the Knicks and one of my be A friends says, Hey, listen,
you know, it's a shame that you're not going to
ever be able to marry an nbair an athlete because
they're not going to be able to see you because
you're so dark. We ultimately choose women that are lighter.
(06:15):
And that was said by a black man. Yeah, it's
always like, oh, you're so pretty for a chocolate It
wasn't full impact until I had madisone. As time went on,
I noticed that she was just getting darker. As she
got darker, I was like, Oh, this is a problem
(06:37):
because somehow or another along the line, you become inadequate.
And I just didn't want that for her, Like I
don't want her to have to have the same type
of scenarios that I did, like never being told that
you're beautiful, but I unconsciously started putting that on her,
(06:58):
like oh, you're such a you're so pretty, for your
skin is so beautiful, Like always over complimenting her on
her skin and to the point where it could cause
her to have a complex, like well, what's the difference
with my skin that you're always talking about my skin?
Every time Madison wanted a toy or anything, it would
(07:19):
have to be a black toy. If she wanted a
white doll, Oh no, no, no, no, we can't get
that doll. It's we have to get a doll that
looks like us. Like I went on a whole thing
of trying to find like all these beautiful black women
so that I could just show her the imagery so
she could feel good about who she was. Ultimately, I
was crushing her with too much of it instead of
(07:42):
just allowing her to be who she was without having
to have consciousness on her skin color. Yeah, Madison would
have been some of your experiences, well, you know, going
to like a predominantly black elementary school. That's why was
my first experience. I got bullied in one black kid
(08:02):
in particular. He would always say, like, your skin looks
like poop and like call me like blackie. And I
remember going home to my mom of course, like crying,
like what's going on? Like why would he do that?
Like why would he say that? And that's like was
my first introduction to it. And then when I transitioned
to like a predominantly white school, I was scared because
I was like, if I'm getting this from my own community,
what am I going to get from this? And I
(08:24):
didn't have any issues, So that was really shocking to me. Wow,
that is so deep that you were to see all
white school basically yeah, and had no issues. That doesn't
make sense. When I liked black boys, they never really
liked me back. So I always got that, you know,
I don't date I don't date um dark skinned girls.
(08:45):
And I was just like, okay, then I would just
forget you guys. Then I'll just date something else. And
then I kind of got that backlash for that, you know,
why would you do that? I'm like, you guys don't
even like us anyway, so what's the point the hurt?
Of course, and we have those little bit of lanes.
You're like, okay, like I'm not good enough, you know,
I'm dating black guys again, and now I'm getting that
(09:06):
like appreciation that I've always wanted. I don't I don't know,
like what changed in their minds or hopefully because being
more confident or me That's what I was going to
say that too. That's probably yeah, that you're more confident
you know and who you are, because confidence is very attractive. Yeah,
(09:27):
I've heard a lot of people say, I've actually read
about it too, that the best way to control a
group of people were to really just get control of them,
is to pit them against themselves. And that's exactly what
colorisms exactly. And that's that so it was all by
design exactly. Well, there's a fascinating documentary on colorism that
we wanted to tell you about. Skin color amongst the
(09:50):
black community is a huge issue. I used to wish
that I can't wake up one day lighter or wash
my face and think that it will change. Argie lighter.
I thought it was dirt. You're not trying to clean
it off, but it wouldn't come off. Certain people who
may have lighter skin try to boost their self esteven
(10:12):
to boost their you know, they're self worth up by
putting others down because they know that darker skin, I
guess isn't considered beautiful, and so they can that kind
of puts them up on that pedal stool like saying, hey,
I'm I'm more beautiful than you because my skin is fair.
Experts conducted an experiment to touch young children's attitude toward
different skin colors. The results were just heartbreaking. Shoot the
(10:34):
smart child, and why is she the smart child? Because
she is? Why okay, show me the dumb child, and
why is she the dumb child? She sat, well, show
me the ugly child, and why is she the ugly child?
(10:58):
Because she'd been like, show me the good looking child,
and why see the good looking child because she life skinning.
A friend of mine had recently had a baby, and
I was very happy for her, and so you know,
(11:21):
it was my first time seeing a baby and the
baby was beautiful. She said, girl, I'm so glad. She
didn't come out dark. And when she said it, it
felt like a dagger, like someone took a dagger and
stuck it in my heart because I was used to
(11:44):
expecting hearing things like that from other races, but this
was someone that I considered to be my sister as
a younger person coming up. White people really made me
appreciate my skin color. Black people made me question it exactly.
Now that's deep because Madison, you said the same thing.
(12:07):
The hatred of our skin tone is really just the
overall picture of the hatred that we have for ourselves.
And it's just so deep rooted, you know what I mean,
It's just so really deep rooted. Is a real testament
to how we feel about ourselves. We all have issues
(12:28):
with color, no matter whatside you on, and that's what's
so interesting. It even for you know, light skinned women,
you know, I know, just on covers of magazine is
always like, no, have your hair super straight? You know, no,
you don't cut your hair, you know, And even nowadays
that happens online like people saying, oh you light, you
think you're cute, you think you're And back in the day,
(12:51):
light skinned girls would get ben light if you were
light skinned, long hair. We call it getting a bank.
You would get banked for no reason, right, and just
think about how superficial that is. Okay, so let's talk
about this, right. So if we're in a room full
of people that are not black, right, they're going to
automatically put me in a dark skinned category, and they're
(13:14):
gonna put you in a light skin fair category. You
consider me fair? Yes, And here this is now we're
going to talk about gammies issues because but it's in comparison,
it's right. But my thing is is that it won't
be how you see yourself. It's gonna be how everybody
(13:34):
else sees you, right, And I hate to be the
very bad news gammy. This is what I had to
deal with when I was throwing what. I feel like
she had a lot of shame on having different cultures
and our blood because my grandparents, with West Indian, we
(13:57):
really didn't have an issue with color per se, more
so with class. Well, there was a little bit of
it with my grandmother, right, Yeah, she was um. They
were from Barbados and she definitely did not like dark
skinned people. I remember when I was really little, we
had neighbors who were very, very dark, and she didn't
(14:19):
want us to play with them, right right. Yeah. So
Chica A Cooro is a Harvard and Stanford graduate who
was studied and experienced colorism, and she did a very
personal ted talk that millions of people watched. Growing up,
I definitely felt the effects of colorism. Guys didn't find
me pretty. It really made me feel like I wasn't
(14:44):
good enough, like I wasn't valuable enough. The situation came
to a head when Chica discovered an offensive casting notice
for the movie Straight out of Compton that ranked women
based on their skin color. I was outraged. I was livid.
I felt betrayed. Turning her outrage into action, Chica spoke
out about the dangers of colorism until subdecide for those
(15:07):
with more favorable features light skin, light eyes, long, soft,
real hair. Chica, can you explain exactly what you saw
on the Straight out of Compton casting call? Yeah? It
was so mind blowing. So it split out the girls
from A through DEP so different categories. So there was
(15:29):
the A girls those are described as the hottest of
hot models, you know, long hair, beautiful, and went to
the BE girls those were African Americans. You had to
have real hair. It had to be your real long hair,
light eyes, light skin. They said Beyonce of the prototype,
which blew my mind that Beyonce was not an a girl.
She's a big girl. Then there were for the Sea girls,
(15:53):
it said you could wear weaves no darker than a
medium skin tone. And then the D girls. Those were
all Afrin America. Again, out of shape, poor and darker
skin tone. Yeah, welcome to how they would. I'm just
so surprised that someone wrote that out on an actual Yeah.
(16:13):
I'm just seeing that degradation and kind of thinking, oh, okay,
I guess I'm in the D category. But this is
like the secret, the thing we don't want to admit
that even within us there's division because we don't want
to talk about it stays undercover. We're not supposed to
bring it up. The history goes all the way back.
(16:37):
Everyone gets annoyed when it say it begins in slavery,
but that's where everything begin. That's our history here in
the US. That's where it begins. It's unfortunate because it
started with the mass rate of slave masters with the
female slaves, and so now there's this cohord of mixed
race children who have the more lighter skins, right hair,
lighter eyes, slimmer noses, like all the different you know,
(16:59):
typic character of sticks. And they're treated better, right, they're
given prefrontal treatment, get to work in the house instead
of out in the field. And that has all continued
even after slavery and just that classifications, separations, and that
is how opportunities or acceptance into different social clubs or
(17:19):
sorties or fraternities was based on these different features. Like
you know, we talked about the different tests that you
still see the aftermaths of it. Back then it was blatant.
There was the brown paper bag test. You know, if
you're darker than brown paper bag on the club one,
on the on the sorty paper bag is you know,
(17:39):
craol a brown and so if you're darker than that,
you know, there was a pencil test. They run a
pencil through your hair. It can't get stuck. I never
heard the pencils pencil test would have failed. Then I
would have failed that. That was one of the issues
for me growing up with my hair. That was just
a struggle. It was like it was always a struggle.
I was always looking even like my cousin, like my
(18:00):
cousins and my friends, and I alwas look at her
hair and be like, oh my god, like like if
someone like if I would just be so much prettier,
if my hair wasn't so kinky, or you know what
I mean, if I had longer hair, and it would
always just be such a issue. It all ties in together,
the hair sleeping, all that the approximation to white is
(18:20):
what is valued around the world. I've heard that you
feel a certain way about the different skin tony emojis. Yeah,
you know. At first I would always feel away when
I would choose the last emoji right, and then I
think it's great that there's all these different emojis. It
was a moment for me to reflect on, well, why
(18:42):
do I feel away? That he acknowled like, who's to
say that the very brown emoji is worse than like
so like, wait a minute, like why am I feeling
this way? When you have to really hune in on
how you want to look to the outward world, then
that's when you really have a chance to acknowledge how
you really feel about yourself. So Stacy started bleaching her
(19:05):
skin when she was just eight years old and continued
until she was twenty five. This is what Stacy looked
like when she was bleaching, and this is Stacy today. Yeah,
a completely different person. That's so crazy because I've never
really thought that it works. It was a common practice, huh,
(19:26):
especially in an island household. In my background. I'm Haitian,
So you find out a lot and people from the
islands that they bleach, and they see it as you're
more valuable if you're lighter. You know you will succeed more.
If you're a different skin tone, you will make it
more in life if you are not dark. The skin
bleaching business is billion dollar business. Skin Bleaching dates back centuries.
(19:52):
In ancient times, lighter skin was a sign of privilege,
in prestige the upper class who worked indoors, out of
the sun. Many dark skinned people used bleaching powders, paints,
or ointments an attempt to seem wealthier or aristocratic. I
can remember being in the bathtub asking my mom to
(20:13):
put bleach in the water so that my skin would
be lighter, and so that I could escape the feelings
that I had about not being as beautiful, as acceptable,
as lovable. Go to South Africa today and you will
see billboards promoting skin bleaching cream, even in the face
(20:36):
of knowing that it causes cancer. Wow, what caused you
to even think that? Because at a young age of eight, Like,
how did you think that you were not good enough? Then?
Because I've always been bullied. You know, it's either I'm
this big, dark, dirty girl, or in school, no one
wants to work with me because oh she's black, she
(20:58):
might have an adultude, or she's unwilling to cooperate. So
I decided to bleach. Do you feel like people treated
you differently when you were bleaching? Yes, the boys who
were picking on me saying I was dirty, I'm black,
are disgusted. I have an attitude problem. They found beauty
and this girl. Once I bleached, you know, I was
(21:18):
more polite. They see me as or you know, instead
of me being angry, I'm just passionate. That's why I'm
so outspoken, and I you know, I cashing it. I'm
not angry. You know, I don't have an attitude problem.
I just I can talk all day, you know. So yes,
people definitely viewed me like I'm more worthy in a way.
(21:40):
That and that's an issue with darker skins. We got
an attitude got an attitude, but every black woman, I know.
But how did your family feel when you were bleached?
And how did they feel when you stopped? They were devastated,
(22:03):
like I just committed suicide or something. You know. Up
until the point when I was engaged getting married, I
was hearing maybe you should start bleaching again because your
wedding is coming up and you want to be pretty
for your wedding day. And I'm like, oh my gosh,
like why are you killing me? Did the bleaching cause
any other medical issues? I broke out a lot, I
was dealt with acne, dark marks, high pigmentation, but once
(22:26):
I stopped, my skin became clear. And so what made
you decide to stop? My husband? Yeah, wow. When I
was engaged, I decided to show him my photo album
when I was a younger girl, a baby, and he said, wow,
you're beautiful. You're so gorgeous. Deep down in my heart,
I was so set. I'm like, oh, how can you
(22:48):
call that girl in a picture beautiful? You know? And
he didn't tell me to stop, but because he found
beauty in that girl, in my mind, I'm like, you know,
I have to stop. There's no way for me to
treat eat myself. That's the way if my husband loved me,
you know, keep on beauty and this little chocolate muffing,
you know, like I have to stop. Let's get him around.
(23:14):
So when he left, I went to the bathroom and
I cried, and I believe that's when my deliverance happened.
You know, I went to church all my life, but
my deliverance didn't happen at church. It happened in the bathroom,
my one on one I cried. I'm like, God, like,
how can I be in church? And I'm so insecure
and I have such a bad low sulf esteem. I
feel so depressed all the time. But that day is
(23:36):
when God literally removed that hurt inside of me. So
that is amazing. I really appreciate you guys coming to
the table to talk about this. To me, this is
just the beginning. This is just the beginning, because there's
so much to unravel, so much to talk about, so
(23:57):
much towards healing that you know, you almost don't know
where to begin and where to start, but this is
the starting point exactly. Thank you, ladies, Thank you. This
is great, awesome is great. Hey r t T family,
join our Red Table Talk group. On Facebook to become
part of the conversation, and be sure to follow the
(24:20):
show page to catch up on all our episodes. So
my fove when this came up to it, Yeah, you
can talk it. Take the day off. It's fine. Yes,
you did a great, great fee. I don't know, I
don't see. How did dad table talk that? That's too
(24:44):
much worse. To join the red table Talk family and
become a part of the conversation, follow us at facebook
dot com slash red table talk. Thanks for listening to
this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook,
WHI Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.
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