What is Dark Skin? Depends On Which Race You Ask. (NSFW)

Hello readers, let us talk race, once again.

"Tall, Dark and Handsome" is a phrase used to describe a very attractive guy. Whenever I usually heard the phrase it was from a white person but when I saw the guy that was referred to as "dark" it was an olive skin tone person. An example of this is actor Antonio Banderas. Now, if you ask me Banderas is far from dark but I must now realize the definition varies from race to race.

So you must be curious as to why I am writing about this but an incident I witnessed and experienced recently sparked me to address this. So let me set the scene. At a place of business a dark-skinned black lady (customer) approached a white Latina lady (manager). After a ten minute exchange, both the customer and manager tried to figure out the employee who performed the transaction. The customer referred to the employee as "an Asian with glasses." It turns out the employee was not Asian but Latina.

As I work at this place of business I was trying to help identify the employee. Before figuring out who the employee was, we(the customer, manager and myself) resorted to identification by skin tone. This is when the entire situation turned left. The customer referred to her as light-skinned but my manager referred to the employee as dark-skinned. The customer was confused so my manager turned to me to try to explain that she thinks that someone of my complexion is dark-skinned. My manager walked away to further correct the customer’s dilemma. The customer started to become difficult as she was personally offended by the dark-skinned comment, on top of the unclear situation. The things that customer said about my manager after she walked off: stupid person this and racist white woman that.

Now, I will be honest because I had a, "I beg your pardon moment?" when my manager referred to me as dark-skinned. This was the first time anyone had said that to my face. Whenever I have been around white people growing up race probably was considered but never mentioned so I never heard a white person state their classifications of what makes a person light or dark-skinned. On the contrary, colorism within the black community is alive and well. So it was always made known to me that I was light-skinned, from a black perspective. Let it be known that I have no issue being labeled as dark it just caught me off guard. Furthermore, my manager had no ill intention with her comment. Sadly it is ingrained in us by racial history that for a lighter-skinned person to refer to someone as dark is an insult.

This was another "OH, OKAY" moment in the sociology of race, here in the United States. I always thought of dark-skinned and light-skinned by skin tone across all races rather than someone being a dark or light-skinned person, for that particular race. This was a very interesting encounter that opened my eyes. I now understand what "tall, dark, and handsome" means to a white person. I now understand that society has affected us in such a way that “the white is right, brown is a frown” mentality has allowed us to think less of our deeper pigmentation. Lastly, I now understand that race will always be a never ending debate because simple racial definitions mean completely different things to different races.