Why Colorism is the Real Racism of a 2050 World

We have fooled ourselves of the primacy of race thereby creating in our minds a type racial prison from whence everything is tainted with the stamp of the race myth. When in fact, the universal plight of all societies is the insidious mental affliction of Colorism.

1. There was a great article on the power and extensiveness of Colorism in the Boston Globe Ideas section. Most of us understand the negative impact of racism, but many of us overlook the ubiquity and pervasiveness of Colorism as a pattern of pathological thinking that creates self-fulfilling cycles of self-hate and distorted realities. We have fooled ourselves of the primacy of race (Which is not biological but a social construction. However, that’s the subject for another time) thereby creating a racial prison in our minds from where everything is tainted with the stamp of race. When in fact, the universal plight of all societies is the insidious mental affliction of Colorism.

The pervasiveness of Colorism. Click here and read the story.

If you really think about it, Colorism is without a doubt at the root of many atrocities, killings, and genocides through the ages. ( Many social scientist and anthropologists argue that a good part of the virulence of the genocide in Rawanda was due to the preceived favoritism shown the lighter skin Tutsi). If racism was the root of separation then people would not be able to “pass” from one race to the other. Instead, race is simply the mask of a deeper distortion of reality called Colorism.

While many cultures don’t see race as we do in America, all countries are influenced by color. It’s the universal bias virus every society around the globe practices. I would argue there is no stronger source of segregation, separation, and isolation than that of color. Racism was the foremost ism of the 20th century, but Colorism is the pattern of prejudice in the 21st Century.

In a controlled experiment, baseball cards held by black hands sold on eBay for 20% less than baseball cards held by white hands—demonstrating, the study’s authors said, the persistence of a subtle kind of racism.

But, why is this the case? Why did darker skin color infect the minds of most human beings as something less valuable than white skin? Why has white skin been seen as the ideal of beauty and purity?

Like most things, to understand the questions we must start with history and science