Failed party promotion highlights color divide

Study: Skin color may affect hiring
There may be something to that perception.

A 2006 study by University of Georgia doctoral candidate Matthew Harrison shows skin color may play a role in hiring. Psychology undergraduates, most of whom were white, were given fake photos and resumes to make hiring recommendations.

Lighter-skinned women applicants were preferred over those with darker complexions but equal credentials. Light-skinned black men also were preferred over those with dark skin who had better credentials.

Such thinking is rooted in America’s slavery past, Harrison says. Lighter-skinned children of slaves and their owners were given better treatment and less strenuous household chores than darker slaves who toiled in the fields.

“That created a lot of animosity among slaves and began to replicate itself even after slavery,” Harrison said. “Once blacks were able to have their own groups, they too adhered to the whole system of lightness being better.”

One of the ways they did so was the “brown paper bag” test, in which blacks whose skin was darker than the bag’s color were denied inclusion into social events or organizations.

Not 'black' enough?
But lighter-skinned black women also complain they at times are accused of not being “black” enough.

Tamika Franklin, who works with Toney, says she was taunted as “white girl” by other black children. The 30-year-old administrative assistant has very fair skin, freckles and reddish-brown hair. She says whites appear to be more accepting of her than blacks.

“I’m closer to their shade, so they’re a little more comfortable with that,” Franklin said.

That’s because whites set the standard for what is considered attractive and acceptable, Pearl Jr. said.

“I believe they think the lighter you are and the straighter your hair, the more you resemble them and the better you are,” she said. “We have been taught as African-Americans to be less African, less dark.”

The issue is central to “Other People’s Skin,” four novellas released this month and co-authored by Atkins and three other black women. The fictional work looks at discrimination that results from “colorism” in the black community.

Atkins has a fair complexion and long, light brown hair. Her mother is black and father is white.

“People have mimicked me to my face ... that I talk white or proper,” said Atkins, who earned a master’s degree at Columbia University. “An ex-boyfriend told me I should talk more black and go to a tanning salon to get darker. Another man told me I should dye my hair brown if I wanted to do business with black people.

“We often face hatred within the race, and it’s more hurtful from your own people than the mainstream.”

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