THE BLACKER THE BERRY, THE SWEETER THE JUICE?

 By Aleysha Ward 

“You are just as dark as the bottom of my shoe”, “Your skin color is not light enough to hang with us” and “You're so pretty for a black girl.” These are just some of the comments that black women have had to listen to while growing up. As a brown skinned black women, it is frustrating to know that my skin color will always be viewed as negative by society. Why? Well, because it is not close to a Caucasians skin color. Skin tone is a characteristic that can affect a person’s life in both positive and negative ways. Often times, our society has shown us that being of a lighter complexion or closer to a Caucasian’s skin color will provide us with benefits such as higher educational and career opportunities, a greater chance at marriage, and having the ability to be less conscious about your skin color. Although this is not true, factors as such do affect a black women’s self esteem and self efficacy. The issue of colorism continues to divide and shape the life experiences of black women to the point where they are continuously thinking about their race and gender.

Skin color is often correlated with feelings of self-worth, attractiveness or satisfaction with oneself. This is due to the fact that skin color is one of the most visible features on a person.“Girls as young as six are twice as likely as boys to be sensitive to the social importance of skin color” (Thompson & Keith, 2001, p.339). The importance of skin color to attractiveness begins as early as childhood. Thus, showing how at a young age black girls are thinking about whether or not they will be seen as attractive or unattractive because their skin color ultimately reveals how detrimental colorism can be to a person’s character. Black women face problems of racism and sexism, being black and being female all coming down to colorism. Colorism and its stressors have affected the way in which black women view and validate themselves. Society has showed us that not only is our skin tone a problem but so is our gender, therefore, lowering a black woman’s self-esteem and their ability to succeed.

If bodily attributes are judged as positive then one will feel positive about themselves. “Self-efficacy is the belief or idea that one can master situations and control events”(Thompson & Keith, 2001, p.341). Most people with high self-efficacy are more likely to be determined and driven to be successful; however, those who have a low self-efficacy are more likely to struggle with overcoming coming a particular obstacle. Social media sites such as Twitter use hashtags like #lightskinsdoitbetter or #lightskinslivinlavish which supports the idea that black women can assume that because of their skin color it will be harder for them to succeed in society. Visiting social media sites as such, confirms the negative mindset that black women have about themselves. With that being said, if black women keep a positive self-efficacy in mind it will help them to build their self-efficacy and ultimately feel empowered or confident.

What does this all mean for our society? It means that like Thompson and Keith have been arguing, we need to work towards finding ways in which a black woman's skin color will not be the determining factor in everything that she does in life. Society and mainstream media tend to frame the skin color of a black women in a negative way which ultimately affects her self-esteem. With the help of self confidence, us black women will continue to “glow and grow” despite the struggles that we are faced with. 

References

Thompson, M., & Keith, V. (2001). The blacker the berry: gender, skin Tone, self-Esteem, and self-efficacy. Gender and Society,15(3), 336-357. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3081888

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