Salon.com: Black People in "Dear White People" Not Dark Enough

Pundit Press ^ | 10/24/14 | Aurelius

[Red Badger]

[V_TWIN]

“Black people treat Light-skinned differently, more so than Whites.”

Oh yeah, heard many comments at work by blacks about the lightness or darkness of another black persons skin. They are absolutly obsessed about it.

[trisham]

[SoothingDave]

If you were exsanguinated then you’d really be white!

[Calvin Locke]

So, why are "light-skinned African-Americans" used in movies?

My first instinct is that lighter skin blacks can get away/easier time with taking an education seriously, and therefore can read scripts and be taken seriously by casting directors.

Probably why there are so many non-US blacks proportionately, in tv and films.

[Gaffer]

Well, probably true for me.....I’m not so sure about those that care about tint.

[catnipman]

Couldn’t the movie makers have just spray painted the lighter blacks a darker shade so Morgan Jenkins could have a happier life?

[Gaffer]

Yes, but too black can mean something else to them also. A blacker than black Jamaican is probably not high on their “down with the slave struggle” badge either.

[dfwgator]

Julian Bond explained why.....

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75dblack.phtml

[dfwgator]

Beat me to it!

[longtermmemmory]

seems like the old SNL skit...

[dfwgator]

Oh wait, that was the wrong one.....

Here is the right one....

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76rblackperspective.phtml

[Red Badger]

[Impala64ssa]

“Black people treat Light-skinned differently, more so than Whites.”
I've seen this first-hand growing up. And not only light-skinned vs dark-skinned, I've seen more animosity between "native-born" Blacks, and those from the Carribean, and for that matter between Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, than across racial lines. It happenes within all races and ethnicities, and religious groups.

[Impala64ssa]

“Black people treat Light-skinned differently, more so than Whites.”
I've seen this first-hand growing up. And not only light-skinned vs dark-skinned, I've seen more animosity between "native-born" Blacks, and those from the Carribean, and for that matter between Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, than across racial lines. It happenes within all races and ethnicities, and religious groups.

[WayneS]

These people are out of there ever-lovin’ minds.

[WayneS]

pardon me:

...THEIR ever-lovin’ minds

[miss marmelstein]

They’re not happy when they’re left out; they’re not happy when they’re left in.

[dfwgator]

But I think the most blatant racists, (Jeremiah Wright, for example), tend to be the lighter-skinned blacks, as if they have to prove to others that they really are black by saying the most outrageous things.

[Sherman Logan]

There’s an aspect of this that is staring us in the face, but nobody ever talks about it.

Dark-skinned black men can make it as musicians or actors. Their female equivalents are almost always very light in color.

If there is a black couple in TV or a movie, she is AFAIK always at least several shades lighter.

This is perhaps similar in some ways to how overweight male actors can do okay. Reference John Candy or Jack Black. Their love interest in the movie is always thin.