Team lightskin vs Team Darkskin

In America, there is definitely discrimination involving one or a few ethnicities towards another. This discrimination is visible in American culture; you can see the acts of discrimination in social media, in schools, and all around us. There are often rallies and social media movements to fight against the social injustice.   But many Americans don't talk about the discrimination between individuals of the same race.

Black Americans have gone through and continue to go through various types of discrimination. African Americans fight for their rights against other races, but don't speak out on the discrimination within their own race. Light-skinned and dark-skinned African American’s issues of division began during American slavery in the south.

Slavery

During slavery the Africans were separated by skin tone. According to Allison Samuels, a writer for Newsweek.com, "Since the days of slavery, skin color has been used as a tool of separation and preferential treatment within the black community." Job specialization was based on the shade of their skin. A dark-skinned slave would work out in the fields and the lighter skinned slave would work in the home of the slave master. The working conditions between working in the fields and working in the home were drastically different. Light skinned slaves were given better working conditions like being able to have meals like the slave owners just smaller or not having to work in the hot sun all day to  Darker skinned slaves had poor working conditions and often suffered more physical abuse. Multiracial Individuals,a online history textbook, says "Darker-skinned slaves tended to work in the fields, while lighter-skinned slaves tended to work in the house."
  Although, slave owners still considered lighter skin slaves as beneath them, they overall treated the light skin slave better.

Slave masters did on most occasions rape their female slaves and often produced children. According to Bowdoin.edu,  a website for the college of Bowdoin in Main,"Slave women were forced to comply with sexual advances by their masters on a very regular basis." The babies would be born lighter because of their mix of ethnic background. Many times these children would become the house slaves. This was a way for the Slave owners to still treat them like property, but at the same time give them somewhat of an upper hand to cover the shame and guilt for, without openly admitting what they had done.  After all the law was one-eighth drop of black blood made you black.

 In the Now

Overtime the issue between light skin and dark skin black Americans has grown to more of an issues between the two sub categories and not an issue with whites. In the black community, many believe that light-skinned African Americans are prettier or more beautiful than a darker African American.  The slavery separation of the shades of skin started a self-hatred within the American black community. Light skin or "mixed" African Americans are viewed as superior to individual identified as black American.   Black Americans wanting to have at least some percentage of another race within them to seem more attractive has become todays culture.

African American women have also started to bleach their own skin to be seen as more beautiful and lighter. These chemicals used to bleach the skin are very dangerous and harmful, but many black women will ignore the possible health issues to be viewed as beautiful with in their community. According to WebMD,  "1 out of every 4 skin lighteners made in Asia and sold outside the U.S. contained mercury."  When mercury is applied to the skin there are numerous dangers that can lead to skin cancer or in some cases death. For the most part, black Americans feel that the whiter you look or seem the better of you will be.  Although the light skin culture is predominantly seen as superior of dark skin black Americans, overall the white American culture is viewed as superior to black culture when being view by the majority of the African American community.

Recently, the issue has become a war between light skin and dark skin African Americans. The most popular hashtags for this issue is, #Teamlightskin and #TeamDarkskin. When looking up these hashtags on social medial it is easy to access arguments on why one shade of skin is better than the other. Memes stereotyping a certain shade of an African American can also be found. You may also find darker skin individuals shamming light skin individuals for not looking "100% black" Some memes on this issue can even be suggesting certain shades have certain sexual preferences. the list goes on, on what can be found looking at these hashtags.

In conclusion, my question is how can we, as black Americans fight against other races who discriminate us if we are discriminating our own people? No matter what we see, other races will treat us the same no matter the shade. African Americans fight back when discriminatory actions against their own race take place in America. But, when it comes to discriminating within their ethnic community, African Americans allow this enigma from slavery define their lifestyles by continuing to separate themselves.