Why Dark Skin Black Girls Aren’t Getting Married
- Thread starter Kanky
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KaciaLN12
Well-Known Member
I can’t really see the study. But, how is skin tone quantified?? What is considered “light” and “dark” varies regionally, ethnically and racially. I’m around an NC44-45 and I’m considered “light-skinned”, but I’ve seen celebrities my exact shade classified as “brown-skinned”. I was called “brown” when standing next to someone lighter.This underlined piece was the main reason for her conclusions in the article. That data is very flawed and way out of context IMO. I went back to look at the research and that stat applies to women under 30. He also left out that medium tone black women are only married at 30% during that same timeframe. In other words, Dark women 23%, medium women 30%, light women 55%.
His data should have concluded that the majority of all women (regardless of skin tone and race) will absolutely get married but at that darker-skinned women on average marry later age than light-skinned black women. Which marrying later is actually a very good thing IMO. Medium-skin women and dark-skinned women were not much different in the percents, but the mediums tend to get overlooked.
Also the data is from 30 years ago, I sure hope things have gotten better since then but who knows.
And the sample sizes from this data were off. 200 light skin women, about 700 each of medium and dark skin women, which to me is not accurate enough.
Hopefully this link posts right. Page 35 is where the data came from.
Study link
I don't think it's posting right, but if you have access to the full article it's pretty interesting. In some instances the medium skinned women were married at lower rates than our darker skinned counterparts.
And also, where did he find pictures to go along with marriage records in order to discover the couple’s skin tone?? Something doesn’t seem right about this study...
Sarabellam
Well-Known Member
whew I could write a novel. Colorism definitely exists. To summarize in broad strokes that ignore many nuances, I think that all early childhood experiences to early teen years shape how we interact with the opposite sex moving forward. I think that the true difference is between internalizing vs externalizing rejection and adoration. Society as a whole pits all women against each other and an unattainable ideal. If you are white you have whatever baggage comes from your upbringing. If you are not white then you deal with a degree of television, family, adults, and kids pointing out that you are less than bc of your heritage. The darker you are the more that heritage is apparent. (You also have to deal with all that other baggage that comes with being a woman.)
Families come in a variety of skin tones and I’ve found that the more that skin tone affected how someone’s family and community treated a child, the more they grew up to be affected by this when they begin dating. Parental income, education, marriage status, and even culture can’t predict this.
I am middle skin tone, born to a “yellow” mother and dark skinned father. I’ve met my father’s and mother’s ex’s and they spanned the spectrum of skin tones. My older “pretty” sister wasn’t pretty because of her skin or hair texture, but because she was into hair, make up, clothes, and the skinny thick esthetic. She and her friends were like the black lower middle class “clueless” clique in high school from my elementary school eyes. She is a shade or two darker than me and I still think of her as the “pretty, fun one” for all of these reasons. Me, I clean up well and have more than my fair share of pretty girl stories from both before and after being married. These were more frequent when I made the effort to dress up but I always have my nose stuck in a book and eye on the prize for being the first graduate “blah blah” in my family. (This is already getting long winded)
I was not aware of colorism until middle school to early high school. I have a huge family with so many shapes and sizes that no one was called the pretty one just based on skin color. My sister and I were one of the darkest on my mom side and my sister was still considered the “pretty, fun to be around one” amongst my family. When I was finally exposed to colorism it was presented as the “crazy ideas” of the girls from a neighboring high school. I was told not to worry about not getting along with a group of girls at a party because “ they are from ___ high school and think that they are better than people because they are light skinned”. My response was ‘oh, so they are dumb, ok’
Fast forward to college and I made friends with beautiful women of all shades. If a guy made a comment related to colorism or behaved in a way that made me feel less than valued I thought “ eww he’s gross. There are a lot of broken people in this world” I lumped these guys into the same category as the nearly college drop outs, f**** boys, and creeps. And went on my merry way shaking my head about all the crazy boys on campus.
I also have a few brothers (one of which has serious untreated psych issues that were often expressed in relationships) and watched them and their friends interact with girls and women as they grew older. I saw what they said to a lady’s face vs behind their back. The one who was the most charismatic also had the most toxic relationships, favored white women and had serious untreated psych issues. This probably also colored my perspective. ( hello self discovery/ reflection)
Anyway, I barely batted an eye at a pretty boy unless he did something to peak my interest then followed through with showing me how he valued me first. Why waste my time unless he showed me that he could grab and keep my interest? I was busy. My DH even had to schedule our first date 3 weeks in advance because I had a particularly busy schedule that Fall.
I never put on a front that I was too tough, smart, pretty, or good for xyz. Everyone that I talks to me walks away thinking that I’m a great listener, sweet, and if anything too nice. My DH’s friends even had a nickname for me that included the word saint. But when it came to men/boy’s intention I was sharp as a whip and politely side stepped my way to greener pastures by the first or second signal of BS.
I watched as some of my beautiful friends on both sides of the spectrum ignored warning signs and were left with their wheels spinning when the rest of the crazy came out. This wasn’t their fault. They couldn’t see what I see and some red flags aren’t apparent unless you can read between the lines. I only offered advice if asked because otherwise I could look like I was hating on over half the guys that they were interested in. In our late teens/ early twenties we were all some version of a hot mess. I only had tolerance of a slim subset of this mess. If they wanted to roll the dice I wasn’t going to stop them from winning the frog transforming into a prince lottery.
I considered colorism talk and blatant preferential treatment of women that conform to Caucasian beauty standards to be a blessing in those early stages. I have little to no skin in the game and he just revealed the tip of the crazy iceberg. How would he treat my cousins, friends, or even future children if they don’t meet his brown paper bag test? What if I decided to have an outdoors hot girl summer? Would I suddenly become less valuable? What values would he instill in potential future sons? No thank you.
I’ve seen so many pretty, light skin and white women being strung around by “high value men”. Nope. The secret that the less attractive ones know is that you don’t have to be a standard 8-10. You just have to find the one that will look at you and treat you like a queen by your standards. For some that just means being connected to money, others being adored, and some getting the best looking guy. They are busy identifying and attracting that one guy that is attracted to what they have to offer and will give them what they want in return.
The guys who makes backhanded colorism comments in the courting phase are probably “negging” the light skinned chick next week about how her boobs/butts are too small. That white woman is probably being fed some line about how his raggedy ways and crazy ideas about the world are “cultural” and pressuring her to do x,y,z sexual thing to prove that she can do it just as good as a black girl. When people want to act right, they will. A guy who is making rude comments in the skin category are making uniquely rude comments in other categories with other women.
Even if a man subscribed to colorism. If he were worth desiring in all other categories then it would be extremely hard to ID this fact unless you really know him. You might see him on dates with darker 10’s, but they never lead anywhere meaningful. The women wouldn’t know why they didn’t work out as he would always be a gentleman and treat them as if they have value from beginning to end. Essentially he would “act right”. His longest and most successful relationships would just be with lighter skinned women. But then his actions also wouldn’t be rubbing salt in the wound of the darker skin women that he meets.
Rant over. I learned a bit about myself in the process .
Families come in a variety of skin tones and I’ve found that the more that skin tone affected how someone’s family and community treated a child, the more they grew up to be affected by this when they begin dating. Parental income, education, marriage status, and even culture can’t predict this.
I am middle skin tone, born to a “yellow” mother and dark skinned father. I’ve met my father’s and mother’s ex’s and they spanned the spectrum of skin tones. My older “pretty” sister wasn’t pretty because of her skin or hair texture, but because she was into hair, make up, clothes, and the skinny thick esthetic. She and her friends were like the black lower middle class “clueless” clique in high school from my elementary school eyes. She is a shade or two darker than me and I still think of her as the “pretty, fun one” for all of these reasons. Me, I clean up well and have more than my fair share of pretty girl stories from both before and after being married. These were more frequent when I made the effort to dress up but I always have my nose stuck in a book and eye on the prize for being the first graduate “blah blah” in my family. (This is already getting long winded)
I was not aware of colorism until middle school to early high school. I have a huge family with so many shapes and sizes that no one was called the pretty one just based on skin color. My sister and I were one of the darkest on my mom side and my sister was still considered the “pretty, fun to be around one” amongst my family. When I was finally exposed to colorism it was presented as the “crazy ideas” of the girls from a neighboring high school. I was told not to worry about not getting along with a group of girls at a party because “ they are from ___ high school and think that they are better than people because they are light skinned”. My response was ‘oh, so they are dumb, ok’
Fast forward to college and I made friends with beautiful women of all shades. If a guy made a comment related to colorism or behaved in a way that made me feel less than valued I thought “ eww he’s gross. There are a lot of broken people in this world” I lumped these guys into the same category as the nearly college drop outs, f**** boys, and creeps. And went on my merry way shaking my head about all the crazy boys on campus.
I also have a few brothers (one of which has serious untreated psych issues that were often expressed in relationships) and watched them and their friends interact with girls and women as they grew older. I saw what they said to a lady’s face vs behind their back. The one who was the most charismatic also had the most toxic relationships, favored white women and had serious untreated psych issues. This probably also colored my perspective. ( hello self discovery/ reflection)
Anyway, I barely batted an eye at a pretty boy unless he did something to peak my interest then followed through with showing me how he valued me first. Why waste my time unless he showed me that he could grab and keep my interest? I was busy. My DH even had to schedule our first date 3 weeks in advance because I had a particularly busy schedule that Fall.
I never put on a front that I was too tough, smart, pretty, or good for xyz. Everyone that I talks to me walks away thinking that I’m a great listener, sweet, and if anything too nice. My DH’s friends even had a nickname for me that included the word saint. But when it came to men/boy’s intention I was sharp as a whip and politely side stepped my way to greener pastures by the first or second signal of BS.
I watched as some of my beautiful friends on both sides of the spectrum ignored warning signs and were left with their wheels spinning when the rest of the crazy came out. This wasn’t their fault. They couldn’t see what I see and some red flags aren’t apparent unless you can read between the lines. I only offered advice if asked because otherwise I could look like I was hating on over half the guys that they were interested in. In our late teens/ early twenties we were all some version of a hot mess. I only had tolerance of a slim subset of this mess. If they wanted to roll the dice I wasn’t going to stop them from winning the frog transforming into a prince lottery.
I considered colorism talk and blatant preferential treatment of women that conform to Caucasian beauty standards to be a blessing in those early stages. I have little to no skin in the game and he just revealed the tip of the crazy iceberg. How would he treat my cousins, friends, or even future children if they don’t meet his brown paper bag test? What if I decided to have an outdoors hot girl summer? Would I suddenly become less valuable? What values would he instill in potential future sons? No thank you.
I’ve seen so many pretty, light skin and white women being strung around by “high value men”. Nope. The secret that the less attractive ones know is that you don’t have to be a standard 8-10. You just have to find the one that will look at you and treat you like a queen by your standards. For some that just means being connected to money, others being adored, and some getting the best looking guy. They are busy identifying and attracting that one guy that is attracted to what they have to offer and will give them what they want in return.
The guys who makes backhanded colorism comments in the courting phase are probably “negging” the light skinned chick next week about how her boobs/butts are too small. That white woman is probably being fed some line about how his raggedy ways and crazy ideas about the world are “cultural” and pressuring her to do x,y,z sexual thing to prove that she can do it just as good as a black girl. When people want to act right, they will. A guy who is making rude comments in the skin category are making uniquely rude comments in other categories with other women.
Even if a man subscribed to colorism. If he were worth desiring in all other categories then it would be extremely hard to ID this fact unless you really know him. You might see him on dates with darker 10’s, but they never lead anywhere meaningful. The women wouldn’t know why they didn’t work out as he would always be a gentleman and treat them as if they have value from beginning to end. Essentially he would “act right”. His longest and most successful relationships would just be with lighter skinned women. But then his actions also wouldn’t be rubbing salt in the wound of the darker skin women that he meets.
Rant over. I learned a bit about myself in the process .
MissNina
Libra Girl
Late to the party, but exactly. While her body is BANGING, she is not facially pretty to me. I’m sorry. It is very likely the way she holds her mouth…when I saw her, I got it.
Two things can be true: Colorism is a very real & historical-validated thing that can have a measurable effect on one’s life in varying ways, AND it can be easy to default to colorism (or anything else) as “thee” issue if you’re blind to the fact that overall you simply may not be facially appealing to many, including your suitors of choice.
I think acknowledging this would free her in a lot of ways.
kupenda
Well-Known Member
Boom. And there it is
Evolving78
Well-Known Member
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Evolving78
Well-Known Member
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