7 Reasons Why America Is NOT a Racist Country

SKIN PRIVILEGE IS WRONG, EVEN WHEN BLACK PEOPLE DO IT

The sentiment reminds me of the “brown paper bag test” that black America used to discriminate against itself. Check out this quote from the website – Black Then.

An actual test, along with the so-called ruler test in common use in the the early 1900s among upper class #Black American societies and families to determine if a Black person was sufficiently white to gain admittance or acceptance. If your skin was darker than a brown paper bag, you did not merit inclusion. Thousands of Black institutions including the nation’s most eminent Black fraternity — Phi Alpha Phi, Howard Univiersity, and numerous church and civic groups all practiced this discriminiation. The practice has 19th Century antecedants with the Blue Blood Society and has not totally died out.

How did colorism surface? In the United States’ colorism has roots in #slavery. That’s because slave-owners typically gave preferential treatment to slaves with fairer complexions. While dark-skinned slaves toiled outdoors in the fields, their light-skinned counterparts usually worked indoors completing domestic tasks that were far less grueling. Why the discrepancy? Slave-owners were partial to light-skinned slaves because they were often family members. Slave-owners frequently engaged in sexual intercourse with slave women, and light-skinned offspring were the telltale signs of these unions. While slave-owners did not officially recognize their mixed-race children as blood, they gave them privileges that dark-skinned slaves did not enjoy. Accordingly, light skin came to be viewed as an asset among the slave community.

After slavery ended in the U.S., colorism didn’t disappear. In black America, those with light-skin received employment opportunities off limits to darker-skinned African Americans. This is why upper-class families in black society were largely light-skinned. Soon light skin and privilege were considered one in the same in the black community, with light skin being the sole criterion for acceptance into the black aristocracy. Upper crust blacks routinely administered the brown paper bag test to determine if fellow blacks were light enough to socialize with.

The article goes on to say this very interesting thing…

Colorism didn’t just involve blacks discriminating against other blacks. Job advertisements from the mid-20th century reveal that African-Americans with light skin clearly believed their coloring would make them more palatable as job candidates. Writer Brent Staples discovered this while searching the archives of newspapers near the Pennsylvania town where he grew up. He noticed that in the 1940s, black job seekers often identified themselves as light-skinned.

And here is a quote from the above cited NY Times article by Brent Staples.

Even so, I was surprised to learn that the longstanding preference for lighter-skinned black people had been laid out in 20th Century newspaper ads.

I’ve begun to find those ads in the archives of old newspapers near the Pennsylvania factory town where I grew up. The skin-labeling was so common in the 40’s that black job seekers used it when advertising their skills.

In the “situations wanted’’ section, for example, cooks, chauffeurs and waitresses sometimes listed “light colored’’ as the primary qualification — ahead of experience, references, and the other important data.

They didn’t do this for a lark. They did it to improve their chances and to reassure white employers who, even though they hired African-Americans, found dark skin unpleasant or believed that their customers would.

Why do I bring all that up?

• It is wrong to assert skin privilege as a way of dominating another culture.
• It was wrong for the white community to assert such a standard.
• It was wrong when the black community asserted a similar standard on itself.
• It is still wrong to assert superiority based on skin color today.

Is not getting people to bow down before you to apologize for being white  asserting power over them? Is it the right thing to do in a civil society? Some would say, yes, citing it as a long overdue recompense for slavery in America. I submit that it is not the case; simply because many African Americans owned slaves themselves and greatly prospered. If that sounds strange to you, please view my 3-part “Slavery in America” series below. In case you are short on time, here are a some bullet points.

• The first slave owner in America was a black man.
• White men gave black men to black women as slaves #blackgirlmagic
• Blacks owned slaves and some even hired white slavemasters to manage them.
• The President of an African country traveled to America to apologize for Africa’s role in slavery and the media ignored him.

This is the first reason why I say racism exists in America but, America is not a racist country. Slavery is typically the first reason people point to concerning the persistence of racism. Yet, blacks as well as whites are culpable. For that matter, Native Americans also share in the blame as they could also legally own slaves. (My videos cite all my research should you care to delve deeper; just FYI.)

And while I’m on that topic, The Underground Railroad that abolitionists used to smuggle escaped slaved to free USA territories, was likely started by Quakers; among them Betsy Ross. (So, don’t be ashamed to wear that flag.) But, I digress. Check out the chart below.