"Hello, I'm a house negro... Would you like me to coon for you?"
I's yo' house nigga, fairer than all them field niggas in the hot sun...Thank you Massa, fo' yo kindness...
For the love of...
So the promoter of a party in Detroit decided that it was a "good idea" to peddle a set where light-skinned (or as some in Middle America say, light skinned-ed) women would gain admittance free of charge all night, while the more chocolate sistas get played like Cinderella at 12:01am: no love and a pumpkin.
In 2007?
This is some house nigger coonery for you...Please forgive my use of the "n" word but for real, the promoter is just that: an ignorant bastard. So, I guess I'm actually using the word in the correct sense.
I digress.
GET IT TOGETHER BLACK PEOPLE!!
To quote yon rocket scientist party promoter: "I thought it was a brilliant promotion at the time," said Ulysses Barnes, the intrepid colorist. "I didn't anticipate any type of feedback. It was just a party thing."
Didn't anticip....WHAT?
Yo, for real, I disown this guy, as a member of the race, because he brings down the collective IQ. Real talk, I bet any non-black person he consulted with would have likely said something like:
So really, what did Ulysses think was going to happen? That people -- especially the chocolate chicks (who love to party as much as the mocha complexioned ones) -- were going to say something like "yeah, I'm dark but I'm going to drop $20 to get in the door, while my lighter friend gets in free..."? Was he expecting folks to laud him as having the most original party theme of the year?
Oh well, I guess Barnes can get a gig at BET, whose sole purpose seems to be showing scantily-clad fair skinned sistas shakin' it fast. That's really his calling in life.
Please don't misunderstand me, God knows I dig a thick chocolate southern girl, but for real, doesn't black beauty encompass the gamut of skin tones and sizes?
We keep trying to make each other feel superior/inferior to another because of these purely cosmetic (and completely arbitrary) standards. We've been battling over skin color for a couple centuries or more, whether it be dark and lovely, versus the betta butta-pecans or jigga-boos against wanna-be's. Enough of these internecine battles over color.
Worryin' about that silly 'ish in the end, makes us all look like we're shuckin' and jivin' for Massa.
For the love of...
So the promoter of a party in Detroit decided that it was a "good idea" to peddle a set where light-skinned (or as some in Middle America say, light skinned-ed) women would gain admittance free of charge all night, while the more chocolate sistas get played like Cinderella at 12:01am: no love and a pumpkin.
In 2007?
This is some house nigger coonery for you...Please forgive my use of the "n" word but for real, the promoter is just that: an ignorant bastard. So, I guess I'm actually using the word in the correct sense.
I digress.
GET IT TOGETHER BLACK PEOPLE!!
To quote yon rocket scientist party promoter: "I thought it was a brilliant promotion at the time," said Ulysses Barnes, the intrepid colorist. "I didn't anticipate any type of feedback. It was just a party thing."
Didn't anticip....WHAT?
Yo, for real, I disown this guy, as a member of the race, because he brings down the collective IQ. Real talk, I bet any non-black person he consulted with would have likely said something like:
"Hey guy, is that a good idea? I mean, you're basically being a racist against your own people..."
So really, what did Ulysses think was going to happen? That people -- especially the chocolate chicks (who love to party as much as the mocha complexioned ones) -- were going to say something like "yeah, I'm dark but I'm going to drop $20 to get in the door, while my lighter friend gets in free..."? Was he expecting folks to laud him as having the most original party theme of the year?
Oh well, I guess Barnes can get a gig at BET, whose sole purpose seems to be showing scantily-clad fair skinned sistas shakin' it fast. That's really his calling in life.
Please don't misunderstand me, God knows I dig a thick chocolate southern girl, but for real, doesn't black beauty encompass the gamut of skin tones and sizes?
We keep trying to make each other feel superior/inferior to another because of these purely cosmetic (and completely arbitrary) standards. We've been battling over skin color for a couple centuries or more, whether it be dark and lovely, versus the betta butta-pecans or jigga-boos against wanna-be's. Enough of these internecine battles over color.
Worryin' about that silly 'ish in the end, makes us all look like we're shuckin' and jivin' for Massa.
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Wow, that was powerful. Great writing...great message.
That promoter was clearly a damn fool. What was he thinking? He obviously didn't think? He just fed into the age-old, light-skinned and long hair notion of beauty.
I have a younger sister and growing up, all we used to hear was: you two really like alike, but Eboni, you're just really dark. And then there were those that would say, Eboni -- you're much prettier than your sister. She's your typical light-skinned chick. You look so much more exotic with your dark skin.
I say stop making comparisons about one's beauty solely based on one's complexion. Plus, beauty is only skin deep anyway...
you two really "look alike" not like alike...whoops! LOL
Ridiculous!! This is one of many reasons why Black folks get no respect from other races. We just keep feeding into these dogged stereotypes. I know this man's mother taught him better-or did she??
Other coverage of this story:
http://whytnblak.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/nigga-club-in-trouble-for-light-skinned-promotion/
Also from Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301599,00.html)
Detroit DJ Raises Furor Over 'Light-Skinned Black Women' Party
Saturday, October 13, 2007
A Detroit DJ and promoter is backing down from plans to sponsor a party at a local club that would allow “light skinned” black women into the bash for free, according to a report in The Detroit News.
Promoter Ulysses “DJ Lish” Barnes cancelled the event at Detroit’s Club APT after word of the party spread on the Internet, triggering a flood of angry emails and phone calls from around the country and highlighting tensions that sometimes flare between darker-skinned and lighter-skinned African-Americans.
“I made a mistake,” Barnes, who describes himself as a “dark-skinned” African-American, told the Detroit News. “I didn’t think there would be a backlash.”
"I didn't mean to offend anyone," he said. "I had planned a party for other shades (of black women). We were going to take a shade of color each week. Next week was going to be a party for 'Sexy Chocolate' and the week after that ‘Sexy Caramel.'” (sounds highly suspect....damage control maybe???)
Barnes told the Detroit News that he plans to host an event to raise money for a charity to make up for any problems or pain he caused over the party flier.
FYI -- A writer friend of mine, TaRessa Stovall, has a book on this very topic:
OTHER PEOPLE’S SKIN
as seen in The Star-Ledger, USA Today, CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Associated Press and more
Let the healing begin!
OTHER PEOPLE’S SKIN … will surely speak to your soul. Each novella is powerful … These ladies offer up four stories that fearlessly get in your face, make you examine yourself from top to bottom, and leave you thinking both deeply and differently… one is left feeling enveloped in a celebration of sisterhood and inexplicably healed in some way.
T. Shelly B., RAWSistaz Reviews
The Sister-for-Sister Empowerment Series
presents OTHER PEOPLE’S SKIN: Four novellas
Four women whose perspectives are as different as their skin tones join talents to take on the legacy that has emotionally crippled us for too long. This dynamic “fiction with a mission” was written to let the healing begin!
In Other People’s Skin, co-editors TaRessa Stovall and Tracy Price-Thompson join fellow authors Elizabeth Atkins and Desiree Cooper to take on one of the most controversial topics within the African American community: the self-hatred caused by intra-racial prejudice and the ongoing obsession with skin tone and hair texture. In other words, the skin/hair thang among Black women.
It begins with TaRessa Stovall’s “My People, My People,” in which a successful advertising executive battles prejudice when her top client insists on using light rather than dark-skinned models in a major campaign.
Next is Tracy Price-Thompson’s award-winning “Other People’s Skin,” a tale set in 1970s Louisiana, where a dark-skinned young woman must come to terms with the bigotry of her light-skinned family. “New Birth” by Desiree Cooper reveals the dynamics of money, class and skin color in the relationship between wealthy, light-skinned Catherine, and Lettie, her dark-skinned house cleaner.
And Elizabeth Atkins' bold “Take It Off” examines the struggle of a biracial girl who hides her hair and true identity from friends and classmates in a mixed-race Detroit university.
For excerpts, author bios and more, visit www.empowerourselves.org.
Questions: Reach TaRessa at 609.304.3481
Wow…my people, I tell ya…
I gotta shoot this project I did and send it to you. It's a Color Complex Wheel (based off the typical color wheel) that shows you how to stereotype and "deal with" blacks of various colors. Point being, it just points out how ridiculous we are when it comes to judgments of our own.
But this mess is crazy.
Welcome aboard Kuh reel yuh! ;)
Please do provide a way for us to see the Color Complex Wheel. I'd like to see your interpretation of just how "ig'nant" the whole idea of "color" or complexion is dealt with in our larger community. Lord knows, we have enough issues to deal with without being consumed with whether a woman (or man, for that matter) is lighter- or darker-skinned.
I'm waiting for the day when some intrepid black person is going to claim they're eligible for preferential treatment under the ADA because they're "melanin challenged" one way or the other.
Man, we can be silly sometimes...