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| Black self-loathing has persisted for centuries |
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. - Steven Biko
Harriet Tubman risked her life for this?
In this tragic video, young black people demonstrate, with dreadful precision, how the Color Complex still maintains a vice grip on the black psychology. The Color Complex is a concept that explains the pathology of blacks who place enormous value on light skin, and other Eurocentric features, and degrade darker skin and traditionally African aesthetics (In some rare cases, as shown in the video, the reverse is true: Almost in retaliation, darker skinned black folk denigrate lighter skinned black folk). It is a form of internalized racism, a psychosis transmitted from generation to generation.
The most astounding things about this video are the irony and cognitive dissonance. Often, it is the darker skinned blacks who seem most disgusted by darker skinned people, as if they have never been in possession of a mirror--or have purposely avoided it. (One girl says, "Light skinned people, like myself...." but she is not light skinned by any stretch of the imagination; the extent of the delusion is astonishing.) They assigned characteristics to skin color that have nothing at all to do with the color of one's skin, but everything to do with the content of one's character. What is most heartbreaking is that so many of these children are convinced of their righteousness and so few are proud to be black. Thank goodness for the few.
It is almost understandable. After all, when you live in a society that tells you, overtly and covertly, that blonde hair, blue eyes, and white skin are the aesthetic ideal--and that the further you are from that, the less attractive and valuable you are--it is bound to profoundly disturb the psyche. And the children in this video are profoundly disturbed; let us not pretend otherwise with faulty and myopic arguments about "personal preference."
White supremacy and racism are frightening not simply because they are so insidious, but because they are so incredibly effective.
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome has never been more apparent. Or tragic.
Brace yourselves.