The Complexity of Colorism
Colorism Healing, an informational organization dedicated to raising awareness about colorism around the world, defines colorism as discrimination in which people are treated differently based on the social meanings attached to skin color.
Colorism, first coined in 1982 by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, is different from racism in that these prejudice and discriminatory attitudes or acts are based solely on the shade or tone of a person’s skin opposed to their actual or perceived racial status.
For the past two years, University of Mississippi Assistant Professor of Social Work Dr. Jandel Crutchfield has been researching colorism on college campuses and the need for increased cultural proficiency about colorism in social work curriculum. Crutchfield completed her master’s in social work at Florida State University before receiving her PHD in social work from LSU in 2013.
A licensed clinical social worker by profession, Crutchfield has worked in the public school system at every level of education K-12, teaching community mental health and providing in-home counseling throughout Mississippi and Louisiana.
Today, Crutchfield trains students in the University’s Bachelor and Master’s of Social Work programs to become future social workers in any area of the country. While Crutchfield loves her students and teaching, her true passion stems from her research of school social work and education reforms that influence minorities and other underrepresented students affected by colorism.
Growing up in south Louisiana in a multicolored family, Crutchfield was exposed to colorism at a young age. As a small child, Crutchfield remembers having to explain to her schoolmates how she and her sister were related despite the variation in the shades of their skin tone.
“I remember having to answer the question a million times ‘why are you white?’ or ‘why are you light and your sister is black?’ and having to explain to people I am black and we just have different skin tones,” Crutchfield says.
While not necessarily having the words to explain colorism as a 5 year old, she acknowledged that her sister was being teased and singled out about the darkness of their skin tone compared to hers. Experiences like this helped Crutchfield become well versed on the subject at a very young age.
“I don’t know how much I understood growing up about the negative stereotypes associated with darker skin, I just knew that [people] were trying to separate us in a way that we were not separate,” Crutchfield says. “We were very close, and people tried to make these demarcations of our existence as sisters. It was the equivalent of somebody bullying your sister or brother because they’re short, or had some kind of issue or because they dressed a certain way.”
Crutchfield’s sister and Colorism Healing co-founder Sarah Webb also remembers this confusing time in her life and largely credits it for her involvement in advocating colorism as part of her profession today.
Webb too believes that the current research her sister is doing on colorism is crucial in order to reach a better level of cultural competence in society both now and in the future. “Having the courage to tell those stories and your truth, having compassion, and listening to the testimony and truths of others will get us there,” Webb says.
In Crutchfield’s most recent study, 173 African-American male and female undergraduate and graduate college students were anonymously surveyed about feelings toward their own skin tones. “The response from students was tremendous,” Crutchfield says.
Findings from the scale study, showcased at the 2017 University of Mississippi Research Day, were presented on what Crutchfield created and refers to as the Physical Characteristics Satisfaction Scale (PCSS). The PCSS indicated three main factors in which participants responded most — skin color satisfaction, facial satisfaction and skin color preference — all of which leaned toward favoring lighter skin tones.
University of Mississippi senior and research day attendee Molly Berra remembers Crutchfield’s presentation to be one of the most thought provoking of the day. “I remember thinking how crazy it was that these people found such different meaning in the shade of their skin even if they all identified as the same race,” Berra says. “I was shocked at how much more favorable light skin was over dark, and I definitely didn’t think people attached such strong stereotypes along with it.”
These findings largely parallel those of the infamous Clark Doll Experiment performed in 1939 by sociologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark. In this experiment, African American children were presented with two dolls, one black and one white, and asked a series of questions.
The sweeping majority of those children selected the white doll when asked which of the two looked nicer or more desirable, but what was most surprising was how almost half of the black children chose the white doll when asked which of the two they thought looked most like them.
The results from this experiment were disheartening and truly started the conversation about colorism in American culture. Today, colorism is widely talked about and riddled throughout current pop culture and media in television shows, movies, music and advertisements.
The term “whitewashing” is commonly used to describe instances in which celebrities’ skin tones have been altered or manipulated to appear lighter than they actually are. Many female celebrities have fallen victim to whitewashing, like actresses Halle Berry and Gabourey Sidibe, model Tyra Banks and global superstar Beyoncé.
This is just one of the many color-biased trends founds in mainstream media today. It seems as though the desirability and beauty standards for African Americans, women specifically, pivots back and worth on a shaded scale where light skin is celebrated while dark skin is dismissed. It is the idea that one black person can be deemed “more African American” than another simply based off the shade of their skin.
This is especially detrimental to the younger African American generation, as they are more easily susceptible to have their personal thoughts and opinions changed by the culture around them.
Shelice Benson, senior journalism major at the University of Mississippi, has personally experienced this as a young African American woman today. “In both society and the black community, I believe lighter skinned people are defined as more beautiful than darker skinned people,” Benson says. “Lighter skinned people are viewed as more trustworthy and treated much better.”
Throughout her life, Benson says that she has been in both social and academic situations where she was either overlooked for having a darker complexion or another individual with a lighter skin tone was unfairly chosen over her.
More surprisingly, and in college specifically, Benson reveals that the few times she has received selection or praise over a lighter skinned student came in the most unsettling way. “I’ve been chosen over a lighter skinned student to meet a diversity requirement,” Benson says, “even though both of us were African Americans.”
As seen in the Clark Doll Experiment many years ago and in Crutchfield’s Physical Characteristics Satisfaction Scale today, colorism is truly a phenomenon in American society. Social media and pop culture play huge factors in the growth of colorism, specifically toward the younger generations.
Colorism is a profound issue, and only with more research and organizations like Colorism Healing will we fully be able to understand how and why it has become so. As stereotypes spread and worsen, it is important to recognize that efforts to overcome racism are ineffective if we subconsciously let colorism take its place.
