All language subtitles for MV5BOGEx9ZmY2

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- There continues to be a schism

between light girls
and dark girls.

- [Woman] Team light
skin, Team Dark Skinned.

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- They thought that I
thought I was all that.

- Black women have been
cultured to compare

and not connect.

- [Woman] They
threatened me every day.

- They would take my earrings

so they would split my earlobes.

- You don't know
you're different

until someone tells
you you're different.

- Oh, poor little
you, light girl.

- [Young Woman] I never thought
I was any of those things.

- [Woman] You can't
choose who you're born.

- You're black but
you're not really black.

- I don't prefer
this complexion.

- I never wanted my son
to be embarrassed by me.

- [Woman] It hurts more when
it's coming from your own.

- Pretty is as pretty does.

- Harriet Tubman said,
"I freed 1,000 slaves

"and I could've freed 1,000 more

"if they only knew
they were slaves."

(somber orchestral music)

- Although this is a new
millennium, the new age,

the 21st century, I believe
that as people of color

we have a cellular memory
that has come forward

from generation to
generation to generation.

And one of those
cellular memories,

one of those things that
continue to plague us,

I believe is this issue

of value and worth being
associated with the shade

or the color of your skin.

It's cellular that our
lighter skinned foremothers

or great-great-grandmothers
got privilege,

got notice, got recognition
because they were closer

to white than they
were to African.

It's cellular that the darker
women were in the fields.

The darker women were bred more.

The darker women
were beaten more.

The darker women
were sold faster.

It's cellular.

And that whole issue
of value and worth

based on the color of your skin,

the texture of your hair,
the shape of your features,

the straighter the nose,
the thinner the lips,

makes you more beautiful,

makes you more valuable
and more worthy.

It has been etched and
impressed in our DNA.

- The product of slave masters

raping black slaves was
part of what produced

a lighter skinned population.

- Both my parents are black

and both of their families
lived through the terrorism

that we know as Jim Crow.

(dramatic orchestral music)

My mother had to marry someone
that looked like my father,

quite honestly,
because my grandmother

in her post-traumatic stress

had her participate
in the paper bag fear.

- There were a series of
tests, quote unquote tests,

that different black
organizations used

to clarify who should be
a member in the group.

And many of us are
familiar with things

like the brown paper bag test

where the idea was that
your skin should be lighter

than a brown paper bag in order
to be in the organization.

Or a comb test where if
you could pass a comb

through your hair that you
had straight enough hair

to be in whatever high
status organization it was.

- Down where I came from

they would hammer that bag
right outside the church

and if you were too dark,
darker than that bag,

you weren't gettin' into
church, of all places.

Church!

- Unfortunately
we've internalized
norms that are alien.

And as pertains to skin
color, that's probably

the most potent alien norm

that has come by
way of colonization.

(somber music)

- My grandmother, her
generation was about life.

And living in Jim Crow South,

if your cousin was dark, he
could disappear in the night

and you could see
him the next day

burnt and hanging from a tree

with his genitals in his mouth.

So, if you're a 14 or 15
year-old girl and you see that,

who then do you become?

- From our very beginning

we have been put
against each other,

and it's probably not surprising

that a certain amount of us
would accept that separation.

- I've always had people

tell me that if we
were in slavery,

that I'd be in the house.

And I'm like, if we were in
slavery we'd be in slavery.

Like, what does my
location matter?

Like bein' in the house
was so much better.

You know what it is to get
beat up by white women?

You know you can beat
but you can't hit back,

you know what I mean?

You're gettin' raped.

You're goin' through all
of this stuff in the house.

It wasn't like luxury.

You weren't rollin'
around, you know,

taking SATs and reading
and writing novels.

- We've been programmed to think

that somehow the hue, the
differences in our hues,

are some external
gauge of our character

and the things that
we walk around inside.

And the funny thing is
it's not the white people

that attribute that to us.

Maybe in the beginning,
but we inside ourselves

are like, no, brother, I don't
like you, 'cause you light.

That's our problem.

We haven't dealt with that.

So until we deal with
it, it'll be here.

- This is a generational,

I don't know if we
should call it heritage,

but it's certainly a
generational legacy

among people of African descent
here in the United States.

- We barely even
call it terrorism.

We don't say that Jim Crow
was homeland terrorism.

We don't call the Ku
Klux Klan terrorist.

We call them white hate groups.

This is like growing up
in Afghanistan or Iraq.

It was war, it was terrifying.

It was a horror.

(dramatic orchestral music)

(people shouting)

(fire crackling)

My grandmother left
Sumter, South Carolina

with the idea that if you
are light you literally live.

That's what she grew through,

that was her reality.

She wanted her children
to live, that plain.

And that's why it wasn't like,

oh, marry white
and be not black.

She wanted you to be black,

but she wanted you
to be black and live.

- Passing entailed a tremendous
amount of personal loss

because it meant that

people were separated
from their families.

They couldn't be with
people who looked black

if they were passing as white.

- You know, passing is
not just about skin tone.

Passing is deciding,
"I don't associate

"with my parents anymore."

"I don't associate
with my siblings."

Passing is not just,
"Ooh, I'm light-skinned."

Passing is,

I pretend that that woman
there is not my mother.

- My grandfather's
brother passed, you know.

He married a white lady, okay.

They move to Detroit,
he's a doctor.

They had a daughter,
one single daughter.

She never knew she was black.

She gets married to an Air
Force officer, guess what?

(snaps fingers)

That first baby comes
out, guess what?

She didn't know.

He left her.

She didn't know.

- There's a story actually
from my own family

of a distant cousin of mine.

When she graduated
from high school

her mother told her
that she wanted her

to move to California and
pass as a white woman.

She moved to California.

She marries a white man.

She has white children
who have no idea

about her past and
then years later

she receives a very
inconvenient phone call

and it's her mother calling,

and she's calling to tell her

that her father is dying and
she needs to come back home.

And the woman says, "Well,
I can't come back home.

"I'm white now.

"This is the life that
you created for me.

"This is the life
that you made me live.

"I can't just come back to
the south side of Chicago,

"that's impossible."

It's stories like
that where I think

you really start to get

a sense of how deep
the losses were.

- There's a long history
of racial categorization

of multi-racial
people in the U.S.

And so, initially,
even during slavery

there was a differentiation

between blacks and mulattoes.

And mulattoes were
considered people

who were mixed, black and white,

and they didn't have the
privileges that whites had

and they didn't really have
even intermediary privileges.

- At one point during
the Antebellum period

there was an
attempt to construct

a three-tiered racial
system in Louisiana,

for example, because
those mixed race persons

could not be regarded as white,

but they did not want to be
regarded as black as well.

- What has happened in
New Orleans, people who,

particularly in the
black community,

who are light-skinned or fair,

they can pass for white
because they benefit

from many of the
opportunities there

and these are passe bruns,

or people who are
basically not white

but are passing for white.

- They used terms like
quadroons and octaroons.

People who had one
black grandparent,

for example, would be
quadroons, 1/4th black,

or octoroons, about
an eighth black.

But these different designations

were all considered
ways of being black

and this is in the larger
context of the one drop rule.

- In the 1870 census
you see instructions

that essentially
say that a person

can only identify as
white if they do not have

one drop, even one
drop, of black blood.

And there's a judge and
basically what he says is,

let's be careful about how
narrowly we define whiteness,

because if we define
it too strictly,

there are a lot of white
people who aren't going

to be able to pass the test.

This is almost like
a ball of yarn,

and we don't wanna
start pulling at it

because if we do our whole
system could unravel.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- There's a safety
in being able to

categorize you, or
categorize a person.

You can assign all of
your pre-conceived ideas

about who this person is,
the type of person they are,

what kind of behavior
you can expect from them,

only if you know what they are.

- People always asked me,
before they asked my name,

the question was,
"So, what are you?"

- What are you?

- Oh, no, but what
are you really?

People always say to
me, "What are you?"

And I'm African American.

I don't discuss it.

I'm not one to talk about,
"Oh, but my grandmother

"and my grandfather,"

I don't do that.

(light orchestral music)

- There used to be a coat
store, like a dress shop

and I remember going
into that store

and finding a
jacket that I loved,

and I went and brought
it to the register

and the woman said to
me, "What are you?"

And I said, "Oh, I'm black."

And she said, "No,
no, you're not black

"'cause black
people are thieves."

(chuckles)

"So, what are you?"

And I remember thinking,

wow, I love this coat, and now
I have to put this coat back.

(cash register dings)

- People sometimes
felt more free

to say things like,
"You're black,

"but you're not really black."

And they used to say it
like it was a compliment.

Like, congratulations,
you've arrived!

(laughs)

And I always felt so, like
it was an identity crisis.

I am black, but you
keep telling me I'm not.

(light guitar music)

- I identify as being mixed.

I do not identify
as being black.

I do not identify as
being black because to me

if somebody asks me what
I am and I say black,

I feel like I'm ignoring my
father and half of my family

and treating them as
if they don't exist.

And to me, that feels wrong
and that feels uncomfortable.

So, I've gotten into a lot
of arguments with black women

because they feel like, as
far as they're concerned,

I'm black and I should
just say that I'm black.

- As a child,

the black girls said
I wasn't black enough,

so they didn't
wanna play with me.

And the white girls said
I wasn't white enough

and they didn't wanna play

with me either, so I
was basically a outcast.

I was told that I was a mutt.

It was really difficult.

- My mother is
very fair-skinned,

my wife is very fair-skinned.

They've had to overcompensate
to show their blackness,

to prove that they're black

around black people,
which is crazy.

But that's the reality because
the first time they meet

a black person sometimes it's,

"Oh, she thinks she's better
than us," out the gate.

And so, what do they have to do?

They have to act a
little more street,

act a little more,
actually, I would say,

stereotypically black
just to gain acceptance.

- I mean, think about it.

They're light-skinned
and beautiful

by the world's standards,
but still ain't white.

Right?

You're too dark to be white,

but you're too
light to be black,

so here you are right in the
middle and nobody wants you.

You're the perfect misfit.

So, you see the magazines,

you see the television
commercials.

I mean, something as
simple as selling Downy.

You don't see yourself.

You see this beautiful white
woman and this blonde hair

and she's just, you know,
just sailing through the house

just loving laundry.

(laughs)

Right?

You know?

And you think this is
something to aspire to.

Why wouldn't you?

Psychologically I understand
where that comes from.

When the very essence of
who you are is ignored,

degredated, you feel invisible.

And if you feel
invisible in the world,

what are you doing to
try to get the attention?

- I think when people are

judging children because
of the color of their skin,

I think those
people are ignorant.

These children can't do nothin'.

They can't do anything.

These children have to
sit here in the skin

that somebody else decided to
have sex for and live with it.

That's your fault
you're messin' them up.

And then they grow up and
the kids have these issues.

You can't blame it on anyone.

You have to deal with
your own issues now.

You can't blame it on anyone.

But you guys raised me.

You guys gave me this problem

and I can't blame it on anybody?

Does that make
any kind of sense?

- My father was very,
very, very dark,

is very, very, very dark.

My mother was very, very, I
thought she was a white woman.

So that's the
problem right there.

My mama was light.

I did tease her.

I was like, you white
and I'ma get some DNA

on you 'cause you lyin'.

But now that we're
talkin' about it,

maybe that is the thing.

I'm tryin' to be
too black sometimes.

I've done the reverse
thing because of my mother

being so fair and people
thinking that she was white,

because of being teased.

People come in my
house and they say,

"Why you got so much black art?"

"Why you got so much
Africa around you?"

I never thought about it.

But I think I was
tryin' to make up

for not being black
enough, you know?

- I realize that being mixed
is both a curse and a blessing.

It's a curse because you
don't really belong anywhere,

but it's a blessing because
you get to blend in everywhere.

It amazes me how race is
subjective to some people.

And I was just told recently

that I'm not a
real black person,

I'm not even part black person,

doesn't matter what grandaddy
did or what he was about,

I don't know anything
about the black experience

and I have no right because
my skin color doesn't match.

I was led to believe
if I was somebody else,

my life would be better.

Sorry.

It cheated me out
of being who I am

and I'm now almost
40 figuring that out.

- I do remember
one incident where

I'd just been
bombarded with people

telling me that I wasn't black,

you know, as a compliment.

And I went to my
dad and I was, like,

"Dad, am I not black enough?"

And I just remember,
he started to cry

and he was so emotional,

and he just told me, you know,

"You are black enough.

"You are all the black
that you need to be.

"You are beautiful, you
are smart, you are caring

"and charismatic,
and don't let anyone

"tell you any different."

- I have albinism
so I'm a lot lighter

than everyone in my family.

I'm the only one

that looks this way.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Growin' up I was called names
like Casper, white bread.

I was always told
that I was ugly.

Even my brother
when I was younger,

he was embarrassed
and I overheard him

telling some of his friends

that I wasn't really
his biological sister,

that I was adopted.

Our race can be very cruel.

When I go to different places,
people think that I'm white.

I just don't expect
to get certain things

from my people,
especially in church.

Some people don't
wanna touch my hand.

Some people don't
wanna talk to me

and some people have even said,

"What's this white
girl doin' here?"

Once I had my son, I
never wanted my son

to be embarrassed by me,

so I wouldn't go to
school right away.

I would make his father go

because I just didn't
want children to tease him

because I was his mother.

- They used to
call me white girl.

- White girl.

- You're light bright.

- Damn near white.

- Yellow girl.

- You're not a real black girl.

- She'd say, "Fluffy kitty,"

and then she'd touch my nose
and say, "Beep, beep, beep."

- You're pale.

You're not black.

- You think you're white.

- Skank nasty yellow.

- Banana.

- [Woman] Blue-eyed devil.

- The orange bitch.

- Lollipop tar.

- Other than.

- Stop it.

We have to stop it.

(dramatic drum beat)

- I think the
impact that colorism

has on young girls, light
girls and dark girls,

leaves scars on the soul that
live well into womanhood.

- From a very young age

then I was made to feel
that something about

what I had or looked
like was somehow

both special and
yet disliked, hated.

Something to be embraced

and or fear.

- I had rocks thrown at my head.

I had the, "You think you cute,

"I should cut your hair off."

Like, two ponytails,
they wanted to cut

one of my ponytails off.

I'm goin', why?

Why do you even care?

What is the big deal?

And I think that
we're not taught

to value one another enough.

- The colorism that
exists in our community

was sometimes as damaging

as racism, because it hurts more

when it's coming from your own.

- There were times,
especially as a child,

where I suffered unnecessarily

and felt a lot of shame
about being light,

about having long hair.

I'm sure that it feels like,

oh, poor little you, light girl.

You know, everybody was kind
of paying attention to you,

but you know, the
lightness of my skin

didn't insulate me
from questioning

my worthiness of being black.

- There were perceptions.

Oh, you're stuck up.

You're bougie.

- No matter what I
did, what I said,

I was either thinkin'
I'm too white.

I thought I was white,
I thought I was better

than everybody else,
you know, whatever.

I just thought I
was all these things

and I never thought I was
any of those things, so.

It made me not like myself.

- Children can be cruel.

They call you banana.

Light bulb.

- Yellow girl.

Redhead.

Blue-eyed devil.

- I was being called a banana,

being called white girl.

You know, really
trying to identify

with my community and my people.

- They threatened me every day

(chuckles)

that they were
gonna cut my hair.

And I actually had white
kids on the school bus

who were hidin' me in
the back of the bus

from the black kids who
wanted to cut my hair.

- I went to a really
bad elementary school

and this black girl, she was
black and had real short hair

and I was beautiful
and light-skinned

and had long, pretty, sandy
color hair and she was jealous.

I didn't understand why.

What was the problem?

'Cause I wanted to be friends.

I was in a new city,
in a new school,

and I was tryin' to make friends

and I didn't know
what fighting was

and she came up to me
and said some things

and I hit her and ran
and fell in the water

and she beat me up.

(laughs)

And so I said, "I need to be
funny 'cause I can't fight."

I can't fight.

I need to be funny.

(laughing)

And I was fat,
too, so I was like,

I need somethin' that's gonna,

to cheer these people up.

These kids are
horrible, ya know.

- When trauma happens,

it alters the cellular level.

I hate to get all doctor on it,

but it's the subcortical
region of the brain

called the hippocampus.

It's where the memory is.

Once it moves into
long-term potentiation,

what we call long-term
potentiation, is
the hippocampus.

It's there forever.

Right next to the hippocampus

is something called
the amygdala.

What do you think
it's responsible for?

Emotions.

So, you hear something.

What do you feel about it?

What do you remember about it?

So when you see it
and as you grow,

by the time you're 15, 16, 17,

you're lookin' in the mirror
and all you're hearing

are all the images you've heard

from the time you
were a little girl.

You're damaged.

(dramatic drumbeat)

(somber music)

- I've heard of my friends
that want to change

how they look because
of people teasing them.

Sometimes they
would tell them that

they don't belong there
because they're black

or they're too light.

- I think it's a
learned behavior.

I think the separation between
dark skin and light skin

is a learned behavior.

You don't know you're different

until someone tells
you you're different.

- My experience with colorism,

it's seen most starkly
in middle school.

Middle school girls can be

the meanest human
beings on earth.

I mean mean like,

like a rattlesnake mean.

Because they're dealing
with their own issues

of self-esteem, one
of the easiest marks

is a person's color.

In fact, it's interesting,
they even take compliments

and turn them on their ear.

"You think you so pretty."

"You think you so smart."

So, the things that
would seemingly stand
out as a positive,

because of the
real insidiousness

of internalized racism,
and the basic issues

of self-esteem for young girls,
it's really, really ugly.

(rhythmic hip-hop music)

- When I was in junior high

I had to look forward
to every Friday

getting beat up by eight girls.

And they not only
just beat me up,

they would tear my clothes off.

They would take my
earrings until finally

I stopped wearin' 'em, but
I've had to have surgery

because of it, but
they would you know,

take my earrings so they
would split my earlobes.

And it was very brutal.

If I went to the bathroom,
that was their signal

to all run in the
bathroom, rush in,

and whoop me and beat me down.

It got so bad
that, I mean, like,

every Friday, it was almost
like the principal was on cue.

You know, as soon as they
had tore off all my clothes,

the principal would come
out, put his coat over me,

call me a cab and send me home.

And so, if I didn't want
that done during the week,

I wouldn't go to the bathroom.

- Two, three years
ago I was in a club

and there was, like,
four black girls

standin' a couple
feet away from me

and they were talkin', "Oh,
she thinks she's all that.

"She thinks she's all
that, look at her."

And I wasn't doin' anything.

They jumped me and my homegirl,

and I was actually fighting
one-on-one with one girl,

then one of her friends
came and was like,

"I'm gonna kill you
and she cut me."

(dramatic music)

(sirens wailing)

I didn't even know
how bad it was

until I finally
got out of there.

I got attacked
because they thought

that I thought I was all that.

But this is a problem that
I had to deal with comin' up

as a light-skinned girl
and being too pretty.

I have to deal with
black girls not liking me

because I'm not, you
know, black enough.

(suspenseful music)

- Unfortunately,

I feel because of my skin color,

there's all colors, all races
have suffered from pedophilia,

but in my environment

because I were the lighter one,

one of the first
biracial children

in my family's generation
with my grandmother,

I was like this golden
child, piss color.

But the men, from the
time I was two on up,

I felt like I was
this little sex object

that was so beautiful.

From my experience, a lot
of light-skinned girls

that are raised in families,

especially if it's a
African American family,

the lighter girl gets
the most, in my opinion,

most of the sexual abuse.

In my sleep I was
being touched on.

In the streets I
was being touched on

and I felt like a blow up doll.

- My best girlfriend and I,

we ran away from
home pretty much

from the frying
pan into the fire

thinking it must be
better somewhere else

'cause I'm not about
to get molested again.

I'm not about to
get raped again.

(piano music)

We were taken off the
street by a young couple.

They took us back to an
apartment in Los Angeles.

It kind of reminds me of that
film the Devil's Advocate

when I look back because
their faces totally changed.

They broke out heroin,
proceeded to beat us.

They put me in a bathtub,
stripped my clothes off,

beat me up and just
said, you know,

"You workin' for us now."

In the arena of
human trafficking,

they call it an industry.

I don't like to
call it an industry.

There is definitely a choice
between dark skin, light skin.

So for me, that was the
first time I realized

that it's not really
great to be this

if the stigma is that
I'm gonna make this guy

that I don't even know money

and I lost my
virginity that way.

I lost it through the
rapes, but the impact that,

a child doesn't, our
brain doesn't develop

until we're 26 years old.

And so one of my
favorite scriptures

is "Train up a child in the
way that they should go,

"and when they are old, they
will not depart from it."

But what happens when you
grow up in lasciviousness?

You can't choose
who you're born.

To whom you're born,
where you're born,

the color of your
skin, how much money

your parents gonna have,

if they're gonna raise
you right or wrong.

You can't choose these
things, so the fact

that we fight about these
things is extraordinary.

We are missing the mark.

(dramatic drumbeat)

- [Man] I don't think so.

Charlamagne. When we come
back we got the posse.

Don't go anywhere.

It's the Breakfast
Club in the mornin'.

♪ Come on over here ♪

♪ Here ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

- My grandparents didn't
go to my parents' wedding

because my mom is black.

You know, my grandparents
were from China

and they came here
and I think people

definitely have their
own perceived notions

of what black people are like.

And I think growing
up I always did feel

a little awkward around them

just because I know that they
had a prejudice toward us.

But, you know, when
I was growing up

all my friends were black.

So, they would come
over to the house

and sometimes my family
would be over there

and one of my grandparents
might say something like,

"Oh, you better make sure
you hide your car keys,"

and stuff like that.

- One thing I will
always remember

is a friend of my
mother's telling her

when I was very little
that I was beautiful

and I'd be perfect if I didn't

have such Afrocentric features,

that my nose wasn't keen
and my lips weren't thin.

And she was like, "But
if her nose was right

"and her lips were
right, she'd be perfect."

And then my mom choked her

and threw her out the house.

(laughs)

- My child's father
is a dark-skinned man

and when we were havin' our kid,

I remember changing her

and someone in my
family very close to me,

she was like I hope she don't
get any darker than this.

And my mother, what was great,

my mother was there and my
mother was like, "Stop it.

"Stop it right now."

So, I have to be
very mindful of that

and I try not to have
her, my daughter,

around her too much,
like, especially alone,

just for that slip-up.

'Cause I know it could
just take that one time

sayin' something negatively
and it can impact her forever.

- With my family they feel like

they're more superior or better

than an African American

because we're Creole
and we have culture

and that's something
that I've battled with

most of my life.

It's more of, like, the
older people in my family.

They didn't come to my wedding

because they didn't feel...

(somber piano music)

This is so difficult, sorry.

It's such a sensitive subject

that it's hard to
explain yourself

without sounding mean
or bitter or angry,

you know, but I am.

I'm angry that my
family is like that.

And they

wanna pass so bad that
they raised my mom

and my uncles and my aunts

to not fully know their culture,

and our younger generation,
we've embraced it so much.

And I feel like that's
why my father is white.

- My biological
grandfather had an issue.

He took issue with
the fact that his son

had produced two children with
an African American woman.

That resulted in
me not meeting him

until I was 16 years old.

I think I wasn't really
allowing myself to feel.

I just thought that
was kinda weird,

and his loss, and whatever.

But it wasn't a
whatever, you know?

Later in life I had to
deal with those emotions

and those feelings, and
I remember my mom saying,

"You know what?

"Just go ahead.

"Just go ahead and meet him."

So, we went to the house,

a house that we had
been to many times

but he would never be there.

The room was so tense.

There was so much tension
and it was just him and I

lookin' eye to eye and he
said, "Can I have a kiss?"

And I said, "No."

And he said, "Well,
how about a hug?"

"No."

And he said, "Well,
how about a handshake?"

I said, "That I can do,"

and I shook his hand.

(somber piano music)

(dramatic drumbeat)

(rhythmic drumming)

- This colorocracy and
this color hierarchy

is not just unique
to the United States,

but we find it in the Caribbean,

we find it in Latin America,
we find it in Brazil,

in Panama, in Venezuela,
in Jamaica, and so forth.

(rhythmic island music)

- My family's from
the Caribbean.

And we do colorism so well.

(laughs)

We do it so well.

Light skin, yellow,
red versus dark skin

and what's considered prettier.

- It is painful to say

but I do think that
many people in Trinidad

think that lighter equals better

or lighter equals wealthy

or lighter equals
somehow more capable

to do certain things,
certain jobs, ya know.

So, I think that for
some people who have

a lighter complexion,
it is easier for them

in a certain way
that is very sad

that that's still
an ongoing thing.

- I mean, anywhere that
there was colonialism

there was always divide and rule

and whatever they
could divide us along,

we got divided and so we
always aspired to be white

and those of us that
had the lighter skin

were shown favor, and those
who had the darker skin

were put in the fields.

(rhythmic drumming)

- It's not just happening
in the black communities

here in America.

I mean, this is something
that's happening in India.

Indians are actually very
obsessed with fair skin

and not necessarily
my kind of fair skin.

I'm mixed with Indian and white,

but full-blooded Indians who
are very, very fair-skinned

are really seen as
the top of the top.

(upbeat Indian music)

- It's quite simple.

Lighter skin implies that
you're classier, basically.

The implication is that
if you have darker skin,

and this goes way, way back,

your family, yourself
have spent time

out doing manual
labor under a hot sun

and that therefore
you are by definition

of a lower caste, if you like.

(rhythmic drumming)

Asian people, they still
have arranged marriages.

It's still quite
dominant in the UK,

and parents advertise, if
you like, in Asian magazines.

My parents used to
get an Asian magazine.

They still do.

And two pages at the
back are dedicated

to parents describing
their children

to seek a perfect
match for their child,

and almost without exception,

the women are described
as light-skinned.

That's almost on the top
line of the description,

as are the men, light-skinned.

That's the top selling point.

- You know, people,
they still come,

like perspective grooms
would come to a bride's home

to see the bride?

They will not even
enter very much further

if the girl is dark.

So, they try to
illuminate the room,

make her wear different
kinds of clothes,

have her wear really thick
makeup so she would look fair.

So she at least stands a
chance to go to step two.

- In 2009, I conferred
with the attorneys

in a case involving an
Indian Asian American,

and apparently his
son had married

an African American woman,

and the father did not
approve of the marriage

because the woman was African
American and dark complected.

So, he had his
daughter-in-law murdered.

(dramatic music)

- At this time, police are
still searching the area.

There seems to be...

- This has been a practice,
this issue of skin color,

in some Asian countries
for centuries.

It is an issue in
the black community,

but because the Asian
community is much more closed,

people are not aware that it
exists in Asian countries.

(traditional Asian music)

- As a Japanese,
we love Americans.

All the movies and
stuff we watch in Japan,

there were a lot of
white people back then

and still there is.

Normally the higher status
people have very light skin.

They always put white powders.

It's all about the
media in Japan.

It's such a small country,
if we see the television,

it says, oh, this product
says "beautiful white skin."

So, we were like, oh my God,
we have to get it right now.

We'd go run in the
store to get it.

Everybody gets the same thing.

(dramatic music)

- Skin bleaching is a growing
phenomenon around the world

and it's becoming a bigger
and bigger business.

It's no longer just a
cream that your grandma

will make up for
you out of something

that you don't
know what's in it,

but now it's a multi-billion
dollar business

and all the biggest
cosmetic companies

sell products that are
supposed to lighten your skin.

- What's also terrifying

is that we've yet
to see a product

that makes you look lighter
and look good and human.

And that people are
willing to walk around

looking like aliens,

like some ghastly creature
from a Steven Spielberg movie,

and that that is,
they prefer that

over their God given color.

- You can see it's unnatural.

So, you take yourself
out of the runnings

as a dark-skinned person
and a light-skinned person.

When you do that, you
in a different bracket.

That's something else.

That's like those
little skin cats.

You ever see those
cats with the skin?

Ain't no hair on 'em, just skin?

Like a Shar-Pei kitten?

That's how the woman looked.

You don't want that.

I won't even strike
that as light-skinned.

That's too far.

(piano music)

- I began to believe
the criticism

and I started to
hate my complexion,

so what I started doing
was tanning a lot.

Over the years of
excessive tanning,

I developed skin
damage called melasma,

which is here on my forehead.

I also have dark
spots above my lips.

And as a result,
I now have to use

expensive laser treatment
and bleaching creams

to fade away the dark spots.

I find it ironic that
now in hindsight,

trying to be accepted,
to change my complexion

with excessive tanning,
that I now have to

seek therapy to change
the complexion of my skin.

- On a weekly basis
we see patients

that are coming in that
are desiring to be lighter

or have lesions
potentially or dark areas

of their skin, lightened.

And in those cases,
we say, "Hey, yes.

"We can help you and we will
give you a lightening agent

"that will help to
effect an improvement

"on your overall appearance,
but we don't want you

"to use this product
all over your face,

"all over your body."

- In the U.S., you will
not often find creams

or products that
blatantly promise

to bleach or whiten your skin.

In other parts of the world

you will find things
that are called

Skin So White, White
Perfect, White And Lovely,

and all kinds of other products

that are really
focused on whitening

and marketed in that way.

And they are popular throughout
many African countries,

the Caribbean, Latin
America, the Middle East,

India, Philippines,
Japan, broadly.

- When I was in Nigeria
in the early '90s,

I was in the marketplace

and I would see women,
beautiful dark-hued women,

completely attired in
their with their geles

and their lappas
and their boobas,

and all of this white
powder all over their skin.

And I said, "Well,
what is that?"

And I was told bleach.

- In the history of the world,

there wasn't a dominant race

imposing their view of
beauty and their way of being

onto white people, so if white
people want to be tanned,

it's not the same as dark girls
wanting to be light-skinned

because this image of
beauty has been propaganda

for hundreds of years.

Like, the right way to be
is the Western way to be

and the Western
way to be is white.

- Nigerians have a
huge color complex.

Bleaching over there is
actually way too common.

You know, people who were
born darker than me are now

the color of a Starbucks cup.

And what usually gives
'em away is the knuckles

because for some odd
reason the knuckles

don't bleach.

(chuckles)

They don't bleach that easy.

- The main ingredient
that's used

in some of these skin
lightening products

is Hydroquinone.

It's a carcinogenic product.

It actually causes cancer.

As a result of prolonged use,

your skin will actually
begin to change.

It may actually develop
a permanent discoloration

which is darker again than
what you started with.

It may become
leathery in appearance

and it may develop a
bumpy, nodular look to it.

- These ingredients
are effective

in bleaching one's melanin
content out of the skin,

but because they are toxic,
when these women are pregnant,

by way of the placenta,
these toxic substances

enter and result
in a stillbirth.

Essentially what you're saying

is it's more
important for a woman

to bleach her skin or
to be lighter complected

than the life of her child.

(dramatic drumbeat)

(somber piano music)

- Somewhere along the
line with this country's

very difficult history around
race and class and color,

emerged a beauty standard
that we were not a part of.

We were not reflected in it.

But not only did that
beauty standard rise,

we were taught to
hate ourselves.

- The beauty business
is predicated

on keeping women crazy.

Keep moving the target.

Okay, if I get here,
then I'm gonna get happy.

If I get here then I'm gonna,

I'm gonna look in a way
that will satisfy me

and the rest of the world.

And never being
able to get to it.

- We drank the Kool-Aid that
there's a standard to beauty.

The status quo of beauty.

And I think what these
kids are really doing

is they've bought into this tale

and believe that unless
you look a certain way,

your value is not 100%.

- Cosmetics companies

spend millions of dollars
on advertising a year

to put out the newest,
hottest trends.

They study them,
they research them.

They look at people
like Nicki Minaj,

at Rihanna, and Beyonce
to what they're doing

and every month when you get
your magazine in the mail,

it is being forced
down your throat

to believe that this is
the standard of beauty

that has been set by the world

and that you should emulate it.

- Whiteness and white beauty
are very powerful sales tools.

A lot of us are seduced by
the lure of white beauty

and you can sell cars and
houses and retirement plans

and makeup all with white
beauty and white power

and that's true globally, not
just in the United States.

- We as black people
have a buying power

of over a trillion
dollars, and if you're not

at the table,
you're on the menu.

So, we've been on the menu
for so long, so they tell us

what isn't beautiful, that
our features are ugly,

that everything about
this beautiful black woman

that everyone rushes
out, after a while,

they want the lips.

They want the behind.

They want the look, but as
long as you keep telling me

that something is wrong,
then I will continue,

my people, black women,
they will continue

to go after that image
and pay more money.

- There are certain things
that one will never be.

I am a
Chinese-Jamaican-Irish-French-Sc

fat homosexual.

I will never wake up tomorrow

and be a white woman.

But for the women that
do read magazines,

and for the men that
do read magazines,

and they believe what
is on the written page,

it's very hard to live
up to those standards.

(dramatic drumbeat)

(dramatic ambient music)

- [Secretary] Good, how are you?

- The question,
"What is beauty?"

gets commonly asked

to me by patients, and
there are textbooks

from the '50s and
'60s which categorize

facial symmetry as beautiful.

- Nefertiti is an
interesting person

to talk about because
for many of us,

Nefertiti is really that
ideal person of beauty.

And in fact, the American
Society of Aesthetic,

or the ASAP Society,
uses Nefertiti

as their ideal icon of beauty.

It's actually their logo.

- We're gonna be taking a
photo today of your face.

Ready, one, two, three.

(camera clicks)

So, this is your face.

Different dimensions.

We can zoom in, see your pores,

see different
areas of your face.

If we look at proportionally
how your face is,

the height of your
nose is 49 millimeters

and you have a very
long lower face,

which is 63 millimeters.

So, we talked about narrowing
the tip of your nose.

We talked about narrowing
the width of your nose

because your nose is
too wide on your face.

So, these are just
a few changes,

but then now if we
look at your nose,

where you started
to where you're at,

there's absolutely a
difference that has occurred.

A lot of women are
trying to achieve

this frame to their body
which, in most cases,

is not achievable.

They may bring in
clippings from magazines.

Or the opposite
is, they may say,

"Do what you think
is beautiful,"

which is actually the
worst type of patient

because my idea is
different than their idea

is different than their
spouse or significant other's

idea of what is beautiful.

- Many of the aesthetics
ideal of beauty

is not someone who
is ethnic in nature.

It tends to be someone
who is a very Anglican

looking woman, which
is not necessarily

what Nefertiti looked like.

- I think it's
beautiful right now that

Lupita Nyong'o is
having her moment

and that people are
actually recognizing

how beautiful she is.

And this is

a dark-skinned sister
with short, natural hair.

And that's a beautiful
thing that she

is being exalted in that way.

- Oh, Lupita!

I just love her, love her.

And that's black beauty.

- [Interviewer] You think
she'll have an influence

on your industry?

- She's already had influence,
I think, just a bit,

but it'll be a temporary one.

It'll be temporary.

Lupita will have a
temporary influence

on the industry because,
again, it's a battle.

It really is a battle
that people continuously

speak about this and
that we see small changes

for a moment and then it stops.

- When fragrance and cosmetic
companies look at her,

I don't think that
it's in their motives

to say, "She's not
gonna be successful."

Right?

But I do believe that
they're forced to be racist,

because as much as they wanna
give her what she deserves,

they're going to have to
constantly prove her validity.

It's not about black and
white, it's about green.

- Color is one of the biggest
areas where we see it,

but it's everything.

Women are told
from, my goodness,

I mean I tell you from the top,

look at me right now.

From the top of my
head to the bottom

of my feet, from the
second I get on set,

and I'm okay with it
because I understand

the business I'm in, but
literally, if I weren't.

If I didn't have my
head on straight.

If I didn't have a
sense of who I was,

can you imagine that
every day I come in

and before I can get on camera,

I'm told there is a process
you need to go through

to get visible for us.

I gotta put on
somethin' to suck it in

and tighten it up, but
don't flatten it, though,

'cause we wanna keep
these up and out,

and we wanna keep
the booty, you know,

but not too wide, but
just a little wide,

just a curve there, but
not a curve in the front.

So, it's not just about color,

it is about the idea period
that someone is deciding

for us what is standard,
accepted, pretty.

We have to really
begin to recognize it

as it's developing
within our household,

within our school system,
within our culture, and stop it.

Stop it.

We have to stop it.

(upbeat rhythmic music)

- Honestly, everybody know
light-skinned girls stand out.

You know what I'm saying?

Just in general they stand
out, you know what I mean?

But I see people lookin'
at light-skinned girls

as being the preference,
because I put it like this.

You got a car lot of
black and gray cars

and you got a red corvette,
what's gonna stand out.

It's gonna be the red corvette.

(men chuckle)

- I think a preference is okay.

It's why do you
have the preference?

Is this because you're trying
to make yourself better

or you have a
preference in a way

that is demeaning to, you
know our people suffer

from that thing of the
light and the dark.

I have a brother
that has that issue.

He prefers light-skinned women

because he thinks that's better,

that the light-skinned
is better.

- I like to think that, man,

I'm worldwide, but my
fiancee is very light.

My son's mother is very light.

And, yeah, my resume got

a lot of light-skinned women.

It does.

And I don't know if I go
after the light-skinned women,

but I think that's
just what I like.

- To be honest, honest, I
prefer dark-skinned women.

This gon' probably kill
me out here, here, but

the dark-skinned
women that I've dated

have been more supportive.

You know, they'll stay there.

The light-skinned chicks,

you know if I got a 214 BMW,

she lookin' for
a cat with a 216.

- A lot is handed to and
given to and expected

by the pretty,
light-skinned women

as opposed to a
dark-skinned woman.

You see a dark-skinned woman,

she's ready to get her hands
dirty, and get to work.

And so, when I'm
hangin' out with them

or we're doin' dinner,
we're doin' the movies

or somethin' like that,

I see a light-skinned
woman ain't gettin' up

to go get me no popcorn.

That ain't happenin'.

I'm like, yo, I don't
wanna leave this scene,

this is crazy, go
get the popcorn.

Light-skinned woman
was like, "Please.

"You won't have any popcorn."

you know, the dark-skinned
woman be like,

"Boo Boo, you keep
watchin' this.

"I'ma go get the popcorn.

"Anything else?"

I'd be like, "Twizzlers,
soda, Reese's, everything."

- It's just how it is.

The light skin is
more of a trophy

and as a man you wanna
have a trophy girl.

When she comes out,
everybody's lookin' at you.

It's more of a prize.

With a dark-skinned
girl, I'm not sayin'

you can't get that
same prize, but,

they gotta go through more.

They have to have
other features.

Once you light-skinned,
you can really get away

with a lot of things, so.

People tend to look at a trophy,

even you see a regular trophy,

when you look at a
trophy it's light.

(men laugh)

- I have some black male friends

that just like
white girls, period.

That's just, you know.

And it's not even about
black color, per se,

it's the black attitude.

It's like they don't
wanna deal with,

Where you goin'?

Where you been?

Da da da da da.

Unh-unh, nuh-unh, unh-unh.

You don't get the unh-unh,
unh-unhs from white girls

'cause they wasn't
raised that way.

And that's usually why when
I ask one of my friends,

like, "What, you don't
like black girls at all?"

"I'm not tryin' to deal
with that attitude."

- It's not about this
superficial covering

of am I light-skinned,
am I dark-skinned,

or what it may be, it's
about the person inside.

Who is she?

And that's what I look at.

- How can we grow together?

- Exactly.

- Like, are we

into the same thing? Are we
interested in the same thing?

- Does she push me to be better?

- Absolutely.

- I think it's maturity.

- Absolutely.

- I think what it comes

down to is being
secure in yourself

and being mature enough to say

it doesn't matter
what she looks like.

- We live in a human
and a global community.

So, you meet people
who are light-skinned,

you meet white, you meet
Asian, you meet black,

and I feel that if
your heart resonates,

and the people that your
heart resonates with

might not actually be
the same skin as you are.

They might be another race,
another skin, you know.

And I feel that in
that sense, for me,

there is no, I'm not
limited as to the people

that I gravitate
towards or the people

that I'm attracted to.

I feel this all over all
other races, you know.

(rhythmic hip-hop music)

- Light-skinned girls,

they're easier to be
accepted in society.

They could walk
out on the street

and they could get a guy in
no time because of light skin.

Dark skin girls, they should
be able to get guys, too,

but for some reason they
will take more from you

as a dark skin woman
than a light skin woman.

- Successful black men choose

what they consider
to be a trophy woman

if she's light bright.

They may want the booty.

They may want the lips,
the curves, the features,

but can she be a
little bit lighter?

Because subconsciously
I think it comes from us

not even loving,
not only ourselves,

but we don't want a
woman that society

doesn't consider beautiful.

- It is true, at
least anecdotally,

that we do find
that many athletes,

folks that have access to power,
politicians, entertainers,

seem to have either non-black
or lighter skinned wives.

And part of that is
because in our society

clearly the media portrays

lighter skinned
as more beautiful.

- I guess we're doing better,

because it used to the be
the trophy was a white woman.

Now, we're getting
a little darker,

so I guess we have progressed.

We've gone from white
to sort of a cream.

Since they hold that
model as attractive

and if he's usually a
little bit unattractive,

him being with her makes
him look different.

He has a different status now.

He's just not the
little rich ugly dude.

He's the rich ugly dude
with the fine ass girl,

which kinda now makes
him better lookin'.

See, I never had
that problem 'cause

I was always good lookin'.

It's the girl that's
gettin' all the accolades.

Like, how'd she get him?

- I think when
you're a young girl,

to hear that she isn't enough,

that starts to spiral, that
as she becomes a woman,

she'll never be enough.

And it's hard then as a man

to be able to talk to the woman

who springs from
that little girl

and tell her that
she's beautiful,

because as a guy either
you're judging your scale

of what beauty is on
this false version

that's been fed to you,
or if you want something

more authentic to you and you
try to tell that woman that,

no, you are
absolutely beautiful,

she will not believe you.

(soft ambient music)

- I think that there
is a consciousness

that sees the light girls

as a trophy aspect.

I don't have to go
all the way white

(laughs)

I can go light, you know?

- A man always want a
light-skinned woman on his team.

(laughs)
It's just the way it is.

'Cause they thinkin'
about they children

and what they gon' come out,
and what they gonna look like.

Me growin' up, though, a lot
of my girlfriends were dark.

But when we would go
out, I would always

get the guys first
and then they would

get the rest of 'em
on the trickle down.

It might not have been a
light skin, dark skin thing.

It might've been who
was puttin' out more.

(laughs)

- I do have a lot of,
specifically white men

will approach me and
think that I'm a lot more,

a lot easier to deal
with because of the way

that I look, and then
when they hear me talk,

they're like, oh hell, let
me get away from this one.

This one looks like Marilyn
McCoo on the outside

but she's Florida
Evans on the inside.

(laughs)

- I don't think I
could even categorize.

You know you could put any
of my former girlfriends,

relationships in
a line and I guess

I could line 'em up as, okay,

who's lighter and who's darker,

but if I had to
think back and say,

well, was this
person light-skinned

or was this person dark, I
don't even think I've got

that recorded in my head.

There are one or two of 'em
it's quite obvious, yeah.

I was thinking, are
you light-skinned

or dark-skinned or medium?

I don't know.

It just doesn't register.

- No.

That's because you're
not African America.

- I'm not what?

- African American.

- That's true, I'm not.

- I wouldn't personally
date somebody

if he says all I date
is light-skinned women

or white women.

- But it goes the other way for
a darker skinned woman, too,

because you have, we were
talkin' about this earlier,

you have the men who will
only date darker women.

Just like, oh, I can't
date this woman...

- The black revolutionary type.

- Right.

(women laugh)

- I don't think
it's a bad thing.

I don't think
that's a bad thing.

I think they're comfortable
with themselves.

- But I'm sayin', like...

- You're still doing
the exact same thing.

That's just you being you.

- [Woman] The point
is once you say, like,

this is all I do, then
you're fetishizing.

- Right, exactly.

- [Woman] Fetishizing.

- I definitely feel I've gotten
some preferential treatment

form black men
being light-skinned.

I often hear comments
about, you know,

nothin' nowhere
near as dark as me.

I don't like dark-skinned girls.

I've gotten in arguments
with black men about it,

even though I don't fall under
what they're talking about,

I feel defensive over my
darker skinned sisters.

- They're assumption
when they meet me

is that my whole family
is light-skinned.

And then they see my sister

and they would say, "You
have dark-skinned people

"in your family."

Yes, yes I do.

(chuckles)

And how disinterested
they then become.

It's painful to find
that there are some men

who want to date my
complexion and not date me.

- There was a fantasy
about light-skinned women

which affected me
very negatively.

I couldn't walk down the street

without a man saying something,

feeling that he had the
right to approach me

or physically handle me.

It got to the point
where if I saw a man

walking down the street, I'd
have to cross the street.

- I was walking down
the street by myself

on my cell phone and I
didn't even hear a guy,

but apparently
some guys in a car

were driving by and
they were trying

to get my attention
but I didn't hear them

because I was
talking on the phone,

and out of nowhere a
beer gets thrown at me.

(glass breaking)

(tires screeching)

And they yell, "You pale bitch."

They were all black, of course,

and it was a man
that was carrying

that much anger
about a complexion

I didn't ask to be born with.

- The way men approach women,

I've met my slaves in
my day, I will tell you.

And I'm not fluent in slave,

so when a man comes
to me and says,

oh, you got that pretty hair.

You know, you look
like you mixed.

I would never have
a conversation

with somebody like that.

I think that's just,
I move on from that,

because that let's me know
where your mentality is.

- I remember my mother saying,

"The blacker the berry
the sweeter the juice,"

and I would go, "Eww.

"What do you mean by that?

"I don't know."

Because I grew up likin'
the Pretty Boy Floyds.

You know what I mean? The
light skin, the guy that's

in the mirror with me
with his curly hair

and we like, oh, can I
borrow your curling iron

or whatever, ya know?

And now, it's true.

The darker the berry
the sweeter the juice.

(laughs)

- If I were to tell the
whole complete truth,

I grew in the era
when the light man

with the good hair
was a trophy man.

I wanted one of them
because I wanted

to have good, nice looking kids.

Pretty babies as I was trained.

But it was also very clear to me

that no man wealthy,
no man handsome,

no man well-educated
would want me.

He wouldn't want me
because I was not a trophy.

(static buzzing)

(glass breaking)

- One thing that's really
struck me about mass media

in the last 30 to 40 years
is that it's been able

to sort of undermine the
black consciousness movement.

In the '60s and '70s we
were all wearing afros.

I think part of what killed that

is the fact that you don't
wear an afro in the mass media,

so it took back that pride
that we were developing

in terms of who
we are naturally.

- When images of whiteness
are the standard of beauty

and that's what we
all see, I mean,

globally at this
point, not even just,

you know, in the United States,

when we're seeing certain
images as being held up

and certain images that are
just completely omitted,

we all are impacted by that.

We all kinda drink
that Kool-Aid.

- What we're starting
to see when it comes

to advertisers and brands,

I think what they
historically have done

is they've chosen
a lighter cast.

It's well documented
in terms of how lighter

or fairer skinned talent
typically gets cast more

because it becomes more
about things are comfortable.

- Now, what we've seen
over the last 24 months,

we see this whole
phenomena of biracial

becoming the safer ground.

- Growing up I didn't
like the person I was

or my skin complexion
because I didn't see anyone

in the media look like
me until Scary Spice

from Spice Girls came out,

and I was like, wow,
there is someone who is

of light-skinned complexion
with big curly hair

that embraces who she is.

And I really valued
that I liked that.

- You can look at the names
of actresses that are bigger

and see how they're
pushed forward.

You look at the Halle Berrys,

you even look at my wife,
Salli Richardson-Whitfield,

and you see that
that particular shade

seems to be the gold standard
in terms of our women.

- When I was thinking
about making movies

the music video industry was
huge and all you really saw

were light-skinned
women with long hair.

I never wanted to have
that portrayal in my films.

It's like, the one
that's desirable

is the light-skinned girl.

- It started to be, well,
if I'm really gonna look

like these dreams I'm sellin',

not to get the black
girl that look like

the girl around the street,

but what about the
Brazilian girl?

What about the Latino girl?

You're not supposed to
be able to access those

from your hood.

So, if you do have
them in your videos

sittin' on your cars
and they're lookin' like

they're from Miami or
Puerto Rico or wherever,

that makes you shine even
more as the black artist,

the rap artist that you
are because it makes it

look like you reached
outside of your realm,

you've made it.

- I believe one artist
even had a casting call

for light-skinned women.

I've seen things like that.

Not that it hasn't been
criticized and the culture

hasn't, there haven't
been a lot of activists

who have come out and spoken
against that, but it exists.

It was there.

- I see a lot lighter
women deal with colorism,

especially in our
industry because they'll
have an audition,

and then they don't get the part

and it's a lot of times, whether
it is or not I'm not sure,

but they'll say, "I
didn't get it because

"they wanted to go with
someone who looked blacker."

Which is funny, it's the reverse

with the dark-skinned woman.

They think they're
lips were too full

and their hair was too
coarse to get the part, so.

- When I had my own
show I used to tan

three or four times a
week in a tanning bed

to get darker.

I did.

And it's funny, one of
the lighting guys came up,

I love him to death,

I love him, oh my goodness.

He goes, "Raven, I need
you to stop tanning.

"You're getting too dark
and we have to relight

"the whole entire show."

I was like, "Sorry, I was
just tryin' to be pretty."

- Producing primetime television

a lot of times we might
be in1 a situation

where we wanna make sure we
cast a dark-skinned girl,

so we're passing up the
light-skinned sisters

because we don't wanna
be accused of doing that.

And so here you might have
a very talented actress

who's being overlooked
because of her complexion.

- I remember going in
for this one production.

It was "Akeelah and the Bee"

and I wanted to play the
daughter to Angela Bassett

and the sister to Keke Palmer,

so I was lookin'
at their complexion

because all this time, people,

my agents, my managers,
people in the industry,

"Oh you're a light skin," and
then they would compare you.

Oh, light skin like Halle Berry,

but it's a curse,
struggle, and it's hard.

So, that's just in your head
when you're auditioning.

It shouldn't be, but it
was such a focus for me

that I tanned myself.

- I think my skin color
has been an advantage

in the workplace for sure.

I think if you look
at, maybe less now,

but certainly when I was
starting to work on camera,

most of the black
women looked like me.

We could've all been sisters.

Light-skinned women
with straightened hair

and a certain bob cut.

And I think that's
changed a little bit

over the last maybe 10
years, but not that much.

- In my community,
I might be perceived

as someone who has a leg up
because of the color of my skin.

In the big community

where everything
that really matters,

I'm not considered a leg up.

We all know that
human beings respond

to something that is lighter.

White people respond
primarily to blondes

with white skin, but
so does everybody else.

Being black is something
that one has to deal with

and of course the
shade of black is going

to be absolutely a part of it.

- I'm in a strange place.

I do a lot of films where,

I'm in a lot of
white TV shows and

for some reason because of that

I'm not really acknowledged
in the black community,

and I see that with
a lot of actors.

Now, if I was
doing a show on BET

or if I did more
black films, then...

(hands clapping)

- When I've had beautiful
little brown-skinned girls

look at me and say that they
wish that they looked like

Miley Cyrus, or little
black boys who wanted

to look like Justin Bieber.

It's a sickness.

- I was just on
Instagram yesterday

and just kind of was
searching team light skin,

team dark skin, and there were

so many people that were
using those hashtags.

It was actually
like 375,000 plus

using team light
skinned versus, like,

350,000 plus using
team dark skin.

- [Radio Announcer]
L.A. NAACP honored...

- Even on our morning
show, you know,

Charlamagne is
dark-skinned and DJ Envy

is light-skinned and
they go through that.

Charlamagne's
always telling Envy,

"You act so light-skinned."

'Cause acting light-skinned
for a guy means

that you're emotional
like Drake or something.

(laughs)

And you just get all in
your feelings all the time

and people like
Charlamagne would tell him

all the time, oh, now you
actin' like a light-skinned guy

and you're makin' the
light-skinned guys look bad.

It's kinda like they pit
you against each other.

And I understand it's a joke,

but some people
really think that way.

(soft piano music)

- You know the scary
thing about younger users

of social media
and even technology

is that it opens up
a whole new world

that their parents
can't control.

I have a nephew that's
actually just turned two

and he knows how
to use the iPhone.

He knows how to
unlock the phone,

he knows how to go
onto the internet,

and that's terrifying
because if you look

at all the stuff that's going on

on social media right
now, you have bullying,

you have, just,
so much bad things

it almost seems to
outweigh the good.

It's kinda scary to
know that children

younger and younger are
having access to that world.

(calm music)

- There continues to be a schism

between light girls
and dark girls

because there hasn't
been a clean, clear,

complete conversation.

- We have to be revolutionaries.

We have to love like
revolutionaries.

You know, that idea that
I was telling you about,

you know, my grandmother's
generation was about life,

my mother's generation
was about liberties,

civil rights, liberties.

Ours is the pursuit of happiness

and we have to pursue it with
the spirit of a revolutionary.

And we can not be happy if we
are at war with each other.

We can not be happy if we are
at war with our very skin.

- If we are to
have some healing,

we have to embrace
our role in it.

Not just what they did
to us, but what now

we do to us.

- Nobody's gonna heal us.

We have to heal ourselves.

We've got to
deconstruct this problem

and find out what's going
on, because the world

is not gonna stop
perpetrating this lie.

It's to their advantage.

- We must save ourselves.

Hurt people hurt people and
black people are hurting.

And I think that we as a people

must stop pointing fingers.

We have to no longer
blame the system,

the media, the white
man or the white woman,

end embrace one
another out of love.

Light-skinned sisters
and dark-skinned sisters,

I think they have
to join each other

in a sistership and
leave bullship at home.

- You know, when someone
says, you know, I just feel,

I'll give speeches.

People stand up,
"I just wanna say

"I just feel like one day
I don't even see color

"and one day we're just
gonna be in a place where

"no one sees color."

I think that's stupid.

I do see color.

Black people are black people.

Latinos, Asians.

Seeing color is
not inherently bad.

I think seeing a problem
when you see color

is inherently bad,
but there's no problem

in seeing color.

People are different.

They have great stories
about where their people

have come from, which,
as a journalist,

I find incredibly interesting.

- It's a challenge.

It really is a challenge and
my light-skinned brothers,

they talk about, well,
light used to be in

but it's comin' back.

Why do we measure
ourselves by the color

of our skin instead of, as
Martin Luther King says,

the content of our character?

- People can do better
when they know better,

but when they don't know better,

it's crazy for us to
expect them to do better,

and even crazier for us to
expect other people to teach us.

And so I think
that that's an area

that we have to address
inside the church,

how we view one another
and what we value.

- We're not in a
post-racial society.

We're in a society
that continues

to use any facet

of whatever exists
socially, politically,

and economically to create
leverage for groups of people.

And I don't want my
daughter and our children,

both in black America,
white America,

and every other part of
America and the world

to think that because
of their color,

they have some
decided advantage.

That really would be a tragedy.

(somber music)

- So, as a physicist,

there's two ways to
think about this.

The first is that
we're all made up

of the same bits and
pieces that were made

in these mind boggling
episodes in the universe.

And so, at some level,
these distinctions

are very small sort
of perturbations

if you try to start thinking
about the really big picture

of the universe and
where we are in it.

But I guess maybe it's something
to do with human nature

that we really like
to categorize things.

And sometimes when
we categorize things,

it helps us understand
the world around us

and sometimes it
actually gets in the way

of us seeing the deeper truth.

- We are the same
and we are connected.

We are 99.9999, we are
the same, we're all,

so I believe one
living, breathing God

and we're all cells,
all connected.

If God were the ocean,
we'd be cups of God.

I think that we are all one.

- Healing happens when we
realize that we are all equal.

So, we tap into the brain
on the cellular level.

When we start to do this,
the experience alone

of treating all the
same, will alter

the neuronal pathways
in the brain.

I know this is hard for people
to believe, but it's true.

You ever had any
good news before?

You were havin'
a really bad day,

all of a sudden you
got some great news

and it changed your entire mood?

Do you realize what
happened to you?

That good news went
into your brain,

traveled to your
neurotransmitter dopamine

and the good news
alone lifted your mood.

We need to infuse
this kind of dopamine

into our children.

Not just the dark-skinned kids,

but the light-skinned
kids as well,

so that they're
taken off the hook.

- If you wake up every morning

and you tell yourself
that you are beautiful

whether you feel it or not,

eventually you will
start believing it.

So, if you walk into a
room and you're like,

I'm beautiful, I am me,
there's no one else like me,

I am original, people
will feed off of that

and they would
automatically stop and looK

and be like, who's that girl?

- I don't think you have to
live with anything forever.

I think colorism can be
healed, but it has to,

it has to start in the home.

- It's gonna take for
us to be a role model.

A lot of people don't
wanna be a role model.

I'm not that.

I wanna live my life.

But the truth of the matter
is you're a role model

when you're an auntie.

You're a role model when
you're a grandmother.

You're a role model
when you're a big cousin

because you have to
stand for something

because everybody
is lookin' at you

when you're the elder.

When you're the oldest one,
you're leading by example,

so you gotta be able
to stand for something.

- I love my people.

I love all the shades.

God made me this way
so I have to be happy

with who I am, and
it's a journey,

and I embrace my
brown-skinned sisters.

I love them

and I hope that they embrace me.

And I want my
brown-skinned sisters

to stop lookin' at the
light-skinned sisters

and like, mm, she
think she cute.

No she doesn't.

I heard that with my girlfriend,
"She think she cute."

'Cause she swung her hair?

It was in her face.

Or the way she walks?

She doesn't think she
cute, she's confident.

But I bet you that same sister's

at home cryin' on the floor
'cause we got the same issues.

- Whether light, whether
dark, whether mixed, whether,

there's only one of you.

Don't waste your time thinkin'
that you're not good enough.

Don't waste your time

thinkin' that you're ugly.

Don't waste your time
because somebody else

is thinkin' the same thing.

So, if you're thinkin'
you're beautiful,

then you can pass it
off to somebody else.

- I say consistently
that the highest religion

on the planet is truth,
and most of us don't live

in truth when we're looking at
the aesthetics of ourselves.

And we look in the mirror,
we have not learned

how to love ourselves.

And in us

not being able to
love ourselves,

we're gonna lack
that self-esteem,

we're gonna lack
that self-confidence,

and that's gonna be a human
plight until the end of time.

- I think the bottom
line of everything,

even when we talk about
healing this colorism issue

in the world, that it starts
with healing yourself,

'cause really, you're the
only person you can control.

And so, work on yourself
and treat yourself,

talk to yourself the
way you would talk

to somebody who
you're trying to heal.

- Pretty is as pretty does.

If you act nice, then
that means you are pretty,

but if you act mean,
that means you're ugly.

- You should be glad
that you are who you are

because God is never wrong
and makes you how you are

and you should never doubt that.

- There's a passage in
the Bible that says,

"My people perish for
lack of knowledge."

If we don't know who we are,

then we're gonna get turned
away in every direction

based on lack of
information, when in reality,

you know, we are
the first people.

How can we hate who we are?

- [Woman] Go run.

Who's gonna get it?

- I got it!

- Our youth is our future,

and they're our
generation to come.

They're our next presidents,
our next firefighters,

police officers,
lawyers, entrepreneurs.

So, we want to ensure
that our youth understand

the sense of community an
the importance of community

and that loving and embracing
everyone for who they are,

whether they're
dark-skinned, light-skinned,

pink, purple, Asian,

olive, any complexion
or any kind of

physical attribute,
that they're able

to just appreciate a
person for who they are.

- Until we become
willing to have

a clear, clean,
complete conversation

in the kitchen, at the
workplace, in the boardroom,

at the church, at
the social club,

a clear, clean,
complete conversation

where we have the opportunity
to hear and embrace

and acknowledge one
another's experience,

I can't be mad at light girls
because of my experience

as a dark girl.

I have to learn how to
understand and recognize

her experience may
have been different,

but in the end we all black.

We're people of color.

(piano music)
(birds chirping)

♪ This little light of mine ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ This little light of mine ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ This little light of mine ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ Let it shine, let it
shine, let it shine ♪

(acoustic guitar music)

- I got my new
guitar in the house.

♪ I am light, I am light ♪

♪ I am light, I am light ♪

♪ I am light, I am light ♪

♪ I am light ♪

(chuckling)

♪ I am not the things
my family did ♪

♪ I am not the
voices in my head ♪

♪ I am not the pieces of
the brokenness inside ♪

♪ I am light ♪

♪ I'm not the mistakes
that I have made ♪

♪ Or any other things
that cause me pain ♪

♪ I am not the pieces of
the dream I left behind ♪

♪ I am light ♪

(dramatic music)