"Colorism" Still Thrives
Over the summer, Matthew Harrison, a doctoral student at the University of Georgia, released the results of a study showing dark-skinned blacks at a significant disadvantage for employment.
Harrison studied 240 psychology students and found that even if they possessed higher educational achievement and had more qualified resumes, dark-skinned blacks were less likely to get the job than their light-skinned counterparts.
'The findings in this study are, tragically, not too surprising,' Harrison said when the study was released. 'We found that a light-skinned black male can have only a bachelor's degree and typical work experience and still be preferred over a dark- skinned black male with an MBA and past managerial positions, simply because expectations of the light-skinned black male are much higher, and he doesn't appear as 'menacing' as the darker-skinned male applicant.'
In September, 'A Girl Like Me,' an eight-minute documentary produced by 17-year-old film student Kiri Davis, showed Davis duplicating the 'doll test' used in the Brown vs. Board of Education case that outlawed legal segregation in the schools.
Among children in a Harlem, N.Y., day care center, 15 of the 21 children surveyed in 2005 preferred the white doll over the black one.
History tells us that during slavery, the tone of a black person's skin ultimately affected his or her status.
