The Light-Skin Woman Is Always In

Gotta share a funny thought about this before I delve more deeply into this issue.

Since I'm from the D, where this light-skin party was supposed to take place, a friend sent me an e-mail entitled, "defend your city."

To be honest, I really couldn't. Theme parties in the D go on all the time. There is the infamous white party. The gator party (as in those who wear gators get in free). The Hennessy party. So us having a light-skin party is not a shock. We would throw a baby momma with a bullet hole party if it gave us a good excuse to gig, wear our gators and tangerine suits. It's just how we do.

Anyway, I responded light-heartedly to my boy. "OK, but my man did say he planned to have chocolate and caramel parties in the coming weeks," I wrote. "He was trying to be inclusive."

His response: "Uh huh. Sadly, the night of the chocolate party won't no dudes be there. Light skinned girls will be in style forever. Even longer than Air Force Ones."

That's a pretty long time.

I'll submit the colorstruck issue, which has resurfaced because of the controversy surrounding the light-skinned women party, is strictly one-sided. Black men don't have to deal with the issue within their own gender. Black women just want black men to have some sense and a job. We can't afford to get picky about coloring. In the 80s, thanks to cats like Al B. Sure, El Debarge, Ozone, and Chris Williams, having a light-skin, curly-headed man was like having a pair of Jordans. Now, I don't know if it was Tyson Beckford, Malik Yoba, Big Daddy Kane, or whoever, but then it was all about the bald-head, chocolate man. It ebbs and flows.

But, when it comes to black women, the skin color standards are strict and prickly. Some black men make their tastes very obvious. Let's look at the glorious world of sports. I rarely see a professional athlete married to a dark-skinned blak woman. It's usually a woman who is either light-skinned or a combination ethnicity. The new hotness is to have a black and Asian woman (see: Kimora Lee) or a Latino woman (see: Kobe Bryant). Women, unfortunately, behave no better than the men, hating on skin color of other black women. Thinking more highly of themselves because they are a certain shade.

When I see things like this light-skinned party and listen to the ensuing debate, it's amazing how the oppressed begin to take on the traits of the oppressor. The colorstruck issue has been around for a long time, and you could argue intelligently it was, like most things, a product of a slave system that sought to divide black people. The moment the slave master figured out he could create division by letting light-skinned slaves stay in the house and keeping the darker ones out in the field, it set forward a chain of events and attitudes among blacks that obviously remain an issue.