Erin ’s Reviews > Colorism: The Politics of Skin Tone and How We Get Free > Status Update

Like policing and law, the medical field is another place where colorism has deadly consequences.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has acknowledged colorism as a unique form of discrimination.

"You just need to love yourself and stop caring what others think about you" is one of the most common responses lobbed at dark skinned women and girls.

Colorism's roots in slavery created division and distrust among the enslaved.

Prior to the 1929 novel The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman, nearly all Black female characters were mixed race, very fair skinned and often able to pass for white.

The professional hair industry around the world is rife with systematic texturism.

Black people of all genders are raised to see our natural hair as a problem that must be managed, hidden, transformed or cut off.

Across cultures the stigma of being seen as "Black" is directly tied to anti- African sentiment.

In Brazil its a foreign idea that people with different hair textures and skin tones are considered the same race.

"You're viewed as weak if you acknowledge you've been hurt or people dismiss you as being too sensitive.