I just recently had an interview with Tasigh Greenidge-James of TasighFoto who is producing a documentary on the ever-popular topic of “Team Light Skin vs Team Dark Skin”. By those who are educated, it should accurately be referred to as Black vs Black. I respect what my collegiate peer is doing because this is an issue that needs more attention if we are ever going to put an end to it. However, because of time constraints and my failure to properly produce all my thoughts at the time, I did not get to say all I needed to, so here it is.

The War: Black vs. Black

Forget your team light skin vs team dark skin foolishness: you are black and, with another black man, you fight.

The Players

Black Parents

I’ve heard parents converse about how beautiful their daughters are, how handsome their sons are, but… what imagine if they were a little lighter or darker. Oh really? How about we go a little farther: imagine if their nose was just a bit longer, if their face was a bit rounder, their eyes a bit darker, their voice a bit deeper. Shall we continue? Imagine them not human.

Have parents forgotten that humans are imperfect beings. The only perfect being is the one who we believe is perfect in our eyes. If your child is not good enough for your liking, you’ve failed them with your genes. Imagine if you had better genes to pass down to your offspring. Okay, end rant. Back to the greater issue.

If its true that charity starts at home, it is also true that all insecurities start in that same structure. Parents are and have always been aware of the issue—I mean, its been raging on for centuries upon centuries. Parents should know what awaits their children on the other side of their front door. It is a parent’s duty to let their child know they and all the other kids are perfect the way they are, or if Plato has anything to do with it, that they are the closest instance to the Form of a Perfect Human Being.

But still we have parents telling their kids they need to be just a bit lighter, just a bit darker to fit in with their oh-so perfect society. It’s just a bit ridiculous, don’t you think? In turn, this kid already has a sense of not being able to ever be good enough. That started at home where the child was supposed to feel a sense of unconditional love. Let me continue. The child takes that insecurity into a world of insecurities and imperfect people with perfect egocentric views on society. The child’s peers reaffirm the ideas he/she is much too familiar with: the child cannot be apart of them because he/she is too dark/light. The kid becomes an outcast and accordingly acts out. The system steps in and plays its part in labeling the child as a debt to society.

The child who is not light/dark enough for his/her parents’ liking is not light/dark enough for society’s liking. But hey, the parents are also imperfect beings, right? We can’t put it all on their heads.

Successful Blacks of the Media

Perhaps Beyoncé, Lil Wayne, Tara, and the rest of them have something to do with it. There are celebrities out there who are doing the right thing and advocating the fact that black, white, purple, blue, brown, pink, or yellow, you are beautiful just the way you are. But… everyone else is advocating one side or the other of a single group—blacks.

How can you tell me one black is better than another black, or even that one human being is better than the other simply on the basis of skin color. If you try to, do us all a favor and wear bullet proof condoms, use birth control, and still pull out, so you never reproduce—the world would be better off without your genes.

The youth turn on the TV and all they see is a bunch of people who are supposed to be showing us the blacks can actually make it. Instead, these individuals are fueling the fire that they are all well aware of. These people who subliminally advocate the war between dark skin and light skin blacks are very much educated (I use that word lightly in that they have met the requirements of a broken education system).

“Inspire a negro with perfect confidence in you and learn him to look to you for support and he is your slave” —Words of a Plantation Owner

When Beyonce lightens her skin almost to the point of being as pink as the man signing her checks, she is sending a strong message to her large following of African American girls and women: you have to be lightskin to do what I’m doing—to succeed. It disgusts me. So the women go out and buy solutions that will lighten their skin and their daughters see that and grow up feeling they have to do the same in order to fit in and be good enough for the onlookers.

Beyoncé and Tara are not alone, many of them do it even if its not noticeable. Check this out: “15 Black Celebs Caught Whitening Their Skin”. And then there’s those like Lil Wayne who push the movement of lightening your skin to be more “appealing” by only showcasing light skin black female and white female dancers on their music videos.

“Beautiful black woman, I bet that b*tch look better red.” — Lil Wayne “Right Above It”

And his beautiful young black daughter listens in awe. I can’t begin to imagine what her daddy thinks of her. She can never be beautiful enough for her him. That’s the narrative our youth is plagued with when they look up to those in Hollywood. Its a sad narrative, but it resonates so loudly across the spectrum of successful blacks straight to the ears of the rising black youth.

Ernest Owens suggested we put an end to all of this ludicrous in 2013, but it continues today because the education system continues to fail our youth.

The Education System

Ignorance should first be fought with enlightenment… THEN if they still don’t get it, fight it with prayer. That’s the only way. Fighting ignorance with ignorance won’t get anyone very far in life. —Imani Noemi

I can’t put all the blame on the ignorant youth for their own lack of knowledge, they haven’t been taught much better. Our black youth have been failed. They are not taught to love themselves. They are not taught the overwhelming fact that they can, too, be successful in this world. They are not taught of all the successful blacks (dark skin and light skin) who have come before them.

Society constantly tells them that they are not good enough to make it. It tells them that they need to be closer to white in order to beat the system. The system subliminally tells them that they can never be as good as a white man, so they try to get as close as possible. I mean, the one month that is designated to teaching them about their history is the shortest of them all and was doomed for failure from its inception.

Why was blacked history set for failure? A black student takes a look at the calendar and sees that this month for black people can’t quite measure up to the other eight months set for learning about the well doings of the white man. Let’s continue. There are few black teachers and professors out there to teach these students about their history. Their role models are numbered. Whats more? The very textbooks the teachers are teaching out of are sugarcoated. They have been censored. These textbooks are useless for our purposes. As much as you try to tell them how successful they can be, the system is set to show them that they need to be closer to whites in order to do so.

Let’s guess what comes of all that. They wage battles among one another disputing who is closer to whites—who is lighter and who is darker. They tear one another down to nothing but a shade of brown. Further, they conflict and fight among themselves and prompt the teachers to take action against them all adding to the below statistic.

35% of black children grades 7-12 have been suspended or expelled at some point in their school careers compared to 20% of Hispanics and 15% of whites (NAACP)

Teach our youth about the troubles their ancestors went through in order to get here. Teach them how they were divided and set against each other, but still managed to unite at some point to overcome slavery. Teach our youth on the successful black people, light skin and dark skin, who came before them.

Now, teach our kids about what happens when one group fights among themselves. Teach our kids about the house slaves and the field slaves. Tell them about how the white man raped black women, raised their children in the house, and set her children against their own people because they were darker than the children were. Go on to tell them about the hardship those house slaves faced and how it was just as bad as those on the field, in the grand scheme of things.

Teach them about the brown paper bag tests. Open their eyes to the fact that they are doing it to themselves by suggesting another black individual isn't close enough to white to be a part of them.

Perhaps you could teach them about the injustices all black men and women, dark skin and dark skin alike, have faced. My most favorite test of the text books and its ability to properly educate our youth is the one by which I ask peers, adults, and those younger than me whether or not they've heard of Black Wall Street, one of the most affluent black communities to ever grace America. So far 100% of those who I survey have said no, they have never heard of Black Wall Street. Its been seven years shy of a hundred years since the terror, but the history books don’t cover it or anything of similar nature. Watch below to learn how of the destruction of a virtually independent black community.

Educate our youth and, just maybe, they will understand they have larger battles to fight outside of themselves. Just may be they will be inspired to unite and prosper together. Just may be they will stop acting out and see that they have a reason to do better. Perhaps they will see that they will see that they have better things to allot their energies to. Rather than disputing which shade of brown is better, they just may stop fighting among themselves and work to advance themselves. Show them the beauty they hold and they will cherish that beauty.

The War Goes On

Our youth are failed and in turn fail us as a whole. If we don’t fix this problem soon, we could see something like the Hutu vs Tutsi blood bath not too long ago. That’s a worst case scenario, which I don’t usually jump to, but the cards have been lining up for centuries. We've been witnessing smaller instances of such an ultimate situation throughout our streets.

The Winners: Everyone but Blacks

While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned (Alternet.com).

In essence, nobody wins because we are all human beings. Nonetheless, for the purposes of this discussion, I’ll entertain the former.

Mutually Oppressed: Light Skin & Dark Skin→Blacks

The following facts will come from many credible sources who are also concerned. I do not mean to make this a black vs white issue, but the stats are too startling not to exhibit.

1. 1 in every 15 African American men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men (Alternet.org)
2. Two-fifths of the confined youth in the U.S today are African Americans (Aecf.org)
3. 1 in 3 black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime (Bureau of Justice Statistics)
4. African American women are 3x more likely to be incarcerated than white women

As you can see, neither light skin or dark skin blacks win in this war. We all lose. The facts are clear to the eye but appear blurred to the uneducated

Your team light skin vs team light skin does not amuse the educated.

I can respect the man who makes a fool, but never can I respect the man who is made a fool time and time again. Educate yourself and stop being fooled.

Nobody can do you better than you, so cherish the beauty that is you and stop trying to emulate another’s.