Colorism is a form of discrimination based on skin tone in which people with lighter skin receive preferential treatment than those with darker skin. Thus, light-skinned people have more privileges relative to dark-skinned ones in various institutions and spaces throughout society (e.g. workplaces, educational institutions, healthcare, criminal justice, and media); these are either explicitly outlined and enforced through laws and institutional policies, implicitly via social norms and codes of conduct, or both. While colorism as an abstract concept could be biased against lighter skin toned individuals rather than darker skin toned ones, due to its relationship with racism and classism discussed below, it has manifested almost unilaterally as the privileging of lighter skin over darker skin. And while individual prejudices against lighter skinned individuals certainly do exist, colorism as a social system focuses on society-level biases that are sanctioned and assumed to be true on a large scale.
The historical causes of colorism around the world have different roots. In places impacted by the trans-Atlantic slave trade or colonization by Western European countries, colorism can be thought of as racism's and white supremacy's insidious sibling. The differential treatment regarding social, legal, and economic privileges colorism maintains was reinforced via slave owners' preferential treatment to house slaves versus field slaves. Field slaves were forced to work outside for long hours often under grueling heat and faced the harshest of treatment and brutality from slave owners. the outside exposure darkening their skin, making it clear what kind of slave they were. House slaves however, by virtue of having to do housework over fieldwork, had comparatively easier lives, as they avoided the back-breaking physical labor of field work, had nicer material living conditions, and looking presentable to the white guests they served became important. In addition, lighter skin for a slave was also an indication of mixed race ancestry (almost exclusively from male slave owners sexually abusing the enslaved women they owned). While the majority of mixed race children born from such relations were treated no different than other slaves, others were brought into the home and had their parentage recognized by their fathers, who gave them an education and sometimes even freed them from slavery.
In modern times, whether by an internalization of white supremacist ideas of white racial superiority or as a defense mechanism to protect one's community from further marginalization, it is not uncommon and indeed highly likely to see colorism perpetuated by those racial and ethnic minorities that are directly harmed by it. While skin tone is the main focus, colorism amongst black and Afro-descent people has broadened over time to include other phenotypical features common to those of African ancestry, including: tightly coiled, afro-textured hair; larger noses and wider nostrils; and bigger, thicker lips. The changing of trends and status symbols amongst non-black people in the West, like the adoption of tanned skin and lip injections, also impacts the extent to which these other features are considered undesirable, though. The 1960s "Black Is Beautiful"
movement and the natural hair movements of the 1960s and 2000s also caused these shifts.
However, an even older strain of colorism exists that comes from class discrimination as opposed to racial discrimination. Here, the logic is that darker skin is associated with the poor and the working class, who in more feudalistic periods, had to work the fields and did not have the luxury of staying indoors and out of the sun. Therefore, to the nobility and moneyed classes, darker skin was a very clear indicator that one was of an undesirable, lower class. While several different countries and civilizations have had this form of colorism as part of their society, in modern times it is much more common throughout Asia.
That is not to say there is never any overlap between the two dominant strains; the disparities of wealth between countries often falls on color lines, tying race to class globally. However, when perpetuated within a single ethnic group or community, one cause is more likely to be dominant over the other.
Colorist behaviors come in many different forms and can show up in all aspects of life. In the United States, one infamous way colorism was perpetuated and maintained amongst African Americans in the 20th century was through the "Brown Paper Bag" test. If a black individual was not lighter than a brown paper bag, they would be barred entrance to elite African-American social institutions like sororities, public spaces, like clubs and churches, and many people-facing jobs in the service and film industries. Given Hollywood Beauty Standards, colorism has also impacted hiring practices, representation, and the likelihood of success for groups and individuals in media. The practice of "whitewashing," in which people are made to have a lighter skintone in media either through makeup, lighting, or digital alteration in post-production, plays a big role in perpetuating this bias against darker skintoned representation in media. Whitewashing also includes making a character in an adapted work appear much lighter than they do in the source material, sometimes even going so far as to Race Lift them completely and make them white, even if that source material is Real Life, like a Biopic. Plays Great Ethnics discusses the closely related phenomenon of tanned white and racially ambiguous actors playing a range of ethnic characters, rather than simply casting actors of that ethnic or racial group.
Due to importing more enslaved Africans than any other country during the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the resulting large African population this created, Brazil developed its own form of a society-wide colorist practice, referred to as "racial whitening", which has since been adopted or developed organically throughout Latin America and Oceania as "blanqueamiento". The idea behind racial whitening is to "improve" or completely eradicate the black race in Brazil through interracial coupling between white and black people. Brazil's racial boundaries place far less emphasis on ancestry than in the US,note so social class also plays a huge factor, making social mobility an often secondary method of racial whitening.
Outside of this, the billion dollar global skin whitening and lightening industry historically relied on colorism to sell its products with numerous advertisements juxtaposing miserable and undesirable dark skinned people with happy and attractive lighter skinned counterparts, often using "Before" and "After" Pictures. Interestingly, this industry has only a small market space in the US in modern times, despite the US's history with colorism and many brands being subsidiaries of well-known American or Western companies like the Fair and Lovely brand and Unilever, likely because of colorism's racist roots there. However, it has a huge market share in South Asia, India especially, due to the country's historical use of caste systems to structure society and the ways colorism was enmeshed within that system.
Because of sexist double standards regarding women and beauty (see Men Act, Women Are, Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty, Women Are Delicate and Delicate Is Beautiful), colorist beauty standards tend to come down much harsher on women than men, though male stars are not immune from this standard either. Male and female idols throughout East and Southeast Asia are often ridiculed in the media and by netizens for appearing too tan. When black female characters appear in media, they often have straightened hair, straight hair extensions, or wear straight hair wigs; if they do have curly hair, it will often be of a looser curl pattern than the kinky, coily type that is predominant amongst African descended people. Similarly, prominent Latino and Asian characters in stories are more likely to be portrayed by lighter skinned and white Latinos / lighter skinned East Asian actors as opposed to darker skinned / Southeast and South Asian individuals, respectively. While there has been organized movements for more representation of minorities of all forms in media for decades, more recent calls focus on diversity within minority groups as well to explicitly challenge colorist norms and practices.
But Not Too Black is the In-Universe depiction of traditional colorism in media, whereas this page simply describes the phenomenon. But Not Too White describes colorist behavior against pale skin in works. See also Race Tropes, Media Diversity Tropes, Media Adaptation Tropes, and Characters and Casting to find tropes that are frequently related.
