African blacks are so racist...

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...against blackness.

No, seriously.

That is not that unusual.There was a show on PBS during Black history month that talked about this.A man said his mother encouraged him to marry a light skinned girl because they "needed to lighten this family up."Growing up in the South I have seen lighter skinned Black kids look down on the darker kids,sad but true.I won't go into the slang they used because it would most likely offend someone.

It's like this in every non-white community.

It's kind of screwed up, too. Personally, I'd rather have the ladies darker skinned. Is that racist?

Despite talk of a new racial rainbow in South Africa - or for that matter, America - the scars left by past white racism, where everyone who was not white was regarded as something less, still run deep.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Nah, I can verify and I hear it all the time. I was in an African film class back in college that covered a few requirement parameters, probably five out of 30 of us were white, and from being in a class with that mix we got to hear a lot of interesting things that we just wouldn't otherwise. One of the guys I used to talk to often was really scholastically sharp (most in that class were generally) and he mentioned having gone to Germany for a few semesters to find out that African blacks for the longest time wouldn't talk to him at all. Quite often African blacks have been known to use to term "Yankee -------" for what they presume to be American 'gangster' blacks, something of course for those who fought tooth and nail to get a European education and get out of Africa for it seems as backward as reprehensible.

I'm just waiting for the success of African blacks to be better known for being high-class brainiacs than American/UK/French gangstas pimpin' 4 4's, doves, and spinners. That would be an incredibly fortunate turn of events.

It was funny too, last night being at a NYE party and there was a Somalian couple there - both second generation, the guy was super cool and fashionable but also super sharp on computer programming, cars, and the like. His girlfriend was funny, had the whole California valley-girl act but I could tell beyond that she was pretty sharp as well.

In the US and especially being from a very liberal city, its just incredibly sad and unrefreshing to see the stereotypical 'act' everywhere. I'd love to see when you stop having an American 'black' culture almost telling American blacks how they're expected to act, its just plain wrong. I'd love to even see more Seattle-style girl punk bands inspired by some of Santigold's done, I'd even let a bunch of guys slide for playing emo - just do something surprising! It seems like that's been starting to happen for a while as well and yeah, cultural restriction by color (like whites can't rap, blacks can't sing country or rock) need to eviscerate not just for a small few - they just need to eviscerate period. From the music/social arenas all way back down to everything else as well.

There is a similar racism in India towards those who are darker skinned. As mentioned above maybe this goes back to attitudes that infiltrated into their society at the time of British rule?

It's a status issue. A dark skin is associated with poverty (working on the land, having no car). I've seen it also in Indonesiia, Malaysia and it's particularly strong in India.

Lighter skin has always been seen as attractive in women. Not so much in men. I don't see how that is racist, even if I don't know what the exact reason behind it is. Possibly because dark skin is associated with being a worker, but the reason the upper classes are lighter skinned might also be because they get all the attractive, lighter skinned women, which over time would lighten their members skin.

Then again, many white girls seem to think having darker skin is more attractive. It seems that the white people are racist against white people..?

While in Somalia, I met a very dark-skinned man who swore to Allah that he was an Arab, and not an African.

He looked quite a bit like Idi Amin...



General Idi Amin Dada, one of the most notorious dictators in
world history, led Uganda in a reign of terror from 1971 until he
was ousted in 1979. He spent the rest of his exile mostly in Saudi
Arabia and was buried there upon his death in 2003.

I've worked in nursing homes where most of the nurses and aides are African. Interestingly, Ethiopians are lighter skinned than the others and are often called, behind their backs, white Africans. In the Asian world this dichotomy also exists. Scads of money are spent on skin lighteners. The closer you look to Michael Jackson, the better. In Japan there's racism against the "tanners." Those are people from a region of Japan who were employed in the tanning trade. They made leather shoes, etc and their skin was slightly darker than other Japanese. Kurosawa referenced to it in his earlier films Yojimbo. Here in America black people straighten their hair and also use skin lighteners. Yes, a lot of black folks believe Halle Berry gets all the roles because of her complexion and features. I've never researched it, but I'm sure this light skin/dark skin business probably exists among Aborigines, Eskimos, Middle Easterners, Pacific Islanders, etc.