Jane Vinocur

In the Introduction and Chapter 7 from The Color Complex, skin color in the African American Community is discussed. Depending on whom you ask, light and dark skin color mean completely different things. Dark-skinned woman often look down on light-skinned women, thinking that they’re “almost white”, and are envious when they receive attention from dark-skinned men. It seems as though that African Americans who believe that there is a color complex allude to a pattern where lighter-skinned women marry darker-skinned men, and lighter-skinned men marry darker-skinned women. This is due to many reasons. Darker-skinned men who marry darker-skinned women are often criticized for “not being able to do better”, while lighter-skinned men who marry darker-skinned women are accused of “trying to get back to their roots”. It’s impossible to win in a color complex world. For example, Usher’s girlfriend Grace is 42, while he is only 34. She works at Island Def Jam Records, which is where he is signed and helps to manage his career. They also started dating very shortly after he filed for divorce from his ex-wife Tameka. Despite the fact that any one of these things can be seen as “scandalous”, a quick search online finds that most comments on articles about the two of them are about how Grace is “so much lighter than Tameka” and how she is “very blah to look at”. All anyone is concerned about is her skin color. She’s only half-black, so she is very light, but why should that make their love any less real? And why does anyone care? If she’s smart and accomplished and a nice person, then why would anyone assume that Usher only chose her because her skin is light?

In “Yearning for Lightness”, different skin-modification techniques are the focus. This article was kind of strange for me to read, because until this class I had never thought that anyone would ever do anything to get lighter skin. After being poked fun at during elementary class for being so pale, or having the contrast between my dark hair and light skin pointed out in middle school, I never thought that anybody would want to have very light, pale skin. It was not uncommon for girls in my high school to use tanning lotions or get an occasional spray tan, and although it’s very dangerous, a couple of girls would go to tanning booths once or twice a week. I never did any of those things, but in the summer I would go to my relative’s homes in the Hamptons and while on the beach surrounded by perfectly tanned people, I would lie down on my towel and “tan” until I was burned. After I finally realized that what I was doing was harmful, I stopped attempting to tan and started wearing a lot of sunscreen. I was freaked out enough by a couple of sunburns to stop trying to change my skin color to something it wasn’t, however the side effects mentioned in the article are much scarier and do not elicit such a response. “Long-term hydroquinone use can lead to ochronosis, a disfiguring condition involving gray and blue-black discoloration of the skin. The overuse of topical steroids can lead to contact eczema, bacterial and fungal infection, Cushing’s syndrome, and skin atrophy”. None of these side effects seem worth it, even with what people think skin color means about where they stand in society. For white North American women, “A year-round tan came to symbolize high social status since it indicated that a person could afford to travel and spend time at tropical resorts and beaches”. Lighter skin for African-Americans is often taken to mean that they are somehow superior or more intelligent to people with darker-skin. Skin color, just like clothing, hair color, or eye color, has no bearing on how someone is as a person. None of these factors reveal anything personal about the person who these characteristics belong to.