Back When You Were Coloured And I Wasn't
One of the things that I have come to realize is that humanity is plagued by the same sicknesses no matter where you travel. Sometimes it is as if the virus that is under control (not eliminated) in one place is only beginning its deadly attack in another place.
I have recently come to enjoy reading biographies, something that I stayed away from for years. Two biographies (one an autobiography) that I've had the pleasure of reading this year were "Privilege And Prejudice: The Life of a Black Pioneer" the autobiography by Dr. Clifton Wharton and Wil Haygood's "Showdown:Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination that Changed America". Both of these books are a must for those who desire to add to their library inspiring books about Black influential leaders.
I won't spend time telling about these books, as the synopsis can be found on Google or Barnes & Noble. However, there was something that both of this books touched on, sparking a thought in my ever thinking mind. While these books were both about Black men, these men came from a once sub-ethnic group that I could never belong to. They belonged to a group that was created by American Whites to bring contention and division among those of shared African heritage. Marshall and Wharton belonged to that superior group of African descendants called Coloured or Colored.
Now, I have to admit that as I write this I have a deep resentment (I refrain from saying "hate") towards that sociological ideology that has promoted color divisions within an ethnic group. In my honest opinion, it's evil and meant to destroy the seed of life from the inside out...it is meant to divide so that the whole can be conquered.
I was born in the mid 70s. Just around that time America's children who were of African heritage where moving from the term Colored to Black, and somewhere in the 80s some would come to embrace the term African American as a means to try and connect to a homeland and culture long forgotten to our understanding.
Now this late reference to Colored was not the same as the earlier one that Blacks are now ashamed to talk about. In fact if you look up the history of the term Colored in relations to "race" in America you will get the later broad ethnic category that was later replaced by Black, followed by African American. Dig a little deeper, you will find many books (fiction and non-fiction) which give you the other usage that was a thorn in the side of America's Black community, especially in the South.
The more ancient term shared the same or similar definition as much of colonial Africa. While it did not have the same legal elevated privileges that one finds in Apartheid South Africa, the term Coloured had the same egotistical superiority complex that still exist in the Rainbow Nation.
To be fair, there were many Coloreds who refuse to see their skin or their obvious mixed heritage as a ticket to privilege. Yet there were far too many who did and others who used it as a means to deny their African heritage all together.
Growing up I remember hearing stories from both of my parents how the mere difference of shades of Blackness could determine your possibilities in ones family, education, and future. My mothers family, five siblings, complexions consisted of high yellow (also known as red) to inky black due to the various European relations and native American heritage. Fortunately, there were no complexion privileges tolerated by my Grand or grandfather.
But my father, who's family was mostly dark brown or black in complexion, often talked about the unspoken rule that existed - if you are bright you are right, but if you are black get back. Looking back now I think this was a constant internal struggle for my dad, who is very dark skinned. While he was comfortable around whites, he seemed to take on a different attitude (though never rude or hostile) around light skinned Blacks.
As I have read books over the years, and now reflect on those readings I can understand the danger that old usage Colored presented to the whole of the Negro community. Coloreds were almost always guaranteed a better life than their dark skinned Negro counterparts. Many times they had a better chance at obtaining decent housing, a respectable job, or even education. They belonged to the important social clubs and organizations in the Negro community. And light skinned Blacks were even the preferred faces during the Civil Rights movement of the 50s.
Coloreds had obtained a special privilege in America that was meant to separate them from the more deprived Niggers. Yep, it was common for those who embraced their social superiority based on mixed race or complexion to refer to black folks down the street as Niggers, just as the whites would. But a Negro of dark complexion would never be allowed to use that vulgar term towards a light skinned Colored. It just wasn't proper.
Though the term Colored would come to identify the whole of the Negro population during the 50s and 60s, the mindset of complexion or mix-heritage superiority would still be a subconscious privilege. Take the Montgomery Bus Boycott for instance. Recently, I was reminded, through a play, of the untold true story of the events that lead up to that boycott. On March 2, 1955 a young girl named Claudette Clovin was arrested for not giving up her seat on a Montgomery bus. She challenged the law that had her arrested. But she was the wrong complexion and didn't have the right family pedigree needed to be the face needed to shake things up. So nine months latter a much lighter skinned educated member of the NAACP became the right face for the rebirth of the Civil Rights Movement. Young Claudette's features were not right for the face of pain and injustice, though those who suffered the most looked more like her than they did Mrs. Parks.
Somehow that idea of superiority found its way into the struggle for justice. While the term Colored was no longer about complexion, the idea of those who were light skinned (or clearly the descendants of those of mixed heritage) still had the same effect in the Black community.
Since the raping of African slave women, Blacks have been indoctrinated to value those of certain complexions over others. There has remained a power struggle for what is beautiful among the Black community. Is lighter more beautiful than darker shades? Is black or darker skin the true color of pride and beauty? In some ways this plight of ignorance continues to make it's way in color jokes or arguments today.
This idea of Coloured superiority has plagued nations and communities from the Americas to Africa to South Asia. And those who are blinded by its privileges are often fooled into thinking that it gives them one up, when in reality it only keeps them down. How much stronger the whole would be if it came together. Blacks in America are blessed that they did not fall for the foolery to the extent that other nations have, but we still suffer from the wounds it left us with.
A few years ago I was sitting over breakfast with two men of mixed heritage in South Africa. The younger of the two, still feeling his Apartheid superiority, referred to me during a deep discussion as "you blacks' with a slight smirk. Mentally I thought to myself, according to his government I would be considered coloured, but since he lacks knowledge of American history I felt no need to school him at the time. The older gentleman half paying attention to the conversation, took offense to the younger mans slight of the tongue. What he said next left the younger man speechless. He told him that they were equally if not more black than me because they had African blood. Not from long ago, but just a generation or two ago. The older man said that South Africans who shared a common bond of Black African heritage needed to celebrate their Africanness instead of continuing to be ashamed of it. What I later found to be very ironic is that now days I hear white South Africans in the country and in the States call themselves Africans, while those of mix-heritage still hold on to a term that was meant to separate the whole so that the whole would not be powerful enough, in number or mentally, to regain power.
Here in the States, many who would have been called Colored 70 or 60 years ago have now come to embrace being Black, understanding that a little privilege is still no privilege. In the eyes of those who saw Negroes as an inferior race instead of an equal ethnic community in the larger American community, Blacks of mixed heritage were still inferior to them and not worthy of any more equality than the darker skinned Blacks. And with this understanding Blacks of all complexions realized if we are to have equal rights we would have to break the evil that had divided us and become one beautiful rainbow. As a community our complexion flows from milky white to smooth jet black.
Someday, I hope that the unity will happen for America as a whole, that we will embrace the diversity of cultures, ethnicities, and complexions as we do regional diversity. Not becoming color blind, but celebrating the variety of God's creative taste. And I pray and hope the same for all those other countries who still fail to see the evil that has been disguised as skin color privilege to keep the whole fighting against itself in order to keep them separate and unequal.
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