There is a deep, dark secret that some blacks have tried to keep hidden for years. It is the prejudice exists within the race. Discrimination not only comes in forms of black and white, but also in light- and dark-skinned separation. The lighter your skin, the more privileged are considered. The roots of this problem began in the days of slavery. During that time, dark-skinned blacks would work in the fields while light skinned blacks worked indoors. The light-skinned blacks were granted more privileges than the other slaves: "To some degree this fair-skinned fetish is a hangover from slavery, when light-skinned blacks were granted more privileges than the other slaves were. Over time, a hierarchy of sorts developed around the idea that fair skin was more socially palatable" (www.townhall.com).
Fair-skinned slaves automatically enjoyed their soft jobs in the master's house, if they had to work at all: "Many traveled throughout the nation and abroad with their master and their families. They were exposed to the finer things, and many became educated as a result. Their darker-toned peers toiled in the fields. They were the ones whose who were beaten, burned, and hanged, the ones permanently condemned to be the lowest of the lowest of the low in US society" (www.sptimes.com). .
On TV and in magazines, you barely see a dark-skinned black person. Our culture is still being led to believe that having lighter skin is more acceptable than having dark-skin. If we look at rap videos with all those light-skinned girls dancing around the black rapper, surely that tells us something? At the very least, the media tells us that the black who is most acceptable to the white is the light-skinned one. This allows a light-skinned person to get more advantages in life than a dark-skinned person because of the lightness of their skin.
Colorism has always been an issue for the black community. In the past, some black social clubs and societies only allowed those who had light skin: "People say that in the early days at Spellman College were not admitted if they were darker than a paper bag," said one graduate on the website called Pride and Prejudice.