by La Juana Whitmore

Recently, one of my favorite movies of all-time came on television. I made my daughter sit down and watch School Daze by Spike Lee (set at a fictional historically black college) and I observed her expressions throughout the movie, her face showing confusion, delight…anger.

This issue has once again reared its ugly head, in the form of a party in Columbus, OH called “Light Skin vs. Dark Skin” aka “The Most Anticipated Party of the Year”.

Sadly…if THAT’s the most anticipated party of the year, then they really need something else to do in Columbus (read a book, take a class, start a business, volunteer…ANYTHING).

But let’s not single out Columbus, further investigation of this problem reveals similar parities being thrown in Detroit, MI, Queens, NY, & Philadelphia, PA.

As some of you may remember Spike received a lot of opposition from the Black community for airing our dirty laundry. HA! Like it was a secret. These issues have existed for many years, and although we may like to think that we’ve kept them to ourselves, we have not been living in America alone, there have been many millions of witnesses, or perpetrators, depending on how you look at it.

There are three major conflicts presented in this film:

1. The Jigaboos vs. The Wannabes…or the dark-skinned blacks vs. the light-skinned blacks.

2. Bougie vs. Ghetto… or the financially up-and-coming, educated black folks vs. the standing-on-the-corner in front of the liquor store black folks

3. The feelings of African-Americans towards our relatives in Africa

–The Jigaboos vs. The Wannabes…or the dark-skinned blacks vs. the light-skinned blacks–

In School Daze, Spike interestingly brings this issue to a head in the musical number “Good and Bad Hair”, where two groups of college women go back and forth about the pros and cons of certain black hair textures.

The deeper conflict here begins with the separation of the field slaves and the house slaves, where the lighter-skinned blacks (most likely the offspring of “massa” and one of the field slaves) worked in the house, and the darker skinned blacks worked and lived outside in the fields. In 1712, West Indies slave owner William Lynch delivered his “master”ful divide-and-conquer plan to keep slaves under control to the troubled plantation masters in the U.S. Southern states. By exploiting our natural differences (skin color, age, etc.) he was able to create the tension, hatred and mistrust needed to keep our ancestors working and not organizing.

It continues at the turn of the century with some lighter-skinned blacks passing for white, and is even enabled by organizations like The Blue Vein Society, whose membership was believed to be extended only to those African-Americans whose veins were visible through the skin of the inner arm.

I was born in 1970, and existed young and blissfully ignorant for about 16 years, until it became evident to me that my complexion was not a favored one. Remember the 80’s and 90’s when bright brothers were all the rage? If your skin was like Michael Jordan’s and you DID NOT play basketball, you were getting NO love! Although America is beginning to recognize the beauty of our dark men…the women, well, we have never been en vogue.

So the contention exists, within our families our communities and organizations. How many of us have said or heard someone say “Girl, you know I got a little Indian in my family”. How many of us have a sibling, or cousin whose hair is more straight or less straight than ours? Being one of the darker-skinned women at my sorority’s Regional meeting, it was evident that not much had changed from the pictures I had seen of our light and bright founders.

Exploring this topic means talking about everything from the kinkiness and length of your hair to the width of your nose, the color of your eyes, and the fullness of your lips. Or better said…just how diluted are your African features due to race mixing?

–Bougie vs. Ghetto…or the “Financially Up-and-Coming, Educated” black folks vs. the “Standing-on-the-Corner in Front of the Liquor Store” black folks–

If skin color and hair texture weren’t enough, we now have a rapidly increasing socio-economic gap to deal with, Ghetto vs. Bougie, Uncle Tom vs. Sheniqua. Spike exposes this issue when a group of male students go into a part of town for a meal. They encounter some of the local men who accuse the boys of thinking they are better, because they are educated.

This is a struggle where using “proper” English is thought of as “acting white”, and being ghetto fabulous is an embarrassment. Many of us are probably not much more than one generation removed from the ghetto, and most of us have family who are still there. As the things that these two groups of African-Americans have in common becomes less, the tension increases. Accusations of “forgetting where you came from”, and statements like “Why didn’t she give her child a ‘normal’ name?” are happening right now, all over America.

– The Feelings of African-Americans Towards Our Relatives in Africa–

Finally, we now have to come to grips with our feelings about our African brothers and sisters, and thus ourselves. In School Daze, a group of politically active students protest the school’s lack of action to racial injustice in Africa. One of the “Wannabe” male students explains to the leader of the group that if he disagrees with what is going on, he should just “go back to Africa”.

Now, let’s be real, there aren’t many of us who would go live in Africa if given the opportunity. Outside of what is shown to us by the very biased American media, most of us don’t know enough about Africa to know what to truly expect. From what is PURPOSEFULLY shown to us, Africa is an AIDS and famine ridden continent, with sweltering heat, and half naked people…doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?

The shame and pain of slavery within our community is evident through the lack of oral history preserved within our families regarding that time. I can only assume that former slaves were more than ready to forget about ever having been a slave, and prepare for the opportunities that awaited them. Missing oral histories, changed names, separation of African families, and deficient public records, have all resulted in very few stories like Roots, where we know exactly from where we came. Have you ever talked to a white person who can tell you that they are Irish and Scottish, with a little bit of British mixed in? The stories they are able to tell of their family’s first generations to come to America, and of their first visit to the homeland of their ancestors are simply amazing. The pride that comes from knowing that information could be life changing for many of us, and would certainly cause us to view our distant relatives in a different light. I have been researching my family history for many years. When I started I knew of no one else who was doing the same. Although it is difficult to uncover information prior to the early 1800’s, I am proud to speak with more and more of us who are curious and experiencing the joy of discovering things about our ancestors that we never knew. Just think, being able to visit our blood relatives in Africa…what if we could do that?

Let’s talk about this…what are your thoughts and feelings on our dirty laundry, and if you’re not black, is this all news to you, have you always known, what do you think?