Reverse Racism — A Great White Lie

The ugly truth about racism and colorism and how this kind of thinking screws things up for all of us

Ingela Canis
ILLUMINATION

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We’re all guilty of some degree of racism. Yes, all of us. Even people of color.

But if you look like me (severely melanin-deficient) you’ve never actually experienced racism. You might think you have, but you haven’t.

Why do we insist on dividing ourselves into “us versus them”?

We’re not different races

We’re just different shades of humans. And that’s mainly due to how far away from the equator our respective ancestors made it. But we’re taught that paleness equals superiority. Even among the black community, this fallacy persists.

“Colorism — the prejudice based on skin tone, usually with a marked preference for lighter-skinned people”

Kaitlyn Greenidge goes into great detail on the topic of colorism— how black people discriminate among themselves — in this piece from The Guardian. Darker-skinned people are at a disadvantage in every instance we can imagine, from job-seeking to pay rates to marriage. The lighter-skinned you are, the better you’re perceived by everyone…

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