Do light-skinned Black people have an advantage? Yes. They are likely to get hired first and may earn more money

The five of us were in the basement playing with our dolls and watching Friday Night Videos when two new girls joined the slumber party. Suddenly my happy time turned into confusion. At the suggestion of the new girls, I was pushed into the furnace room.

"Why?" I asked, crying. "What did I do?"

"You're too Black to play with us. It might rub off," the girls said, locking the door.

I stayed in that furnace room all night, hugging my dolls and looking at the backs of my hands in the dim blue glow of the pilot light, trying to figure out why those beautiful, bright girls thought my oak-colored skin was somehow bad.

That's when my still-forming, 10-year-old mind began to understand that light-skinned people are part of a special group of Black folks considered by others--and sometimes considered by themselves--to be much more comely than myself. Good thing I was a smart girl with a good upbringing, so my self-esteem didn't suffer for too long. Growing up, I learned that the ailment of colorism not only affects little girls' play groups, but also socioeconomic status. In fact, it goes well beyond the infamous brown paper bag tests of past elite Black society and the offensive "light-skinned Libra party" advertised last year in Detroit.

In 2006, the University of Georgia found that, all other things being equal, light-skinned people were more likely to get hired for jobs over dark-skinned people. It was worse for the men.

"Dark-skinned men with greater credentials were significantly less preferred than a light-skinned man with lower credentials," says Ph.D. candidate Matthew Harrison, whose test asked 250 of his peers to hire the best candidate using nearly identical resumes and a photo featuring the same person color-adjusted for light and dark skin tone. Most of the study participants were White. Adds Harrison: "The economic gap between light-skinned and darker-skinned Blacks is similar to the gap between Whites and Blacks."

Another 2006 study found dark-skinned Black men who murdered White men were more likely to get the death penalty than light-skinned Blacks found guilty of the same crime. Plus, a 2007 study researched in part by Duke University Professor William Darity estimates that light-skinned men, on average, earn about $3 more per hour than dark-skinned men.

In 2003, Applebee's restaurant paid $40,000 to a dark-skinned employee who alleged his light-skinned boss called him "tar baby" and encouraged him to use skin-lightening cream. The restaurant then added a new human-resources rule prohibiting skin-tone discrimination.

Now, it's one thing to call someone ugly. It's quite another to deny him employment, pay him less or put him on Death Row just because of an aversion to his skin tone.

And it's not just a Black thang. Asians, Latinos and "ethnic whites" (read: non-Aryan) apparently have it bad too, as evidenced by the billions they spend for skin lighteners. As for us, as talented as we all are, it's no accident that the most popular of our leading ladies and the folks who grace our magazine covers tend to share the same beige hue.

Why? Heads up folks, skin matters. Social scientists call this phenomenon "preferential treatment," a phrase that should sound familiar because it's what Whites get in most walks of life. Just like racism is hard to prove but impossible to ignore, colorism's effects give some of us a distinct advantage when we--or others--choose to use k in that way.

For those of you rolling your eyes right now, I agree. We could get over this issue if people would let us. But on average, I'm personally reminded of my darkness about once a month. Usually it's some guy (White or Black) who walks up to me and says something profound like, "You're so, so Black!"

Eureka. He's discovered me. Even my light-skinned friends say that when hanging around even lighter people with even lighter eyes and even straighter hair, they are made to feel somehow less beautiful.

That's why ignoring this problem won't make it go away. It just tends to exaggerate the impact.

In my short lifetime, it does seem that we've improved a bit. In the past, many of the men I knew essentially used me as a steppingstone to get dose to my light-skinned friends and cousins. Nowadays many of those same men take to complimenting my color.

But just when I feel we've taken one giant step forward, someone reminds me we have much further to go.

Consider the Brother at the train station last week who gave me a broad smile and that winning six-word combination that's both compliment and insult: "You pretty to be so Black."

COPYRIGHT 2008 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale Group