Light-Skin Privilege: A Checklist
Colourism is the oppression that individuals with a dark skin tone face experience, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group. It is usually steeped in white supremacy, colonialism and the preference for whiteness, both from white people and communities of colour. Within South Asian people in the sub-continent and the diaspora, it is also rooted in caste and the hatred of Dalit and lower-caste people.
Oppression and privilege are two sides of the same coin. If one exists, so must the other. If one group of people are marginalized, then another group is privileged due to this marginalization, in this case, light-skinned people.
I have been talking about colourism on my platforms for a long time, and each time I post about it, it will be inevitably followed by a lot of light-skinned tears and light-skinned people, especially light-skinned women, decrying colourism and saying it does not exist.
But dark-skinned people have spent their whole lives instinctively knowing that there are advantages that light-skinned people have over them. This is not an exhaustive list but here are some of the daily effects of colourism.
- You are seen as more desirable than others of your race/ ethnicity.
- You are portrayed as the ideal of beauty amongst your people.
