Day 12 of White History Month: The Imposition of Colorism and Colonial Beauty Standards on People of Color
This is a long post adapted from a longer essay which references a lot of studies so you might notice there’s no works cited, but if you really want it, send me an ask.
Related to racism and colonialism, colorism is the discrimination against darker skin and preference for lighter skin among people of color. Colorism was created by European colonial standards. It was engineered by white people and white people continue to harm people of color with colorism in the media, workplace, and in their own minds.
White people tend to be unaware of the nature of colorism because of the popularity of tanning. Within mainstream white American culture, tanning has become a trend, leading many white people to be ignorant of how prized fair skin is. A preference for tanned (white) skin among white people does not negate colorism. Tanned skin is a trend and is also tied to class and status (time for leisure) while in the past, tanned skin was linked to working outdoors. When white people are aware of colorism, they often try to portray it as a tragic phenomenon among people of color and not one that is the result of whiteness, racism, and colonialism.
Many people of color are also unaware of the true nature of colorism, as well; some believe it to simply be a harmless “feud” between lighter and darker skinned people of color. This is not the case. While many light-skinned and white passing people of color may feel a disconnect from their racial identity due to their skin color, this does not negate the privilege they have. Colorism is directly related to colonialism, showing tangible effects on people of color. Communities of color are divided by skin color and given privilege based on their proximity to whiteness.
Racist colonial logic emerging from slavery associated Blackness with savagery and ugliness, as opposed to whiteness which was associated with civilization and beauty. From this logic emerged features associated with whiteness – light eyes, straight/long hair, narrow nose, and thin lips – being considered good, while features associated with Blackness – dark eyes, kinky/short hair, wider nose, and full lips – being considered bad.
Historically, during slavery, light-skinned Black people were treated less violently by overseers, were more likely to be given household duties instead of more difficult work, had better living conditions, and had more possibilities for education and eventual manumission (Rockquemore and Brunsma). After slavery, lighter-skinned Black people had more opportunities for prestige and success.
Hypodescent - the “one-drop” rule - meant that anyone with Black ancestry would be considered Black, no matter what their appearance was. Light-skinned Black people were encouraged to think highly of themselves and were literally “valued” at higher prices during slavery. Those classified as “Mulatto” were more likely to be freed; mixed Black people (classified using the antiquated term “mulatto”) made up 10-15% of the total Black population, but 37% of all free Black people.
Freed Black people during slavery and those were well established after slavery tended to be light-skinned. Paper bag tests were used in Black communities to establish admission to social events, fraternities/sororities, and more, shutting out darker-skinned Black Americans from networking opportunities. Noting that lighter skinned Black people were more likely to successful, sociologist E.B. Reuter (1918) noted that even some “white blood” would “improve” Black people (rather than the obvious fact that lighter skinned Black people were treated better).
White colonizers created caste systems and categorizations deriving from this racist logic, and from it emerged the categories of quadroons, Mestizos, and Mullatoes. In the Southwest United States, Mexicans were more likely to receive United States citizenship if they had lighter skin or passed for white. Colonizers in Africa, the Americas, and Asia treated lighter skinned people with more “European” features better than those with medium or dark skin and indigenous features.
People often try to absolve white people of responsibility for colorism that existed in Asian societies before European colonial contact, but it was not racially-based. The concept of race itself is a European and Western construction. Lighter skin was a class marker just as in European societies - darker skin was linked to laboring in the sun rather than proximity to whiteness. Even when lighter skin color was preferred, indigenous hair and eye color and facial features were previously the standard of beauty.
Effects Today (behind the cut)
One of the greatest transformations I see in the Bible is seen in Acts 20:26 when Paul says “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men”.
Hold on, isn’t this the same man that murdered men and women of the Christian faith a couple of years ago?
The audacity to say that he is ‘innocent of the blood of ALL men’ can be seen as arrogant and insulting but looking deeper it shows how thoroughly he understood grace.
On that road to Damascus when he was changed, from Saul to Paul, that was it. All his sins, no matter how grievous they were, were abandoned, he became Brand New. Like creating a new username after deleting your Internet history.
Now if Paul can forgive himself in such a way, why can’t we?
I came under a deep conviction today as I stepped into Church.
As we step into church, the moment we cross the door is when we abandon ourselves, drop our guilt, shame and sin. Stepping into church is like diplomatic immunity. We come to worship and that is so profound. Despite those things we drop at the door, we are allowed to worship. And we should do so wholeheartedly no matter what happened Monday to Saturday. We come to magnify God and that should make us smile. It makes me smile. Thank You Lord for your Grace.
UK Office or USA Office? //not that I’ve ever watched either.
The US! You have to watch it. OH MY DAYS. There hasn’t been a funnier show since Friends.
If there’s one thing that most fans of Star Trek will agree on, it’s the fact that Gene Roddenberry’s vision for the show — and, more optimistically, for human society — was predicated on the idea that all life is valuable, and that the worth of a person should not be judged by their appearance. Much of this was done through the old sci-fi trope of using aliens to stand in for oppressed groups, but Star Trek didn’t rely on the metaphor; it had characters who were part of the ensemble, important and beloved members of the Enterprise crew, who were people of colour. It had background characters who were people of colour. And, here and there, it had anti-heroes and villains who were people of colour … one of whom, Khan Noonian Singh, became well-nigh iconic.
Image 1: “Who is your favorite villain?” ; Actor John Cho (Lt Sulu) answers.
Image 2: TOS Khan looking at a watercolor of himself. Yes, he’s wearing a dastar (Sikh turban)
Image 3: Cumberbatch and Montalbán (as Khan)
And who is now being played by white actor Benedict Cumberbatch in the new JJ Abrams reboot movie, Star Trek: Into Darkness.
We’re all cynical and jaded enough to know the standard dismissal when it comes to matters of media representation: Paramount Pictures and most film studios are not interested in diversity or visibility, they only care about the bottom dollar. Star Trek as a franchise is too much of a juggernaut to affect with boycotts. There are too many people who love it, who love those characters and that world, and will go to see the movie. And for some of these people, this devotion to the idea of a future where even South and East Asian men get to pilot a starship and love swashbuckling, where Black women make Lieutenant on the Enterprise and actually get the boy, will be trivialized and eroded and whitewashed when the most formidable and complex Star Trek baddie becomes a white man named Khan.
It wasn’t perfect in the 60s when Ricardo Montalbán was cast to play Khan (a character explicitly described in the episode script of Space Seed as being Sikh, from the Northern regions of India). But considering all of the barriers to representation that Roddenberry faced from the television networks, having a brown-skinned man play a brown character was a hard-won victory. It’s disappointing and demoralizing that with the commercial power of Star Trek in his hands, JJ Abrams chose not to honour the original spirit of the show, or the symbolic heft of the Khan character, but to wield the whitewash brush for … what? The hopes that casting Benedict Cumberbatch would draw in a few more box office returns? It’s doubly disappointing when you consider that Abrams was a creator of the television show Lost, which had so many well-rounded and beloved characters of colour in it.
Add to this the secrecy prior to release around Cumberbatch’s role in the film, and what seems like a casting move that would typically be defended by cries of “best actor for the job, not racism” becomes something more cunning, more malicious. Yes, the obfuscation creates intrigue around and interest in the role, but it also prevents advocacy groups like Racebending.com from building campaigns to protest the whitewashing. This happened with the character of the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, as well as ‘Miranda Tate’ in The Dark Knight Rises, who ended up being Talia al Ghul but played by French actress Marion Cotillard. This practice is well in effect in Hollywood; and after the negative press that was generated by angry anti-oppression activists and fans when Paramount had The Last Airbender in the works, studios are wising up. They don’t want their racist practices to be called out, pointed at, and exposed before their movies are released — Airbender proved that these protests create enough bad feeling to affect their bottom line.
So the studio has now found a way to keep it secret and underhanded. Racebending.com was there for most of the production of The Last Airbender, and were even able to correspond with Paramount Pictures about it. This time, for Star Trek: Into Darkness, their hiding and opaque practices has managed to silence media watchdogs until the movie’s premiere.
As I said, this racist whitewashing of the character of Khan won’t affect how much money this Trek movie makes. And I’m happy that the franchise is popular, still popular enough to warrant not only a big-budget reboot with fantastic actors but also a sequel with that cast. I’m happy that actors I enjoy like Zoë Saldaña and John Cho are playing characters who mean so much to me, and that they, in respect for the groundbreaking contributions by Nichelle Nichols and George Takei in these roles, have paid homage to that past.
But all of that will be marred by having my own skin edited out, rendered worthless and silent and invisible when a South Asian man is portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch up on that screen. In the original Trek, Khan, with his brown skin, was an Übermensch, intellectually and physically perfect, possessed of such charisma and drive that despite his efforts to gain control of the Enterprise, Captain Kirk (and many of the other officers) felt admiration for him.
And that’s why the role has been taken away from actors of colour and given to a white man. Racebending.com has always pointed out that villains are generally played by people with darker skin, and that’s true … unless the villain is one with intelligence, depth, complexity. One who garners sympathy from the audience, or if not sympathy, then — as from Kirk — grudging admiration. What this new Trek movie tells us, what JJ Abrams is telling us, is that no brown-skinned man can accomplish all that. That only by having Khan played by a white actor can the audience engage with and feel for him, believe that he’s smart and capable and a match for our Enterprise crew.
What an enormous and horribly ironic step backwards. For Star Trek, for media representation, and for the vision of a future where we have transcended systemic, racist erasure.
THIS IS PISSING ME OFF