photo: Grazia Horwitz/ BY-NC-SA

By: Deranda Butler

We love to address ourselves as a "black community," yet we are quite divided within it.

Far too many times I have heard people tell my friend Sara, she's “pretty for a dark skinned girl.” Or how about the many times during black history month when I get the heart-cutting remarks about how light-skinned people had nothing to worry about during segregation and that I would have been a well-protected house slave, simply because I am a light-skinned. How crazy is that -– being judged so strongly by people of my own race!

No matter how dark or light we are, all African-Americans check the same boxes on standardized tests and job applications: “African-American” or “Black non -Hispanic”. There is no box that acknowledges light-skinned and dark-skinned people. And until black people learn to put our own physical differences aside, people like Sara and myself will always be prejudged based on the shades of our complexion.

Previously:

• 'Post-Race America' or Recovering Racist?
• Unbe-weave-ably Good Documentary
• Having an Ethnic Name Can Cost You A Job