“if You’re Light You’re Alright”: Light Skin Color as Social Capital for Women of Color

Hunter, Margaret

doi:10.1177/0891243202016002003

Cited by 158 publications

(323 citation statements)

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“…This is not meant to suggest that Black women with fairer complexions are equally oppressed under colorism. It remains evident that darker-skinned Black women endure more widespread and measurable social disadvantages when it comes to employment, education, relationships, and psychological development (Hunter, 2002). What I am instead drawing attention to is the way that colorism can also negatively affect women of lighter-skin tones within the Black community who are denied their experience as racialized people of color because they are not accepted as authentically or fully Black.…”

Section: Color Names and Color Notionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Colorism to Conjurings: Tracing the Dust in Beyoncé's Lemonade

Davis

2018

Taboo

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Colorism creates relentless tension and pressure in the lives of Black women. Pop-star Beyoncé Gisele Knowles-Carter is an interesting case in the discussion of colorism because her career has expressed a rich intimacy to Southern Black culture and female empowerment while also playing into tropes of the mulatta "fancy girl," whose relative proximity to whiteness adheres social value within mainstream culture. Finding aesthetic and thematic parallels between Beyoncé's recent project Lemonade (2016) and Julie Dash's cult-classic film Daughters of the Dust (1991) I draw a critical connection between Yellow Mary Peazant and Beyoncé, the prodigal child and the licentious "post-racial," pop-star to argue that while Lemonade may not present the same critique of exclusionary Black womanhood present within Daughters of the Dust, reactions to the Beyoncé's visual album and the "Formation" music video inadvertently demonstrate the longevity of harmful colorist prejudices and the disparaging of Black female sexual and creative agency within the Black community. This article engages conflicting reactions between the "Formation" music video and Lemonade visual album, as well as some of Beyoncé's earlier works, to consider the continued role of colorism, as it intersects with racism and sexism, to construct exclusionary notions of Blackness that attempt to restrict the expressivity of those considered "outside" of Blackness. Through a barrage of specifically Black feminist conjurings, Lemonade draws upon the legacy of Daughters of the Dust to break through the colorist barriers placed upon the Black female body while practicing diasporic melancholia to link the trauma of the past and the struggles of the present to articulate grievances and express desires for improved Black future.

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Section: Color Names and Color Notionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Colorism to Conjurings: Tracing the Dust in Beyoncé's Lemonade

Davis

2018

Taboo

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“…Non-whites have lower levels of education, occupational prestige and income (Grodsky & Pager, 2001;McCall, 2001) and weaker social ties to networks and institutions that assist in the process of asset accumulation compared to whites. The fact that whites, prefer to live, learn and work with other whites instead of non-whites is one of the more prevailing theoretical perspectives used to explain racial and ethnic differences in human capital and social capital (Emerson & Yancey, 2001;Hunter, 2002;Krysan & Farley, 2002).…”

Section: A Critical Review Of the Sociology Of Race And Wealthmentioning

confidence: 99%

A home of her own: an analysis of asset ownership for non-married black and white women

Sykes

2005

The Social Science Journal

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“…La belleza hegemónica alude en la actualidad al cuerpo sano, estilizado, joven, y sobre todo, blanco. Dicho estereotipo somático ha sido divulgado particularmente por los medios de comunicación (Hunter, 2002(Hunter, , 2011Shucman, 2012). Además, los medios de comunicación en el país exhiben mayoritariamente cuerpos, tanto de mujeres como de hombres, con apariencia caucásica, es decir, con rasgos fenotípicos de la población "blanca".…”

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Percepciones y prácticas corporales estéticas de un grupo de jóvenes universitarias Afrodescendientes de Cali

Piedrahíta

2013

Rev.CS

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Este artículo presenta los principales resultados de un estudio cualitativo sobre los sentidosy prácticas corporales elaboradas por un grupo de estudiantes Afrodescendientesa propósito de su propio cuerpo y apariencia. Se discute cómo este grupo de jóvenesestudiantes reproduce parcialmente ideales hegemónicos de belleza transmitidos socioculturalmente,y en esta medida recrea un modelo estético híbrido que valora la bellezanegra en reciprocidad con los estándares estéticos difundidos globalmente.

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“if You’re Light You’re Alright”: Light Skin Color as Social Capital for Women of Color

Cited by 158 publications

References 0 publications

From Colorism to Conjurings: Tracing the Dust in Beyoncé's Lemonade

From Colorism to Conjurings: Tracing the Dust in Beyoncé's Lemonade

A home of her own: an analysis of asset ownership for non-married black and white women

Percepciones y prácticas corporales estéticas de un grupo de jóvenes universitarias Afrodescendientes de Cali

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