lpetrich
Contributor
There is a common and rather odd sort of racial prejudice, preferring light-skinned people to dark-skinned ones. Colorism
Ruchika T on Twitter: "I've never had my heart sink and rise at the same time ..." / Twitter
Ruchika T on Twitter: "I've never had my heart sink and rise at the same time ..." / Twitter
I've never had my heart sink and rise at the same time, while interviewing @Ilhan for @nytimes on her audacious goals to tackle colorism–an insidious and horrific bias that discriminates against darker-skinned individuals. She shared a horrible experience with colorism in her childhood that shaped her commitment to tackling this problem that people rarely talk about. Skin-lightening cosmetics are a $8.6 billion global industry, and the United States makes up 1/3 of the market. Women of color take huge risks for lighter skin: mercury and hydroquinone in these products have been linked to lasting skin discoloration, damage to eyes, kidneys and lungs and, when used by pregnant women, birth defects. It’s a public health crisis, says WHO.
A number of initiatives against toxic skin-lightening products have passed in the House thanks to @Ilhan. $4.7M increased funding for public education on the dangers of skin-lightening products, better enforcement of existing bans on illegal cosmetics & $1M to a CDC study on this.
“Colorism is prevalent everywhere: academia, Hollywood, everywhere in society,” says Prof. Kimberly Norwood, literally the authority on this subject. Read her book! The issue is prevalent in communities of color. Like the “In the Heights" movie which did not cast darker-skinned Latinos in lead roles. Black Americans with lighter skin have higher socioeconomic status and tend to marry people with higher socioeconomic status, one study found. Indeed, the authors concluded, “The impact of skin color or shade was as impactful as race in American socioeconomic status.” Darker-skinned Cuban & Mexican Americans face more discrimination at work than their lighter-skinned counterparts. Darker-skinned African American children are more likely to experience frequent suspensions from school. White and Black kids are biased toward lighter skin. Read the rest of the piece to learn why @Ilhan believes we should all be talking about colorism, how the issue is both physical and psychological and why she’s pushing this agenda in Congress.