Drew Shane-Daniels of MUSED magazine, discusses colorism black gay men internalize:
He has to be light-skinned. Forget stability and the ability to fully love me back, but light-skinned first.
In casual dating conversations and probes, I have heard more than a handful of black gay men describe their ideal mate as a “light-skinned” man – period. If you are a frequent Tumblr, Instagram or even MyVidster aficionado like me, you will see the obsession and attention light-skinned men receive on and offline.
The dichotomy between the myriad complexions of black people and preferences has become a hot topic. Although something that should be revered as a beautiful thing has become exploited. Nevertheless, if you do not believe in colorism, I am sure you will stop reading this article at this point. I am well aware that this will be likely taken out of context, but I assure you that is not my objective.
In fact, colorism has existed for centuries both within and outside of the black community. It has become a term defined when discrimination is based solely on skin complexion. In many cases – or all – favor is shown toward those with lighter skin over those with darker skin. Research has linked colorism to lower incomes, longer prison terms and fewer job prospects for darker-skinned people. In our community, those with lighter complexions are the ones most desirable and even more socially accepted. Back during slavery, it is not a secret the slave owners would treat those with fairer skin complexions better, a relative expression considering the times. If we take a glimpse outside of slavery and look at other expressions in history like the brown paper bag test, colorism is well alive in the gay community.
Today, for black gays, this emerges in the term blatino. Four deactivated profiles and five years later, I pretty much blame BGC Live for this as I have never heard of that being a term used to describe a group of people before in my life. Not that I do not believe there are actual people who are Afro-Latino, I find it disheartening for someone who’s parents are both black try or desire to pass as blatino.
Does identifying with blatino - or even redbone – up the ante? Of course. Have we become so obsessed with exotic ethnic groups that we despise our own? Certainly. Even our party promoters and pride organizers negate the fact that there are non-light-skinned attractive guys. Pick up any flier and you will notice the typical poster child used to drive traffic to the event. I can bet he is light-skinned or blatino with a snapback and host of tattoos. Once you get inside the club, look around and you will see the demographics extend to the contrary. Perhaps, that’s why we have a hard time meeting people and would rather tweet in the club because we’ve been bamboozled into believing it will be full of individuals like the stolen Tumblr photos featured on the flier. Isn’t it ironic? Of course, I could suggest a host of reasons this could hold true or effective, but that would just be creating poor justifications.
It is much harder to combat homophobia and racism when we’re internalizing these stereotypes we battle on a daily basis. When it comes to labels, black gay men have enough enough battles to fight outside our community. Becoming our worse enemy isn’t one.
The crime is not having a preference; the true culprit is denying and being ignorant to these issues that exist. If we can acknowledge this, then we can move on to having a conversation promoting self-love not filled against the laminating European standards. We are blessed to come in many hues, so let’s appreciate them all. Falling into the entrapment of self-hate because of your skin tone will leave you feeling rejected and scorned. All of us have experienced our fair share of unwarranted and offensive comments about characteristics that define us as a person. From our skin complexions, weight and even education status, everyone has a checklist of desirable traits that we will never measure up to or understand. If not, continue dating my brother.
[MUSED]