Color Consciousness Essay

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Color Consciousness Essay Introduction Colorism is the malicious treatment between African Americans discriminating against one another because of their skin complexion/hair texture. For instance, a woman being too light or too dark, having straight hair is better than natural curled hair. Colorism is still practiced today throughout the media which you would seldom see a dark-skinned black person. Our community is being led to believe that having lighter skin and straight hair somehow makes you a better person. When I was younger I also used to feel that way because I’m dark-skinned. I wanted to be light skinned because I felt that dark skinned people wasn’t as pretty. Then, I wanted to look just like my mother, light skin with long hair. The Videos Viewed Throughout the four documentary films viewed in class, challenges and effects of Colorism among African Americans were displayed. One of the films A Question of Color revealed Colorism by interviewing African American’s in the rural southern town and an urban city. This film also deals with Colorism among African American women. One Drop Rules focused on bi-racial people and light skinned African American’s while A Girl Like Me was made by a teenager and focused on both skin color and hair texture. The film Shadeism was different from the others because it focused on women in the South Asian countries, such as India and Sri Lanka. The Effects of Color Consciousness In the film A Girl Like Me color consciousness was an issue because women felt that light skin women were better. Dark skin women were considered to be African and they were not getting any attention from men. Women whose natural hair was curly wore long weaves and braids because they felt it would enhance their beauty. Another problem that was brought up from a survey was children preferred white dolls rather than the black ones. 15 out of 21
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