Skin Color Takes Over Social Class 

Like social media glorifying lighter skin as the better skin, your social class can also be determined by the color of your skin. As silly as it sounds I believe it's true and I'll explain why. 

From past to present, beauty has been one of the most important things to woman. If you're "beautiful" then you're on a more important status than those who are not. Our social class suggests that lighter skin is highly associated with beauty. As Margaret L. Hunter explains, "The relationship between skin color and beauty is very important for woman because beauty is a form of social capital."  In so many words, your skin color determines your acceptance into a social class. This idea that social class is categorized by skin color was established by the white supremacy around the time of slavery. Lighter African American skin means closer to white skin. White skin means the top of the social class. 

In the picture above you can see that the social class difference between African Americans and Caucasians. You can imagine how similar the social acceptance of lighter colored African American would have with Caucasians. 

In the picture you see that all of these woman are classified as African American. Be honest with yourself when I ask you which one do you think is more socially accepted? Which woman do you immediately notice? Which one do you think would have the lead role in a movie or video? Which of these woman would more than likely would be known to be "superior" to the other woman? 

Lighter toned woman are also put on a higher social scale by African American men. It's like showing favoritism. I'm not saying that it's wrong to have your skin color preference, but why do you have it? Is your preference because you what skin tone you see being glorified the most, or because you see beauty in ALL skin, but chose one. The ideal woman for men is a light toned woman with long straight hair opposed to a darker toned woman with kinky hair. That whole idea causes lighter woman to have higher self-esteem and darker woman to have lower. It also causes darker toned woman to be ashamed and embarrassed of what they were born with. Beauty should be defined by whats within. What's on the outside should only be a bonus regarding all skin tones. 

Tomorrow when you go out in public, take a look at the world in a different perspective based on skin color. Notice how attitudes and behaviors differentiate based on skin color. 

Sources: 

http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft6c6006s4;chunk.id=0;doc.view=print

 

http://www.mills.edu/academics/faculty/soc/mhunter/If%20You%20are%20Light%20You%20are%20Alright.pdf