Whiteness and Colorism

Two issues of debate we studied in class were the issues of "Whiteness" and "Colorism". Whiteness being, white privilege to the white majority in America, and "Colorism" being the discrimination against darker colored people even within a minority group. These issues have been noted, but even as I learned them, I was not aware of how much these ideas contributed to my daily life.

The other day, a friend of mine told me and some others that he was dating a black girl. Our first initial reaction was shock. The shock was not intended to be hurtful or express dissatisfaction with his choice, but nevertheless the shock was still there. But why would this be? In modern society, discrimination is deemed to be inherently bad, so we did not attribute our shock to be an act of discrimination. But if it wasn't discrimination, than what was it? As i thought more about the issue, I realized it must have been a form of "Whiteness" and white privilege. We automatically assumed that our friend, our white friend, would date someone who was in fact just like that, white. But why? Why did our friend have to explicitly state the fact that she was black? And on top of that, why did we assume his girlfriend would be white? Although all of my friends continually said over and over again how her race was not a problem, and we would all be just as friendly and cordial as we would to anyone else, the fact of the matter is, that point had to be brought up. The point that we would not treat her differently was brought up in conversation, proving that to others this may be a problem and furthermore the idea of discrimination still plays a factor in our everyday lives.

The next issue of "Colorism" and assimilating to "white culture" also played a very large part. My friend than went onto explain, that although she was black, she was "just like us". This again perpetuates the idea of Whiteness, but also brings up the question of, what does "just like us" mean? As he showed us pictures, I realized that her skin was a lighter tone, her hair was done so that it was straight, and she wore clothes resembled that of her white peers in the pictures. As my friends and I saw more and more pictures, comments were made about how she looked "normal". Friends noticed and mentioned her straight her as well as her clothing. Another comment was made about her skin tone not being overly dark. The issue of colorism than came clear to me. My friends were inherently more accepting of her because of the way she was able to blend into American culture.

Before this semester, I probably would have been more inclined to jump into conversation with similar comments and judgements. However, as I have learned more about "colorblindness" and the ongoing discrimination problem in America, I now find this to be a huge topic of interest. This is definitely an issue that is still prevalent today, and one that needs to be worked on to enhance equalities. Maybe if more people become aware and realize that problems are still existing, they will be more inclined to stop the problem. It is instilled in us that discrimination is cruel, so by pointing this out and making people open their ideas to the fact that is still in fact going on, like it did for me, maybe the problem can be helped.