I remember a time when I walked down chemin de Chambly or rue Conefroy in Longueuil & down rue Ste Catherine or rue de Maisonneuve in Montreal, Quebec, seemingly surrounded by every nationality but African, feeling doubly out of place because it was not my land I trekked on, nor was it my language i heard being spoken. Then, from across the street, I spotted him; Jean-Francois, a young Haitian boy, a few years my junior and it happened. Not rehearsed, not taught, an instinctively induced motion; a slow raising and lowering of the head while making eye contact. In my language, this would be something like saying, "sawubona" - loosely translated this means "I see you." This was a form of greeting among many black people across the world, especially in places where the black are the minority. It basically says to the other person, "I see you, I know what it's like, hang in there, I got your back" - At least that's how I saw it; especially coming from the motherland and having had an opportunity to explore the difference in backgrounds between Africa; where black is majority, and North America; where black is a hand-me-down slave with earning privileges, a second class citizen. One would think that the ongoing liberation struggles in Africa, the civil-rights movements in America, the various affirmative action groups as well as the truth & reconciliation commissions among other organisations that are active globally, would influence justice and fair treatment among all people. This is not so.
There is another social monster that has reared it's ugly head, it's been quietly working behind the scenes and is causing a greater divide among the people. It's no secret that in African countries, the colonials used a divide and conquer strategy. They separated the masses and once they had them in the smaller groups they were able to rule with an iron fist - effectively dominating and overpowering the smaller numbers. This division was both tribal & geographical among other criteria. To drive the nail home they had to make the division more than just physical. They also made it a mental condition by stirring up contention between the separated groups hence the continuing tribalism experiencing today. Parallel to this happening in Africa, it happened in Europe and America. Slaves were separated and segregated from one another, and ranks were unofficially given. You may have heard the term "casta" or "caste" referring to this social-hierarchy implemented in Spain during slavery. Today we face this same type of intraracial separation among our own people. Colorism. I couldn't believe how many responses I hit when I searched this term word on google guess what I found; about 1,020,000 results for colorism were found in 0.34 seconds.
I didn't know that this was such a widespread cancer in our society, I have received the short end onf the stick on this a few times but when i saw this becoming a little more prevalent in my circles than just the odd comment here and there I decided to do some research and thats when I came across the word. Colorism is not a dictionary defined term so naturally I decided to search google. I couldn't believe how many hits I got; about 1,020,000 results for colorism were found in 0.34 seconds. So this thing has been going on for ages. Wikipedia's link on this gave a definition as "discrimination in which human beings are accorded differing social and treatment based on skin color. The preference often gets translated into economic status because of opportunities for work. Colorism can be found across the world. The term is generally used for the phenomenon of people discriminating within their own ethnic groups."
Some comedian once cracked a joke on this, he took it back to the slavery days, saying that slave masters gave out jobs and privileges based on tone of skin. The lighter skin slaves had house duties, and depending on how light their complexion was, they might even be allowed to clean master's bedroom. The darker slaves had outdoor duties, the darker you were, the farther away from the house you were. The comedian (a fairly dark gentleman) said that if he were a slave, he'd be so far away from master's house, he'd be two steps from freedom. Funny as this statement may be in a comical setting, I see how certain people still have that kind of thinking, and how the intraracial segregation could have been initiated by this type of treatment. It would have been easy for the lighter skinned people to get a 'nose-up' attitude towards their darker counterparts. How it would be easy for them to forget that they are still negro.
On the flip side, there is the same type of arrogance exhibited by the darker skinned brothers and sisters towards the light skinned fellas. Those of you that know me would say that I am light-skinned. Personally I don't see that in myself but what ever; it was brought to my attention by a young lady when I expressed interest in her. She had the audacity to say I'm not 'black' enough. I asked if she meant tone-wise or culturally, and she said both. You see, once a bother gets educated, people think he loses his culture, and if he is lightskinned, they say he's got white blood in him. There is nothing wrong with being mixed, I hate no man, discriminate against no man, but I can't tolerate ignorance. so I had to address this. I am born and raised African, I was exposed to, and experienced the culture first hand, not through television, not through magazines, not through friends or museums. I lived it. So, for a young lady, born and raised in Canada, to insinuate that she is more 'black' than I am. Trick please. I have probably seen more oppression in one year than you have in all your life. I am still negro. No matter how much you try to claim to be 'better than me' you are still dust.
...to be continued
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