Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Melanin
For my US History class, I had to read Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody. The book was about a young black girl who grew up watching her family suffer, stuck under the oppression of others, both whites and blacks. I was used to hearing about the oppression of whites on blacks in the SOuth during the 1950's and 60's, but the black on black oppression surprised me. Because someone was light skinned, they felt like they were better than someone of darker complexion. This led to questions in my mind about mentalities of people now. Are people still thinking like that? Do they judge people based on not only their ethnicity, but also on the deepness of their skintone? Would I be judged as less intelligent, less able to complete certain tasks because I'm darker than most people? This led to me questioning job opportunites, medical care, and other aspects of my life that may be influenced by the simple fact that I am darker than most people amy lke.Has America really changed? Was it less of a problem for Obama to get elected because he was lighter skinned? Would it have been harder if he was my skin tone? Who knows?
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Girl, I think we both had the bright idea to write about our history assignment for this blog haha When we discussed our questions in class, I was surprised to learn about the opression blacks felt towards one another. I couldn't imagine that kind of animosty, especially when they supposedly shared a connection with each other. And unfortunately, those feelings will never go away. They're embedded into our history, and we're going to have to live with those kind of attitudes for the rest of our lives.
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