Shades of Prejudice
Thanks to the New York Times, the elephant in the room has finally been acknowledged. Colorism, the unconscious prejudice, has long thrived since by and large it has gone unspoken. The writer gives light to this issue and explores the extent of its effect in society. Colorism is a form of discrimination through which people receive differing social treatment based on their skin color. It is not only an intra-racial problem, with people of the same ethnic group discriminating against each other, but also an interracial issue.
Skin tone plays a significant role in who gets ahead and who does not. The general perception in our society, and globally, is that lighter-skin tones are preferred and considered more desirable than darker-skin tones. In the United States, colorism occurs among Latinos, African Americans, Indian Immigrants and Caucasian Americans.
Financially, skin tone has an effect on the amount one can earn. The lighter-skinned Latinos in America make on average 5,000 dollars more than the darker-skinned ones.
Colorism has infiltrated the judicial system. The writer narrates a story of two African American defendants in two separate murder cases. The light-skinned one brutally murders a pharmacist and is positively identified as the perpetrator by a family member, an accomplice and witnesses. He is sentenced to life imprisonment. The dark-skinned one enters a plea of not guilty. He is only linked to this crime by an indirect chain of evidence. His two alibis are not called upon to testify and in the interest of convenience the court refers to him using a wrong name. He is sent to death row.
Health concerns have taken a back seat among hundreds of Mexican-American women who, in pursuit of fair complexion are risking mercury poisoning and use skin-whitening creams. This is not confined to American borders, in Asia the skin-whitening industry is estimated to be worth 18 billion dollars (“Discrimination Based on Skin Color”, 2011).
Finally, face of colorism emerges in the 2008 presidential race. An experiment by Drew Westen created two different advertisements for Barack Obama presidential campaign. The script was constant in both advertisements. The only variable was a light-skinned black family used in the first advertisement and a dark-skinned black family in the second version. The voters who watched the advertisement featuring the darker-skinned family were less inclined to vote for Barack Obama than those who watched the advertisement with the lighter-skinned family.
One is left with a bad taste in their mouth after reading this article. The deep-rooted nature of this form of prejudice is saddening. The article’s content reveals that, as a society, we have grown up molded to create elaborate caste power structures among the lighter and darker skin toned. This upbringing has a lasting effect as we see that financial, judicial, health and even presidential choices or decision made are subconsciously based on colorism. It is prudent to remember that one’s character, just like beauty, is not skin deep.
References
Vedantam, S. (2010, Jan. 19). Shades of prejudice. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/opinion/19vedantam.html
Discrimination based on skin color. (2011, Oct. 16). Retrieved Nov. 8, 2011 from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/discrimination_based_on_skin_color
