Internalized Racism and Gendered Colorism Among African Americans

Internalized Racism and Gendered Colorism Among African Americans PDF Author: Trinity Alexander
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
Hidden within the commonly discussed notion of racism is discrimination based on skin color, also known as colorism. Colorism is a form of prejudice in which people are treated differently based on societal meanings attached to skin color. Even less evaluated is the notion of intra-group colorism, which is prejudice based on color within a single ethnic group. The current research studied the unique ways in which colorism affects African American men and women. Procedure: Participants were recruited online via MTurk and completed three Implicit Association Tests (IAT) and one Questionnaire. The IATs examined participant's preference for light vs. medium skin tone, light vs. dark skin tone, and medium vs. dark skin tone. The questionnaire explored participants' beliefs about skin tone and skin color satisfaction, skin tone preferences, internalized racist views, and perceived discrimination. Results: Men and women explicitly preferred lighter skin tones over dark skin. The implicit desire for the lighter of two skin tones was observed in both gender groups, with men preferring light over medium skin tones, light over dark skin tones, and medium over dark skin tones. Women only showed a preference for medium over dark skin tones. As skin color preference became lighter, colorism increased for men but not for women. As internalized racism, skin color dissatisfaction, and colorism increased, psychological distress also increased for men and women. Skin color satisfaction, colorism, and internalized racism uniquely explained variance in one another for men and women. As women's skin color became darker, perceived discrimination increased. Perceived skin color-based discrimination from other African Americans led to increased psychological distress for women. Conclusion: Results from this study indicate that experiences of colorism differ by gender, and the effects of intra-group colorism may be especially harmful to women. Future research should seek to understand these relationships with more clarity by including a more comprehensive choice of skin color options and exploring other ways in which variables relate to and predict one another.

Internalized Racism and Gendered Colorism Among African Americans

Internalized Racism and Gendered Colorism Among African Americans PDF Author: Trinity Alexander
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
Hidden within the commonly discussed notion of racism is discrimination based on skin color, also known as colorism. Colorism is a form of prejudice in which people are treated differently based on societal meanings attached to skin color. Even less evaluated is the notion of intra-group colorism, which is prejudice based on color within a single ethnic group. The current research studied the unique ways in which colorism affects African American men and women. Procedure: Participants were recruited online via MTurk and completed three Implicit Association Tests (IAT) and one Questionnaire. The IATs examined participant's preference for light vs. medium skin tone, light vs. dark skin tone, and medium vs. dark skin tone. The questionnaire explored participants' beliefs about skin tone and skin color satisfaction, skin tone preferences, internalized racist views, and perceived discrimination. Results: Men and women explicitly preferred lighter skin tones over dark skin. The implicit desire for the lighter of two skin tones was observed in both gender groups, with men preferring light over medium skin tones, light over dark skin tones, and medium over dark skin tones. Women only showed a preference for medium over dark skin tones. As skin color preference became lighter, colorism increased for men but not for women. As internalized racism, skin color dissatisfaction, and colorism increased, psychological distress also increased for men and women. Skin color satisfaction, colorism, and internalized racism uniquely explained variance in one another for men and women. As women's skin color became darker, perceived discrimination increased. Perceived skin color-based discrimination from other African Americans led to increased psychological distress for women. Conclusion: Results from this study indicate that experiences of colorism differ by gender, and the effects of intra-group colorism may be especially harmful to women. Future research should seek to understand these relationships with more clarity by including a more comprehensive choice of skin color options and exploring other ways in which variables relate to and predict one another.

Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone

Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone PDF Author: Margaret L. Hunter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136074902
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone tackles the hidden yet painful issue of colorism in the African American and Mexican American communities. Beginning with a historical discussion of slavery and colonization in the Americas, the book quickly moves forward to a contemporary analysis of how skin tone continues to plague people of color today. This is the first book to explore this well-known, yet rarely discussed phenomenon.

Loving the Skin You're in

Loving the Skin You're in PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Colorism is discrimination against individuals with darker skin, with preference afforded to those with lighter skin (Hunter, 2007). To study colorism, researchers have looked at concepts that colorism influences, such as skin color satisfaction, internalized racism, and self-esteem (Coard et al., 2001; Maxwell et al., 2015). The current study determined if internalized racism acts as a mediator between skin color satisfaction and self-esteem in Black participants since internalized racism influences both (David et al., 2019; Maxwell et al., 2015). I also determined if skin color acts as a moderator, explaining differences in the effect of skin color satisfaction on internalized racism, based on the darkness of Black participants' skin tones. Three hundred and twenty-six participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to complete an online survey through Qualtrics. Data were collected through four variables: Internalized Racial Oppression Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Scale of Skin Color Darkness, and Skin Color Satisfaction Scale. A demographic questionnaire was also given. Moderated mediation analysis was performed, using regression-based techniques with Hayes' PROCESS Macro for IBM's SPSS software (model 8; Hayes, 2017). Black participants with higher skin color satisfaction were associated with higher general self-esteem, which was explained by participants' lowered internalized racism. Additionally, there was evidence that participants with darker skin colors were more affected by internalized racism as a mediator between skin color satisfaction and self-esteem.

The Racialization and Identity Construction of Light Skinned Black Womanhood

The Racialization and Identity Construction of Light Skinned Black Womanhood PDF Author: Brittany Botts
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
Much of the common discourse around skin color politics in the United States of America and the African Diaspora more broadly focuses on the ways in which light skinned Black people are privileged by the patriarchal white supremacist system of racial hierarchy. This discourse often highlights the ways in which dark skinned Black people have systematically been disenfranchised by these institutional models of access that limit understandings of Black humanity. The histories of global colonization, both physical and mental, have evidently left behind remnants of internalized beliefs that linger within Black communal spaces, especially when considering the ways in which the intersection of race and gender complicate the discussion. While the prevalent scholarship on colorism highlights the dichotomy between dark and light skinned people by highlighting dark skinned people's exclusion from a privileged positionality within Blackness, this project is interested in expanding the conversation to reveal the nuanced challenges faced by those seen as most privileged within Black communities. i The Racialization & Identity Construction of Light Skinned Black Womanhood is a project that looks at the ways in which light skinned Black women understand, negotiate, embrace, and/or reject notions of their gendered, racialized identity across borders. This project is grounded in theories from African American Studies, African Diaspora Studies, Anthropology, and Women and Gender Studies. It is anthropological in methodology utilizes qualitative research tools within the ethnographic tradition to broadly engage the following questions - How have light skinned Black women in the United States of America experienced their Black womanhood within the context of Black communal spaces? How have their childhood experiences with skin color politics shaped their understanding of self? How does light skinned women's understanding of racial identity and ingroup membership change as they move across international and racial borders from the United States to South Africa? How does the South African racial project of dividing Coloured and Black people inform light skinned African American women's negotiation of South Africa? In what ways do light skinned women experience racial privileging and alienation in South Africa, and how does this differ from their experiences in the Unites States of America? Each of these questions speak to larger questions about the complex intersection of gendered colorism, privilege, and alienation. Using both Dr. Yaba Blay's and Dr. Margaret Hunter's work to frame my understanding of light skinned women's racial experiences within the Black community, my research will combine existing theories of colorism within the African American community with Diasporic scholarship on racial identity across borders. I utilize Dr. Jemima Pierre's The Predicament of Blackness: Postcolonial Ghana and the Politics of Race to engage international racial construction through a nuanced lens. My framing of South African racial categorization is based on Omi and Winant's Racial Formation, and my historical context is based upon Burdened by Race : Coloured Identities in Southern Africa and Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Racial Identity in the South African by Mohamed Adhikari. Using these texts as the foundation to my work, I conducted a series of person-centered interviews with one light skinned African American woman who had traveled to South Africa in order to capture her story. While I recognize that this story is not generalizable to the larger population of light skinned African American women, it does provide great insight into this phenomenon, making room for a larger range of experiences to be interpreted in future research to come. This project seeks to expand the conversation of African American skin color politics to an international level to better gage the impact skin complexion may have on racial identity across international borders. From placing the series of interviews conducted in conversation with the scholarship I engaged, I found that the complex histories of gendered racialization have had lasting impacts on the ways in which light skinned Black women understanding their Black womanhood today. The shameful histories of the brown paper bag test, familial passing, miscegenation, and rape all tend to influence how some light skinned women understand their own place within Blackness today. I also found that international travel does in fact complicate how one's racial identity is understood and negotiated across borders.

The Color Complex

The Color Complex PDF Author: Kathy Russell
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385471610
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Presents a powerful argument backed by historical fact and anecdotal evidence, that color prejudice remains a devastating divide within black America.

The Blacker the Berry

The Blacker the Berry PDF Author: Wallace Thurman
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486461343
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
A source of controversy upon its 1929 publication, this novel was the first to openly address color prejudice among black Americans. The author, an active member of the Harlem Renaissance, offers insightful reflections of the era's mood and spirit in an enduringly relevant examination of racial, sexual, and cultural identity.

Racism in the 21st Century

Racism in the 21st Century PDF Author: Ronald E. Hall
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387790985
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
In the post-Civil Rights era, there is a temptation to assume that racism is no longer the pressing social concern in the United States that it once was. The contributors show that racism has not fallen from the forefront of American society, but is manifest in a different way. According to the authors in this volume, in 21st century, skin color has come to replace race as an important cause of discrimination. This is evidenced in the increasing usage of the term “people of color” to encompass people of a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. The editor has compiled a diverse group of contributors to examine racism from an interdisciplinary perspective. Contributions range from the science of racism, from its perceived biological basis at the end of the 19th century, to sociological studies its new forms in the 21st century. The result is a work that will be invaluable to understanding the challenges of confronting Racism in the 21st Century.

An Historical Analysis of Skin Color Discrimination in America

An Historical Analysis of Skin Color Discrimination in America PDF Author: Ronald E. Hall
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441955054
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Racism in America is most-commonly studied as white racism against minority groups (racial, gender, cultural). Often overlooked in this area of study is the discrimination that exists within minority groups. Through a detailed historical and sociological analysis, the author breaks down these pernicious, complex, and often misunderstood forms of skin color discrimination: their origins and their manifestations in modern world. Shedding new light on these sensitive issues, this volume will allow them to come to the forefront of academic research and open dialogue. This comprehensive work will include coverage of skin color discrimination within racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender minority groups, and their particular forms and consequences. An Historical Analysis of Skin Color will be an important work for researchers studying the Sociology of Race and Racism, Gender Studies, LGBT Studies, Immigration, or Social Work.

The Color of Love

The Color of Love PDF Author: Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477307885
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
The Color Of Love reveals the power of racial hierarchies to infiltrate our most intimate relationships. Delving far deeper than previous sociologists have into the black Brazilian experience, Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman examines the relationship between racialization and the emotional life of a family. Based on interviews and a sixteen-month ethnography of ten working-class Brazilian families, this provocative work sheds light on how families simultaneously resist and reproduce racial hierarchies. Examining race and gender, Hordge-Freeman illustrates the privileges of whiteness by revealing how those with “blacker” features often experience material and emotional hardships. From parental ties, to sibling interactions, to extended family and romantic relationships, the chapters chart new territory by revealing the connection between proximity to whiteness and the distribution of affection within families. Hordge-Freeman also explores how black Brazilian families, particularly mothers, rely on diverse strategies that reproduce, negotiate, and resist racism. She frames efforts to modify racial features as sometimes reflecting internalized racism, and at other times as responding to material and emotional considerations. Contextualizing their strategies within broader narratives of the African diaspora, she examines how Salvador’s inhabitants perceive the history of the slave trade itself in a city that is referred to as the “blackest” in Brazil. She argues that racial hierarchies may orchestrate family relationships in ways that reflect and reproduce racial inequality, but black Brazilian families actively negotiate these hierarchies to assert their citizenship and humanity.

Living Color

Living Color PDF Author: Nina G. Jablonski
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520953770
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Living Color is the first book to investigate the social history of skin color from prehistory to the present, showing how our body’s most visible trait influences our social interactions in profound and complex ways. In a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion, Nina G. Jablonski begins with the biology and evolution of skin pigmentation, explaining how skin color changed as humans moved around the globe. She explores the relationship between melanin pigment and sunlight, and examines the consequences of rapid migrations, vacations, and other lifestyle choices that can create mismatches between our skin color and our environment. Richly illustrated, this book explains why skin color has come to be a biological trait with great social meaning— a product of evolution perceived by culture. It considers how we form impressions of others, how we create and use stereotypes, how negative stereotypes about dark skin developed and have played out through history—including being a basis for the transatlantic slave trade. Offering examples of how attitudes about skin color differ in the U.S., Brazil, India, and South Africa, Jablonski suggests that a knowledge of the evolution and social importance of skin color can help eliminate color-based discrimination and racism.