Dark Girls: A Review of a Preview [Culturelicious]

Questioner: Show me the smart child. Why is she the smart child?

Child: Because she’s white.

Questioner: OK. Show me the dumb child. And why is she the dumb child?

Child: Because she’s black.

Questioner: Show me the ugly child. And why is she the ugly child?

Child: Because she’s black.

Questioner: Show me the good-looking child. Why is she good-looking?

Child: Because she’s light-skinned.

Interviewee #9: I think I remember most saying, you know, if I have a little girl, I just…I didn’t want her to be dark.

(Chokes back tears)

I remember saying that. I didn’t want her to be dark like me.

Interviewee #1: When you’re around so many people that you trust, you know, just because you’re looking at another black person, and you’re thinking, “I’m black, you’re black. They’re not going to have anything derogatory to say about me.” But when you live so many years with people having certain judgments relative to your skin tone, you start to believe it.

Interviewee #10: A friend of mine had a baby. It was my first time seeing the baby. The baby was beautiful. [The friend ] said, “Gurl, I’m so glad she didn’t come out dark!” and when she said it, it felt like a dagger, like someone took a dagger and stuck it in my heart because I was used to expecting hearing things like that from other races. But this was someone I considered to be my sister.

Interviewee #11: Skin color amongst the black community is a huge issue in our time

Voiceover: This is not a phenomenon, It’s just the reality in the black culture.

Interviewee #12: I believe we didn’t like ourselves. Sure, it started in slavery, but we kept the vicious cycle going.

Man on the street: I mean, you know, dark-skinned women…I really don’t like dark-skinned women. They look funny beside me. So, you know, I’d rather not date a dark-skinned woman.

Off-camera interviewer: You’d rather [date] a light-skinned girl?

Man on the Street: Yeah. Light-skinned pretty girl. Long hair.

Interviewee #10: My experience with Black men is I’m exotic, I’m beautiful…they’re fascinated by me—behind closed doors. But when it came to dating, coming to the front door and taking me out in public? Doesn’t happen.

Interviewee #1: The darker you are, it’s more of a sexual approach. It’s more of a relationship-without-much-meaning sort of approach more than I-could-get-married-to-that-woman-and-have-a-few-kids.

Interviewee #7: All my lighter friends had those boyfriends. They were always seen together. But if someone wanted to date me, it was “I’ll meet you after school.” It was more of a hidden thing. Nobody ever just wanted to be with you.

Intervierwee #5: There’ve been places I’ve gone that there are just a lot of whites, and they would tell me, “You have such beautiful skin! Is that your hair? Did you dye it? Is that your natural hair?” It’s really questionable to me that they think I’m so beautiful and my own people don’t see any beauty in me at all?

Interviewee #13: I was once on CNN, debating the whole controversy about Beyonce ‘s L’Oreal ad. When a picture of her in motion was placed against a picture of her in print, everyone said there’s no way that they didn’t lighten her skin. And I don’t want to believe that that’s still happening in this day and age.

Man #1: And she’s got that good hair, too.

Man #2: You like what?

Man #1: I like girls with that light complexion.

Man #2: You’re a moron.

Man #1: I can’t help it.

Man #2: What? Being a moron?

Man #1: Yeah, that too.

Interviewee #14: Several years ago, I had decided I wanted to, umm, wear a ‘fro. I remember one young lady said to me if she ever had hair look like that, she’s had to cover it. I said to her, “Well, if you take the perm out of your hair, that’s exactly what it looks like.” And she said she’s never seen her natural hair because, from when she was small, her momma had always put something in it.

Young woman: It doesn’t look clean, I feel like. It looks, like, nasty almost. If you just roll out of bed and your hair is nappy, it’s, like, the most disgusting, most unclean thing.

Interviewee #11: I’ve had issues with having longer hair since a small child. And it did come from black kids.

Interviewee #1: Being in school, there was just such a separation among girls who were lighter-skinned and girls who were darker-skinned

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