Colorism and then some

This has been a challenging and great time all at once. I'm really enjoying the ability to dig into research because I feel that it is giving me additional ideas for what I'm doing. Right now I'm reading a book called Cane River by Lalita Tademy, that is about "old Louisiana" and the relationship between the French whites(Creole), the gens de couleur libres( the free people of color), and blacks slaves there. Believe it or not but this book was on Oprah's Book Club list! I've been really enjoying it because it gives a very vivid account of the challenges of slave living. In fact this is probably the first book that I've read that details slave life. This is a sad thing I know but it's true. I think sometimes black people feel it's enough to feel the physical pains of slavery and the persecutions of being black every day. But nevertheless, I've been enjoying it because it helps to give more of a picture of how these hardships that you heard from your grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles played out in this story. What is interesting about Lalita Tademy is that this is actually the story of her family, and how they came to be what they are today. It's heartbreaking and interesting all at the same time, but I'm not quite finished!! I am probably like half done with it. There are many situations that occur in this story that relate heavily with my topic of colorism. Often there were some of her characters that exhibit the behavior, that I've always been told about in the black community. The uppity black folk. In my life people have attempted to put that label on me  for whatever reason. I don't understand. Anywho, the main characters are black house slaves who are privileged to live in less harsh conditions than the other field hands. I've been told this story many times growing up about the phenomenon of the "House slaves" and "Field slaves" and how this created division in the black community even then. Particularly, this story shows how some slaves tried to use certain advantages as power because of their closer connections with their masters, in some cases their lighter skin. One of the mulatto children in the story was even instructed to never be in the sun, because she was going to be the one who brought their family out into a better situation. They even told her and each other that she was "better than anyone else". This is quite alarming to me, because it was like all of the stereotypes of the light-skinned slave put into one.  But all the less, I'm enjoying the story. It's our history.

As far as my work, I am really enjoying all the exploring I've been doing. It's somewhat scary yet good at the same time. My mentor Ceci, has been really encouraging the investigating in my work as it's becoming more rich. Right now, I'm at a point of looking at how all of my mediums can work together. It will be interes

ting to see how

 that happens. These images are examples of me looking 

at arrangement and surfaces that can create meaning. In the top image I started to work with flesh tones and it's arrangement, playing with the idea of hierachies of skin tone( which is colorism). My investigation of d

ifferent arrangements were used to question the idea of hierachy in that sense. 

The second image is an arrangement of some of the images that I took from the piece that I brought to the last residency, and I arranged

 it with text that associates with the flesh tones. Oscar had pointed out a similar connection 

at the residency. I plan to do more studies like this with the other spectrums of the colorism system: yellow and red.

The third image is an experiment with painting on tracing paper. I started painting 

with flesh tone colors, and had the idea of arranging these papers in order from light to dark to illustrate the typical hierachies of skin tone. It is often thought that in terms of opportunities whether it be career, economical, or socially 

lighter skin is considered to come before others of darker skin tone, as was proved in Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone by Margaret Hunter. So this was an more abstract exploration of this idea. 

The fourth image was one that I've contemplated for quite a while, as I began to study the history of colorism. In that study I learned about the various ways that class and priviledge is determined or identified.  For example, here I'm investigating the creation priviledged groups such as the Blue Vein Society and procedures like the brown paper bag test. The three images look at the visibility and color of veins which have functioned to determine class in the history of black "high" society, as well as the brown paper bag. Using these two tools together in one composition, I attempted to question the empasis on judgement and comparision in our community. To me it's so crazy that things like the presence of visible blue veins and being lighter than a brown paper bag  were used to judge class, but it shows how desperate people have gotten. After much of my study, it seems that colori-

sm has more to do with the oppression from whites than anything else. The psychological damage of slavery and how it affected the way people of African decent began to think of themselves because of their physical and verbal abuse. Colorism during the time of slavery had more to do with survival in the African American community than anything else. It became evident to some that the more connected they were to the white culture the more free or powerful you could become. Meaning you were able to have more opportunities for freedom or to stay connected to your family, which were aspects of life that the typical slave did not have. In Cane River, the house slaves had a better opportunity to stay together because some of them spoke French like their masters because they grew up in the house. If they had mulatto children they were able to negotiate better living arrangements for their families, in addition to opportunities for education and a higher standard of living.

What this has done to the black community as a whole as produced much low self-esteem and bitterness because of the "advantages" of lighter skin. Now in this day in age there are many who compare themselves because of their skin. This brings us onto the last images here. 

I've used these to images in my colorism spread because I felt they were the best illustrations of the extreme ideas of this issue. The first image compares the same person in three different skin tones. Here I'm looking at how skin tones are compared, particularly in inner turmoil of one who struggles with the notion "if I was lighter" or "if I was darker." As silly as that sounds there are people who actually feel that way, and this shouldn't be taken lightly. When I was younger I used to think if I was a little darker my black friends wouldn't be so skeptical of me. I wouldn't have to deal with the "light-skin girl is a gold-digger" or "light-skin thinks their better" perception. I saw the way some of my friends who were around the same color interacted with each other. I've noticed that many of them have close relationships with them today. Disagreements between them didn't have the same outcome that my disagreements had. For me I had one strike and I was out. My judgement was much more harsh. My friends who are similar skin tone or lighter ,ironically, I still have associations with regardless of disagreements. This has been a interesting phenomenon to me. The exception of that for me have been friends of mine that I was able to reconcile through Christ, which means that through Christ each party found it within ourselves to forgive and move forward. Those friendships I'm thankful for.  It seems to me that in Christ, is where people are truly able to come to grips with these types of issues as it should be.