Teaching and Learning Guide for: The Persistent Problem of Colorism: Skin Tone, Status, and Inequality
Authors: Hunter Margaret 
Published: April 2008

Author's introduction

Most research on race and ethnicity focuses on discrimination patterns against entire groups, such as African Americans, Latina/os, Asian Americans, or American Indians. The study of colorism is unique because it investigates intraracial hierarchies of skin color. Studies of colorism examine how the actual lightness or darkness of a person's skin tone affects his or her life opportunities such as education, income, and housing. This is a crucial line of inquiry because a significant amount of race/color discrimination lies hidden within communities of color. Investigating colorism also exposes centuries‐old colonial ideologies that valorize white culture and white beauty. Many recent studies of skin tone stratification focus on both the historical and contemporary factors that maintain a light‐skinned elite in communities of color. Ultimately, colorism research enables a deeper understanding of systemic racism around the world.

Author recommends

Russell, Kathy, Midge Wilson, and Ronald Hall 1992. The Color Complex. New York, NY: Doubleday.

This book was groundbreaking in that it was one of the first popular books on the topic of colorism. Focused primarily on African Americans, the authors provide a journalistic account of the manifestations of colorism and the sociological, historical, and psychological causes of it. This book is a great overview of colorism in the African American community.

Rondilla, Joanne and Paul Spickard 2007. Is Lighter Better? Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Rondilla and Spickard have written the first book on colorism in the Asian American community. This book is broad and thorough covering topics such as color and identity, mother–daughter relationships and the color/beauty nexus, and the global sales of skin‐bleaching products. The book is empirical, historical, and theoretical.

Hunter, Margaret 2005. Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hunter creates a persuasive argument that skin color discrimination is alive and well in the USA. She pays particular attention to the African American and Mexican American communities in her studies that cover income disparities, educational gaps, marriage market politics, and cosmetic surgery. The book uses both statistics and interviews with women of color as evidence for its claims.

Herring, Cedric, Verna M. Keith, and Hayward Derrick Horton (Eds.) 2004. Skin/Deep: How Race and Complexion Matter in the ‘Color‐Blind’ Era. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

This edited volume covers a broad range of topics, including the biracial baby boom, the ‘neo‐mulatto’ elite, the Latin Americanization thesis of racial formation, and the persistent role of colorism in African American communities. The contributors are primarily sociologists arguing that the form of racism and racial discrimination is changing in the new post‐Civil Rights era.

Allen, Walter, Edward Telles, and Margaret Hunter 2000. ‘Skin Color, Income, and Education: A Comparison of African Americans and Mexican Americans.’National Journal of Sociology 12: 129–80.

The authors present a thorough analysis of the structural and social–psychological factors that affect colorism in the African American and Mexican American communities. Using two national survey data sets, Allen, Telles, and Hunter suggest that colorism is an ongoing phenomenon in both groups providing the light skinned with significant advantages in income and educational attainment.

Brunsma, David L. and Kerry A. Rockquemore 2001. ‘The New Color Complex: Appearances and Biracial Identity.’ Identity 1: 225–46.

This article takes up the important issue of biracial identity and its relationship to physical appearance. Moving away from a more traditional stratification model, the authors ask what it means to be darker or lighter as a mixed‐race person, and how one's physical appearance affects his or her racial self‐identification.

Mire, Amina 2001. ‘Skin‐Bleaching: Poison, Beauty, Power, and the Politics of the Colour Line.’Resources for Feminist Research 28 (3–4): 13–38.

In this lengthy and rigorous article, Mire suggests that the postcolonial, global phenomenon of skin‐bleaching has strong and deep roots in the European colonial experience. She uses a feminist lens to understand why women's bodies are often the site of poisonous skin‐bleaching creams and how the interlocking systems of racism and patriarchy work together to oppress women in postcolonial nations around the world.

Online materials

‘Color Coding and Bias in Hollywood’

This video excerpt features Henry Louis Gates informally interviewing a group of African American women actors. They discuss the color line and skin tone in the entertainment industry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeGsIuBxDFk

‘Black Students Still Favor Lighter Skin, Study Finds’

This research report describes two recent surveys of college students and their attitudes toward skin color in dating and friendship.

http://www.blackcollegewire.org/studentlife/070611_colorism/

‘A Girl Like Me’

This short video features interviews with African American girls and women reflecting on the meaning of skin color in their own lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17fEy0q6yqc

‘Club Slammed Over ‘Light‐Skinned’ Promotion’

This news article describes the controversy surrounding the owner of a Detroit area nightclub who promoted the club by offering light‐skinned black women free admission.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/10/18/skintone.club.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

‘Indian Men Go Tall, Fair, and Handsome’

This article describes the new skin‐bleaching product, Fair and Handsome, marketed to men in India. Skin‐bleaching, once a primarily female activity, has crossed the gender line.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4396122.stm

Sample syllabus

Racial and Ethnic Relations (excerpt of syllabus).

Course description

This course is designed to introduce students to the exciting and influential field of racial and ethnic studies. With racial inequality as an enduring part of the American landscape, it is important that we all learn as much as we can about racial and ethnic issues. In this course, we will learn about many different aspects of racial and ethnic studies, including segregation, separatism, assimilation, immigration, and multiracial identity. We will discuss many different racial and ethnic groups in this course and we will focus on Latinos, Asian Americans, whites, African Americans, and American Indians.

Week 1: Definitions of race

F. James Davis, Who Is Black? One Nation's Definition

George Martinez, ‘Mexican Americans and Whiteness’

Hector Tobar, ‘A Battle Over Who Is Indian’

Video: ‘Race: The Power of An Illusion, Part I’

Week 2: Interracial marriage and biracial identity

Maria P. P. Root. ‘Five Mixed‐Race Identities’

Mary Texeira. ‘The New Multiracialism’

Video: ‘Just Black’

Week 3: Skin tone, inequality, and internalized racism

Maxine Leeds Craig, Ain't I a Beauty Queen? Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race

Margaret Hunter, ‘The Persistent Problem of Colorism: Skin Tone, Status, and Inequality’

Video: ‘A Question of Color’

Week 4: The paradox of Americanization

Nazli Kibria, ‘Becoming Asian American’

Renato Rosaldo, ‘Cultural Citizenship, Inequality, and Multiculturalism’

Video: ‘Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary’

Focus questions

Eduardo Bonilla‐Silva suggests that the racial hierarchy in the USA is increasingly resembling that of Latin America, with whites at the top, light‐skinned and mixed‐race people in the middle, and darker‐skinned people of color at the bottom. What evidence is there for and against this position?

What are the challenges for scholars who are researching ‘across the color line’ or researching ‘across the skin tone line?’

Describe some aspects of US culture that perpetuate the valorization of whiteness? Are there any trends or movements that resist definitions of white beauty?

Eight‐five percent of cosmetic surgery in the USA is done on women's bodies. What does this tell us about how US culture views women's bodies?

Describe three strategies for combating colorism within communities of color and in the larger US context. What kind of attitudinal and structural changes must take place for significant changes to occur?

Project idea

Conduct your own content analysis. Choose 10 magazines geared toward African Americans (or another community of color). Analyze the advertisements in each magazine by counting the number of images of light‐, medium‐, and dark‐skinned people featured in the advertisements. Also pay attention to the types of advertisements that people of different skin tones appear in (for example, beauty advertisements, travel advertisements, or advertisements for household products). By counting and categorizing in this way, you should find some interesting patterns that reveal deeper ideological meanings about skin tone and status in our society.