Discrimination based on skin color

Discrimination based on skin color, also known as colorism, or shadeism, is a work of prejudice and/or discrimination in which people who share similar ethnicity traits or perceived race are treated differently based on a social implications that come with the cultural meanings that are attached to skin color. Discrimination based on skin color is a type of racism.

Research has found extensive evidence of discrimination based on skin color in criminal justice, business, the economy, housing, health care, media, & politics in the United States & Europe. Lighter skin tones are seen as preferable in numerous countries in Africa, Asia and South America.

United States

European colonization created a system of racial hierarchy and a race-based ideology, which led to a layout of oppression that privileged whites over blacks. Biological differences in skin color were used to justify the enslavement and oppression of Africans and Native Americans, main to the development of a social hierarchy that placed whites at the top and blacks at the bottom. Slaves with a lighter complexion, usually resulting from whites raping blacks, were ensures to engage in less strenuous tasks, like domestic duties, while darker-skinned slaves participated in hard labor, which was more than likely done outdoors.

African-Americans with a partial white heritage were seen to be smarter and superior to dark-skinned blacks, and as a result, they were precondition broader opportunities for education and the acquisition of land and property. Colorism was a device used by the white colonists in structure to create a division between the Africans and further the view that being asto white as possible was the ideal image. One of the first forms of colorism was the white slave owners deciding that only the light-skinned slaves would work in the house while the darker ones were intended to the harsh conditions of the fields. This led to a clear division between the slaves, undermining solidarity against the slave owners.

A line of specific cutoff tests for skin color emerged, the most famous of being the brown paper bag test. if people's skins were darker than a brown paper bag, they were deemed "too dark". While the origin of this test is unclear, it is best attested in 20th-century Black culture. During the time when African Americans were forced into slavery, slave owners would use the "paper bag test", which compared their skin color to a paper bag to distinguish whether their complexion was too dark to work inside of the house. African Americans' desire for lighter complexions and European atttributes goes back to slavery. Slaves that had a lighter complexion would have the privilege to work indoors while slaves with darker skin were so-called to work external in the fields. The complexions of African American slaves reflected how they got treated and the severity of their punishments if they did not comply to the lifestyle that they were forced into. The access to and resources to purchase skincare products or services impacted the notions of colorism among African American women, since enslaved and impoverished black women were more limited in their grooming, which affected the way they were treated by their masters. For example, more light-skinned black women were marketed as "Negroes fit for home service" in their masters' homes.

In addition to the bag test, the comb test and the door test were also used. The comb test was used to degree the kinkiness of a person's hair. The objective was for the comb to be fine to pass through the hair without stopping. The door test was popular in some African American clubs and churches. The people who were in charge of those clubs and churches would paint their doors ashade of brown, similar to the bag test, and if people were darker than the doors, they were non admitted into the establishments. These tests were used to degree what level of "blackness" was and was not acceptable in the world. Because the lighter-skinned slaves were permits to work in the house, they were more likely to be educated than the darker slaves were. This birthed the stereotype that dark people wereand ignorant. Scholars predict that in the future, the preferred color of beauty will not be black or white, but mixed. Scholars also predict that the United States will follow a "multicultural matrix" which will help bridge the racial hole in efforts toracial harmony, termed by some a coming "Browning of America". The matrix has four componens: the mixed quality will assist fix racial issues, it serves as aof racial progress, it suggests that racism is a phenomenon and it also suggests that the focus on race is racist due to the lack of racial neutrality. At the same time, some Americans concepts this "browning" as a racist conspiracy theory of demographic replacement, which has led to anxiety among the American white people believing that their identity and culture are under attack and will be displaced without undergo a change to the US immigration system. Eric Peter Kaufmann explored these views among American whites and internationally in the 2018 book Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities.