CRAZY RICH ASIANS Movie Proves Colorism Casting Is Not For Black Women Only

HEADLINE

‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Actor Henry Golding Addresses His Own ‘Whiteness’ in Casting Decision

     from  NEXTSHARK.COM

Being partially Malaysian and partially White, Golding has received criticism over the role which some argued should have gone to a fully Asian actor... 

According to Golding, he is not angered by the criticisms, saying that he agrees that discussions on whitewashing should continue “because it kind of just shows the studios that we’re watching; we’re very aware of how we want our films to tell authentic stories now.”

Read More:  

https://nextshark.com/crazy-rich-asians-whitewashing-henry-golding/?fb_comment_id=1749642825153108_1789926874458036&comment_id=1789926874458036#f1200e87ab108f8 

I'm glad the movie, Crazy Rich Asians is out. I'm glad an movie led by Asians is making big money. But I'm sad the casting was done in this way, that they couldn't find a non-biracial looking Asian man to play the lead role.

But I'm also glad black women aren't the only ones who that Hollywood does not allow to come through unless they look white enough.

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of light skinned black women talking about how black they are whenever the subject of light privilege in Hollywood comes up -- as if any body ACTUALLY cares about their racial identity. That's a personal problem. You either know and believe you are black (or know that you are Asian) or YOU DON'T --no matter what your biological mixture is.

I don't know about Asian people, but most black people are "mixed" or "bi-racial" or "tri-racial" because most of us have white, rapist slave masters in our heirs SOMEwhere. Bi-racial black folks, as the RECENTLY "mixed,"  may have a higher number of white ancestors due that one white parent.

It seems to me bi-racial black people are mostly fighting a culture battle --because most of them don't look any different than my light-skinned cousins (who have two medium-to-light-skinned black parents, if they're not a genetic throw back of some kind.)

But by discussing RACIAL IDENTITY instead of white Hollywood (and too often Black Male Hollywood) is ALWAYS choosing the whitest looking, most bi-racial looking women of color they can find to star in movies, many of these bi-racial actresses (and now actors) are showing us that they aren't on anybody's side but their own. Zendaya, for example, is one of the very few bi-racial and/or very pale black women who come clean about their light-privilege in Hollywood.

AT LEAST this dude, Golding, has had the decency to say the discussion is important, that it shows White Hollywood that we're watching them. It may be lip service on his part, but it was decent lip service.
BLaCKCHiCKRoCKeD.BLoGSPoT.CoM

IS MEGHAN MARKLE ANYTHING TO WRITE BLACK HOME ABOUT?

Meghan Markle, an actress on the television show SUITS, got engaged to Prince Harry of England this week. There's been a lot of discussion of whether or not Black Americans have anything to celebrate. 

The black discussions being had about Markle seem remarkably like the discussions had about Tiger Woods at the beginning of his career. 

It went like this:

• He's a golf success story
• Blacks don't have a superstar golfer
• We want him
• Therefore, he's black

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. 

Tiger Woods was crystal clear when he spoke to Oprah on national television and said it makes him uncomfortable when people call him "African American" 

And he did not mean he preferred "Black American," "Black" or...or...or... He was saying he prefers -- in so many words-- to be identified with the group called "mixed race" or "bi-racial."    

And it was not surprising when he found ways to say he is racially "colorblind" which made him a hero to white folks everywhere...who were still on the "I don't see race" crap as a way of declaring racism would just go away if you just stop talking about it.  

Yet, it was downright predictable that he'd marry a blond white woman (despite his being able to see skin color) 

I would have laughed my butt clean off when Tiger was caught cheating on his white wife with nearly two dozen cheesy-looking white women -- while being unable to see color-- but I was pretty sure every-white-body who loved him said to themselves, "Damn, I guess he's black after all."

 Woods' calling himself cablinasian was a joke. But the message connected to the joke was: I am mixed race.

And I was fine with that --eventually. (I'd already been cheering for him as  black golfer when I found out he wasn't black) 

So here we are again. 

• Markle is a successful actress 
• She's marrying a prince
• We want her
• Therefore she's black

Markle has very clearly identified herself as "mixed race" and her mother as different/"black" when giving interviews. 

Furthermore those who are confused because they either believe in the one-drop rule or think it's possible to NOT respect somebody else's choices in the name of defending their blackness should read what Barack Obama and Halle Berry have said about being black and their decision to "identify" as "black" because this ain't that.

My teacher told me to check the box for Caucasian. 'Because that's how you look, Meghan,' she said. I put down my pen. Not as an act of defiance, but rather a symptom of my confusion. I couldn't bring myself to do that, to picture the pit-in-her-belly sadness my mother would feel if she were to find out. So, I didn't tick a box. I left my identity blank – a question mark, an absolute incomplete – much like how I felt.

When I went home that night, I told my dad what had happened. He said the words that have always stayed with me: 'If that happens again, you draw your own box.' 

This ain't that.

LET US REVIEW

• President Obama is black because he said he is 
• Halle is black because she said she is.
• Meghan Markle and Tiger Woods are not black because they said they aren't OR they said they are all things mixed together -- as in "I am mixed-race"
• I got 20 mulattos in my family tree and I AM BLACK

Markle is a mixed raced or bi-racial woman. That's fine. 

She's not black. That's fine.  

Race is a social construct and Markle knows how she has been socially constructed. And she has not been socially constructed as "black" but "mixed race." That's fine.  

I don't question any of her choices.

And after reading the article below, I once again feel truly sorry for light-skinned little girls who have had to try so hard to figure out where they fit in.

But making an end around to deny her light privilege is NOT fine.

"This is precisely why Suits stole my heart. It's the Goldilocks of my acting career – where finally I was just right. The series was initially conceived as a dramedy about a NY law firm flanked by two partners, one of whom navigates this glitzy world with his fraudulent degree.  

Enter Rachel Zane, one of the female leads and the dream girl – beautiful and confident with an encyclopedic knowledge of the law. 'Dream girl' in Hollywood terms had always been that quintessential blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty – that was the face that launched a thousand ships, not the mixed one. But the show's producers weren't looking for someone mixed, nor someone white or black for that matter. They were simply looking for Rachel. In making a choice like that, the Suits producers helped shift the way pop culture defines beauty.

http://www.elleuk.com/life-and-culture/news/a26855/more-than-an-other/ 

The shift she's talking about did not take place when she was hired on SUITS or a few years before SUITS. The shift she's talking about where Hollywood hires almost-white looking actresses instead of the usual blond, blue-eyed white girl took place decades ago. 

She's pretending her getting that role was more than just her personal gain, that her getting that role on SUITS broke a glass ceiling for women of color when...

Halle Berry, 
Vanessa Williams 
Rosario Dawson 
Thandie Newton
Gina Torres 
Zoe Saldana 
Gugu Mbatha Raw
Paula Patton 

....and dozens of other light-skinned actress have ALL already been there and done that. 
Literally dozens of light-skinned and/or mixed race actresses --some of whom DO identify as "black" -- have gotten roles that didn't necessarily specifically call for woman of color.

Her ignoring of all the light skinned women that came before her winds up being a  method of firmly denying her light privilege.

This pretense that other light-skinned, mixed race actresses weren't cast in exactly the same way she was cast in SUITS allows her to deny that she is number 30 or 40, at the end of a list of light-skinned, mixed-looking female actress that got roles because they were pale.

That is, she may have had a hard time getting roles compared to Becky, exactly as she's stated. But her paleness made her 1000 times more likely to get the role of RACHAL ZANE in SUITS over darker-skinned women. 

I'm not going to celebrate anyone who refuses to discuss -- at length-- their light privilege.

And when I say "at length" I mean there needs to be the same number of paragraphs per article to discuss her privilege as there were to discuss the pain of not fitting in.

Furthermore, there needs to be follow up that discusses how a light-skinned person is going to use her light privilege to benefit those who are darker, those who's social construct is "Black" or "Black American" or darker mixed-race people.

But I don't see that happening. I've read one statement attributed to her that seems to be a Tiger-Woodsy "I'm colorblind" statement, which most sociologists have identified as a form of [white] racism.

Besides, the pain of not fitting in should NOT be on the forefront of a grown ass woman's mind, not even as a mixed-race, half-black woman in a white supremacy rife world. 

I hope I'm wrong about what I see so far. But I don't think I am. 

Public persons who identify as black or mixed race who want to make sure other people of color feel represented have a way of communicating that. President Obama has done it. Halle Berry has done it. A number of mixed race actresses have done it.  Not only has Markle failed to communicate anything of the sort, she is marrying somebody who had to be told his wearing a Hitler costume for Halloween is an ethnoracist maneuver. 

I'd like to hope anybody could learn and become better over 12 years (when that Nazi costume incident took place) But his ability to do this at all after the age of 5 speaks to how he was or wasn't raised. I see this Nazi costume as socially constructed white supremacy at it's whitest. 

...which can't be a surprise to anyone. Britain has made a career of trampling anybody not-white for centuries.

Apology or no apology for the Nazi costume, no matter how long ago this happened, this makes him a frightening prospect as a husband for a "woke" woman of color, which she probably isn't.

In fact, I'm just hoping she's not a white supremacy enabler at this point.

I hope the both of them turn out to be more racially conscious than they appear so far because the content of the tweet actually worries me.

I actually worry about light privileged joining the white privileged to become a new oppressor group. The level of denial is the same. And white racists are going to give  up trying to go it alone eventually as they become outnumbered.

Large numbers of light-privilege deny-ers will be seen as natural allies to white supremacists...eventually. (It's already begun).  

BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM

ON WHO IS AND WHO IS NOT ALLOWED TO CLAIM BLACKNESS

The other thing that's "not okay" in 2016 are the black people who are getting more and more vocal about declaring mixed-race people as "not black."

I'm not saying I believe in supporting the one-drop rule, but it ought to be obvious by now that race is not biology but a choice of identity.  One person doesn't get to tell another person what their racial identity is. Most black people are mixed race because most of us have white rapists in our families due to slavery but being black is not about having one drop of black blood.  Being black is about a culture, a shared history, shared experiences, a variety of styles, etc.

Art by Minjae Lee
http://www.grenomj.com/

Recently mixed people (one white parent and one black/POC parent for example) may not have similar oral histories in their homes. They may not be experiencing the wide ranging possibilities that is black culture in their homes. And since recently mixed people are the only ones that know what's going on inside their house, inside their hearts, and inside their heads, they get to choose their own racial identity and tell the rest of the world what that is-- just like everybody else.

Sometimes the recently mixed choose the identity of "Biracial" And that's okay. But this means that there might be one or two places where  the "Mixed Raced People Are Not Black" chanters may have a point.

Being biracial is a fact of your birth and not necessarily the same as your racial identity, unless you choose to call yourself "Bi-racial." Again, racial identity is always a choice.

However, if a biracial person chooses to identify as "biracial," because that is in line with their apparent biology of their parents, that's fine. But when the call goes out for "Black Americans" to come hither, don't answer.

Halle Berry can come when the call goes out of black actresses because she's taken her stand as a Black American. President Obama can come too when the call goes out for black people to be on an Ebony Cover, because he's taken his stand too.  But Tiger Woods cannot. Mariah Carey, who did her level best to be non-committal about her racial identity for decades, can't either in my opinion.

I don't care how dark or light you are. I don't care what race each of your parents is. It's not your biology that concerns me. Biology of race is a weak concept at best, if it exists at all. It's your choice of racial identity that concerns me.

And your choice concerns me because that's connected to your attitude and understanding of what it is to be black like me, like us.  We are not monolithic be we are connected. We get to say who that those who do not identify as "us" don't get to be treated 100% like "us."

If you don't understand what it is to be black, if you choose not to become part of  "us" or "we" because you've chosen to be bi-racial, then be in the group called "bi-racial."

There are plenty of mostly black movies and people of color movies where bi-racial people can be and should be welcomed---as "biracial." But things like that Ebony Cover? That's for black people that identify as black.

Harry Belafonte, Jesse Williams, and even Janey-Come-Lately, Ever-Lip-Curling Zendaya deserves to be on the cover of a historically black magazine cover --- just not all at once AS IF they are representative of all black people.

But somebody like Zoe Saldana does not deserve a place on our historically black magazine covers.

My opinion is not set in stone, but I strongly feel that Zoe Saldana's choice to identify as bi-racial or something other than Black, Black American, or African American is Zoe telling us a truth about herself. I'm thinking this whole Nina Simone movie scandal is Saldana communicating to us that

1) She has not experienced much black culture in her home.

2) She has not had black oral history passed down to her in her home.  

3) She has not had the news, movies, and television interpreted for her through the lens of black culture, black history, and black experience by a black adult

This almost has to be why Saldana thinks it's okay for a white actor to play a Native American, a white women to play Cleopatra, and a Laurence Olivier to play Othello in black face -- unlike 99.5% of the black people I've ever met. 

Zoe Saldana has been, in essence, telling us that she is not black AND that the the sociologists are correct, that race is a social construct, and that she is not constructed in such a way that she should play Nina Simone EVEN IF she had come out of the uterine oven darker with West African facial features.   

Black people should be upset if somebody who does not identify as black shows up on the cover of Ebony, Essence, Jet etc unless the main story being done involves all people of color or the main story is about another ethnic group with issues parallel to our own, one of those other ethnic(?) groups being the "bi-racial" ethnic group. 

DENIAL OF PRIVILEGE, IT ISN'T JUST FOR WHITE FOLK ANYMORE

AND IT NEVER WAS

Continued From Part 1

Racism Is Not Illogical Neither is Colorism

http://blackchickrocked.blogspot.com/2016/04/racism-is-not-illogical-neither-is.html

Did you know that if you ask men if women are discriminated against, and are victims of oppression that a lot of men, not all, will acknowledge things like women getting paid less and say "Yes, women are oppressed"

But if you ask the same men if men are privileged because men are oppressors of women, have more opportunities at leadership, and get paid more than women, the same men will disagree. They will say, "Men are not privileged."

These two same statements, stated different ways, are the same. Men will acknowledge that things are vaguely unfair for women. But they will not acknowledge that they have more than their fair share and they are sharing in the benefits of men, as a group, taking more than their fair share of power, money, etc.

I thought that was really interesting when I heard it. It's one of those things you don't know you already know until somebody puts it in sentences and paragraphs and presents it to you, ya know?

And then I realized, long before I read Patricia Hills Collins, that we all do this. We all grab hold of our sites of oppression and use them to deny that our sites of privilege exist.

When you add race and colorism into that mix, things get real ugly, really quick.

White women are oppressed by white men but can't see their privilege over black people and also cannot see that their refusal to see their privilege is part of their being oppressive.

Black men are oppressed by white people (men and women) but can't see their privilege over women, especially over black women, and also cannot see that their refusal to see their privilege is part of their being oppressive. 

Light women are oppressed by white people (men and women) but can't see their privilege over darker-skinned women and also cannot see that their refusal to see their privilege is part of their being oppressive.

Dark-skinned Christian women are oppressed by White Christian women but can't see their privilege over atheist people and also cannot see that their refusal to see their privilege is part of their being oppressive.

White atheists are oppressed by Christians (black, white, latinx, asians, and others) but cannot see that their white privilege trumps damn near everything in this country and that most of their resentment probably stems from the perceived loss of absolute white power and privilege. 

I keep hearing that light men are aware of and speak of their privilege easily. And that may be so --as far as talking goes. But the movie captioned below is the second time I've seen Jesse Williams show up in a questionable setting.



I don't think it was magic that Uncle Lee Daniels picked Jesse Williams, Lenny Kravitz, and Cuba Gooding Junior to be supporting actors in "The Butler." That's too many mixed race people in one spot for it to have been happenstance -- especially after seeing Daniel's color stuck casting of Precious (and probably "Empire" too)
But here we are again with this Ebony Magazine Cover. Two mixed race black men and one mixed race black woman being put forth as representative-- and Jesse Williams is right there again.

Jesse Williams may admit his privilege readily. I don't read everything he writes. But it seems to be within his character to admit light-privilege readily. But he's not stepping back from that privilege when he can profit from it so far.

Still, I can't put Jesse down too much.  Know why?




Because as hard as I am trying to pay attention to colorism in the black community, I did not notice that these people on the Ebony Cover were all mixed race. My learning to ignore color is bone deep. And one decision or repeated decisions to pay attention isn't going to cure it for me

The thing that disturbed me even more
than my  own failure to notice
that there were three mixed race people
put forth as entirely representative on a FUBU magazine,
--but a white run magazine,
run by white people who often cannot see black beauty
unless it is watered down by whiteness --
was that some of the black people who saw this magazine cover
were actually proud of themselves for not noticing.

This black tendency to be proud to not notice skin differences (which is the same as not noticing colorism effects on darker brothers and sisters) isn't any different from white colorblind ideology. 

Black people who pride themselves on not seeing color are nearly exactly the same as white people who don't see color. In fact, they're worse. How can some of us reproduce something so very much like the colorblind version of white supremacy and not notice it?

When I was a kid, I lived in an environment with a lot of different races then went to school in predominantly white environment with those same children. I figure that's why I missed team light-skinned against team dark-skinned battles altogether while in school.  There were too few of us, as people of color, to really separate into different color camps. The white people were hostile and violent with us encroaching on what they felt was their territory during the latter half of the 20th century.  (Nowadays? Schools are pretty close to being as segregated as we were in 1969)

The boys preference for light-skinned, longer haired girls did come up somewhat routinely once we hit puberty. Most of us were trained to not notice it for as long as possible, though. When some dark-skinned girl eventually accused a light-skinned girl of "you think you're better than us!" the light girl denied it. And her friends of various shades defended her because it was true, she did not think she was better than us....when we were young.

By the time I hit college, however, there was an entire sorority of light-skinned girls who thought they knew that they were better than everyone else--- exactly like the movie "School Daze" by Spike Lee.

Dark-skinned jealousy is real because there are real things to be hurt and jealous about.

And light-skinned superiority becomes as real as white superiority when light-skinned people claim they do not see light-skinned preference....then have the audacity to brag about not noticing (along side some dark-skinned people who hate talking color as much as white people hate talking race)

No, I did not grow up with team-darkskinned and team-lightskinned but I am catching up on the resentments fast.

Some light-skinned, especially mixed race women, spend their large chunks of their lives trying to prove that they are black too and are so focused on this that they can't see anybody else's pain but their own. I understand that because there's usually a very real somebody somewhere telling them their black experiences are not legitimately black

So I kinda get that but it's still not okay to deny your privilege exists--- no more than it is for white people.

TOMORROW
"On Who Is And Is Not Allowed To Claim Blackness" 

RACISM IS NOT ILLOGICAL, NEITHER IS COLORISM

AND THEY NEVER WERE


We weren't allowed to talk about light-skinned and dark-skinned in my family for the most part. Actually, the message I really got was that I wasn't even supposed to see it much less acknowledge it.

That has to sound awfully familiar to a lot of black people if they're paying attention to the subtle workings of their own mind. I hear black people make noise about "We're all black" nearly every single time the subject of light-skinned and dark-skinned comes up.

Just stop talking about it and it'll go away. We'll be united if we pretend

1) Light-skinned people and dark skinned people are having the very same experience AND

2) Black women and black men are having the very same racial experience, AND

3) Black people of different classes are all having a homogenous experience of race in this country,

OR IF ALL ELSE FAILS

4) Each experience of being black is completely individualistic, so there's no point in trying to figure out patterns and different pains and triumphs that various groupings of black people might be experiencing. 

These deny-ers, the black people who want to scream "We're All Black. We're All THE SAME!" sound just like white people who claim "There's one race, the human race! If you stop talking about race, it'll go away!"

Well, all of the above is a lie. White people who hate talking about race and the black people who hate talking about color are so very, very alike but hate another

Bele and Lokai, guest characters in the Original Star Trek
"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"

The image above is from an episode of the original "Star Trek" The two characters hate each other because they are different in appearance. When the stars of the show, the"good" characters,  can't see how they are different. Each of the black and white men essentially point out that they are black and white on different sides. The left side blacks have been at war with the right side blacks forever.

Like most metaphors about race endorsed by white people, this Star Trek episode simplistically dismissed the logic and advantage of racism. A lot of people want to think that racism (and colorism) is a silly disagreement about skin color. But it's not.

Racism is about
- a group of people looking around and seeing there are limited resources or limited sources of power then...

- deciding that "I can have a larger share of the resources/power if  I don't have to split the resources/power as many ways, then....

- looking around then saying my group (a grouping based on some observable difference) is better and deserves a larger share. This enables one to say,  'It's fair that members of the other group get less or nothing' without feeling ashamed, feeling greedy, or feeling that principles have been compromised.

That is, racism precedes race.

Identifying the members of the other group as significantly different than you, finding an observable characteristic, then calling one group "the white race" and that group "the black race" or "the red race" then saying "those people" deserve less is a way of grabbing more without guilt. When you follow up by creating fake science to say that there's more to the observable difference, that those people of a different skin color really are bigger brained but dumber or smaller brained and dumber, have less hormonal control, etc. Once your fake science is in place, you can tell yourself you have been bestowed with "more" because it's "natural" and "fair"

This is how racism (a form of greed for resources, money, or power) creates race. 

In this original Star Trek episode the point is made that the guy on the left represents a group that got to the resources, power, and authority first (representing white people) and that the guy on the right was in the group being stomped on (representing black and brown people). But the overall message of the episode was still crammed, by the end of the episode, into that white cookie-cutter mold that shapes racism as just a minor physical difference that stupid people battle over when racism is as logical as it gets.  

Prior to The Civil War, during what I call "Slavery Part 1" the one-percenters were, in actuality, the white 5 to 10 percenters. I've read various articles that say 5 to 10 percent of white people ever  owned slaves. What most of those books don't say is that the white  5 to 10 percent couldn't control slaves on their own so they convinced most of  the rest of white people that they were better human beings just because they were white.  They convinced the non-slave owning white people that they would get a larger share of everything because they deserved it --even when they were probably eating more poorly than the black slaves the white massa was trying to keep picking his crops. 

White status claims, with promises of getting-more-than-those-n-words, is why most poor white people --some of them so poor that they were eating grass off the front lawn for breakfast, lunch, and dinner-- would report catching a glimpse of a runaway slave even when there was no financial reward for having captured him or her.

The poor white person's elevated status above non-white people was all the payment he or she needed.

During "Slavery Part 2," a slavery created by the black codes and Jim Crow, the poor and middle class white people took over the lead in policing, fencing in, and abusing of black people.

Slave masters of old, who owned black people were afraid of losing their investment if they were but so harsh with a slave. They were trying to keep black slaves intimidated but alive, healthy, and working in most areas. And during Slavery Part 2, the white 1-to-10-percenter was forced to turn to things like sharecropping and made black people debt-slaves.

And it was the poor and emerging middle class white that put black people in prison for loitering for the fun and status off it. Then the same rich white 5 to 10 percent was able commandeer prisoners during crop picking season  --another way the white rich commanded practically free labor with the help of the white poor.

When the white poor wasn't helping the white rich stay rich, they were looking to get a feeling back-- and they were more dangerous to black and brown people than the rich white people ever were. The white poor and white emerging middle class wanted their higher status back once official slavery was done. And creating the KKK, the black codes, and Jim Crow laws did just that.

 Racism is as logical as it gets. It always has been. And there are tons of white people trying to re-write history in such a way that whiteness, all whiteness, is not privileged. There are tons of white people who say, "My family was poor and didn't own slaves" in order to deny white privilege.

You tell these white deny-ers of privilege for me that, unless their parents worked along the Underground Railroad, their ancestors were slavery enablers that were twice as vicious and deadly as the richer slave masters and sharecropping plantation owners through the 1960s. 

So the central problem of this old Star Trek episode, which is very symbolic of white racial attitudes to this day, is that it attempts to make equal

those with the habit of sneering superiority,  domination, and destruction of lives

AND 

those with the habit of resenting those with powerful one that has a boot over your neck 24/7.


Making both parties, the oppressed and the oppressor, equally responsible and equally damaged in a racism, sexism, homophobia battle is why so many individual people cannot see the areas where they live comfortably as an oppressor among other oppressors.

Again, the oppression is made invisible to the oppressor doing the oppressing so they can feel good about themselves as they acquire more than their fair share of money, resources, power, recognition, etc.

When the oppressor makes his or her own membership 
in an oppressive group 
invisible to themselves, 
they can tell themselves, 
"I worked for every single thing I have. Nobody gave me a thing."

I wish I could say that it is only white people that have this habit of denying privilege and their sites of oppression. But that's not true. All of us do it. White people, especially white males, are just the ones doing it most effectively as far as taking more than their fair share.   


To be continued in

"DENIAL OF PRIVILEGE, IT'S NOT JUST FOR WHITE PEOPLE ANYMORE"

http://blackchickrocked.blogspot.com/2016/04/denial-of-privilege-it-isnt-just-for.html

MAYBE MOST OF US CONSPIRE TO PROTECT LIGHT- SUPREMACY?

I'm only 1/3 of the way through reading "A Taste Of Power," a book about Elaine Brown, one leader of the Black Panthers. 

Prior to reading the book, I'd have thought it doesn't matter whether a dark-skinned or a light skinned actress played her in a movie adaption of the book --just like it didn't matter with Mandela, Martin,  Malcom, Marva Collins, or Tina Turner.*

At first I couldn't figure out why the book so much time on her childhood. But within the 1/3 that I've read, Elaine talks about how poverty, class, and color, how being light-skinned affected her choices, her mindset, and her opportunities as a child, a teen, a 20 year old.

If someone eventually makes a movie about her life and includes her formative years, then the actress would need to be light-skinned. If somehow Elaine Brown's story was told by a white person or that always white-sought colorism-blind black person, where there wasn't any reference to her formative years -- much like Malcom X's story was told, then the actress could be light-skinned or dark-skinned because her skin color would have been erased from the story.

But Nina's story doesn't contain such a choice. Elaine's, as told by Elaine, really doesn't either. But even a blind white person can see or hear that a lot of Nina's work was about her distance from whiteness. 

Nina's person, Nina's art, Nina's music, Nina's interviews were about being a dark-skinned black woman. That's why even white(?) hollywood understood that they would only be able to hire the same paler, white-featured "black" actress they always hire if the actress wore blackface and a prosthetic nose.

It can be seen as standard operating procedure for white Hollywood  to offer the role to Saldana. (And, I do pray this was a white idea, omg) But no self-respecting black woman should have taken the part under these conditions -- which brings me to my next point. 

What is even MORE inappropriate is that Saldana's mindset on race is as far from Simone's as Donald Trumps is from Ghandi's on any subject under the sun. Her willingness to put on blackface and the prosthetic nose show us this. Her comments on how it was okay for White people to play Cleopatra, an Apache, and Othello (while wearing black face) show us this. 

The thing that's become clear in many of the discussion I've read on Zoe as Nina is that LIGHT PRIVILEGE and LIGHT FRAGILITY are as real as White privilege and white fragility.

LIGHT-PRIVILEGE =
Saldana's inability to see
that she could only be approved to play Nina Simone
in white/light circles
BECAUSE she is light-skinned
(like 80% - 90% of all black actresses
since film was invented)
DESPITE Nina's story being
a dark-skinned black woman's story

This whole thing is so much like white racism
IT
IS
SCARY

But there's a huge, heart-breaking difference between white racism defeny-ers and black colorism deny-ers.  
White racism deny-ers don't get high levels of agreement from their targets, the non-white. But colorism deny-ers do.

That is, I'd guess that 50% or more of colorism targets, the dark-skinned, will agree with colorism deny-ers in saying that colorism isn't real, or it wouldn't be if we could just stop talking about it And most of the time those screaming "There's-no-difference!!!" in treatment between dark and light skinned blacks, over and over with their hands over their ears, claim they are doing so in the name of unity. 

This will continue to rip us apart from the inside for as long as we allow the  reverse colorism screamers to go unchallenged. The reverse colorism screamers (dark and light in skin tone) are every bit as ignorant and vocal as white reverse racism screamers. And we need to let them know it at every possible opportunity.

As Patricia Collins has pointed out, every human being has sites of oppression and also of being the oppressor. This leaves black women, of all shades, not wanting to acknowledge that they are unwitting oppressors based on class or religion even as they are oppressed by white people and men. Black men don't want to admit the oppress black women as males because they are, along with black women, oppressed by white people. And light-skinned women, mostly via their denial of obvious and decades long looking-closer-to-white privilege, oppress dark-skinned women despite being the targets of racism too.

Saying we are "all one race" doesn't erase racism when white people shout it from the roof tops. And saying "We are one black people" doesn't erase colorism, light privilege, or light entitlement either.

Our fear of a lack of unity cannot get in the way of the truth.


White people at work prefer light-skinned women. White run Hollywood prefers light-skinned women. Black men in the public view, in large numbers, prefer light-skinned women. Yet, it is not all upside for light women. The jealousy, based on reality of preferential treatment, has to be dealt with. The fawning of black men and white people due to their light skin can't feel any better than being a person that's loved for their money -- not for the woke.

In my mind, the only thing that going to get rid of light tears and light privilege is to provide  rejection to those that are giving them that privilege rather than oppressing darker skinned women via denial. 

2013 Black Actress
Ladder Of Net Worth SuccessMost Black Actresses Left and Center
with Cosby Actresses Right

For those light women that don't feel or see any privilege, keep in mind that most white people don't see theirs either. And I suspect that light women with strongly black features might not have much privilege at all.

However, most of the time none of us will see our own privilege unless we dig hard to root it out like the author of the article below. 

We have to do better.

We need more Nina-Simone-Minded Black women among us. We have to talk about colorism, light tears, and light privilege. Tip-toeing around it has gotten made some us nearly as moronic on colorism as 50% of the white population is on race. 
Zoe Saldana is what happens when a people is more focused on being embarrassed and humiliated that colorism exists in the black community than that people focused on talking about it, understanding it, and trying to be rid of it.

Zoe Saldana, not raised by black Americans in this country, should have been completely and totally alone in her defense of playing Nina Simone in blackface. But she wasn't.  So, I have to wonder if Nina-gate wouldn't have happened at all if so much of the black community wasn't so colorism illiterate because we're so colorism secretive due to being colorism ashamed. Maybe Saldana would have had a chance to learn more about colorism and how she has benefited from it just by hearing about it here and there as she went about her day to day life.

There have been studies that show that all children, even black children are biased toward whiteness. What many people don't know is that there have been studies that show that black and brown adults are too. As black and brown people move from childhood to adulthood, the black and brown teenager (for example) knows what he or she is supposed to say as far as being proud of being black or brown. But there are questions and ways of asking questions so that the subject cannot adjust his answer to fit the proud black/brown narrative he or she has been taught.  And when those subtle questions are asked, most black and brown adults are found to be biased toward whiteness.

That is a shameful thing for most black people to admit because most black people want to believe that they haven't taken anything inside them as a result of living with white racism every day. But that's likely a prideful lie to preserve sanity.

Colorism should be seen as a piece of anti-black racism that's gotten inside us as a result of living with white supremacy. Our fear of speaking about colorism can be seen as a defensive mechanism designed to keep each of us from getting too close to figuring out how much white racism has gotten inside us.

The refusal to speak on colorism probably walks hand-in-hand with the refusal to look inside ourselves. And the refusal to look inside means we don't root out. And what we don't root out, festers -- much like racism festers with it's white victims unaware.

We have to do better. * * * * *

Consider article below an example of us "doing better." 

“As one light-skinned black woman to another: We need to check our privilege.”

Feeling Rebloggy

Being light-skinned isn’t a problem and it is not something that we ever have to apologize for, just as white people don’t have to apologize for being born white.

I’ve never been looking for white people to apologize for being white. I’m looking for white people to dismantle the system of White Supremacy that builds them up on the backs of people of color. 

And dark-skinned black people aren’t looking for us to apologize for having light skin, they are looking for us to help dismantle the system that places us above darker-skinned black people in society.

The same system that holds us above and separate from our darker-skinned brothers and sisters is the same system that holds whiteness above and separate from us. And we are a part of this system the moment that we benefit from it. And we do benefit. As a light-skinned black woman, I’m viewed as more desirable, more intelligent, less threatening. I’m treated better by bosses, I have better odds in job interviews. People don’t cross the street when they encounter me on the sidewalk. Yes, there is a large price to pay for all of that—I am fetishized by many in the white community [and black community, both and then] ostracized by many in the black community—but when placed on a scale, I benefit...

Read More: Nina Simone, Zoe Saldana, and Light-Skinned Fragility
http://www.theestablishment.co/2016/03/03/nina-simone-zoe-saldana-and-light-skinned-fragility/

*- in years not long past white actresses were selected for white biopics because they looked like the person. But black actors and black actresses were picked for black biopics by age(?) and never looks as there were only a 3 or 4 black actors or black actresses WITH LEAD ROLE EXPERIENCE to pick from at any given moment.