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Gemille Sleweon

Professor Malcolm Campbell

MW 8am-9:15

03/30/2015

The Mulattoes, the Negroes and the Color Complex

Many people chose to believe that skin color bias no longer exists, but if you are an

African-American, you are no stranger to the “…embarrassing and controversial” (Hall, Russell,

Wilson, 1) subject that is intra-racial color discrimination, commonly known in the black

community as ‘colorism.’ In the early 1980s, novelist Alice Walker coined and defined the term

‘colorism’ as “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same race people based solely on their

color” (Hall, Russell, Wilson, 1). Colorism or ‘the color complex’ goes so deep into African

American history that it may just be a little too deep to get rid of.

The obsession with color can be traced back to the 1600s when Europeans sailed to

Chesapeake Bay, arriving in Jamestown, Virginia to start the first English colony in the New

World (Hall, Russell, Wilson 9). Elementary school history lessons tell us that the Native

Americans welcomed the Europeans with open arms, but we know much better than that now.

Because the Natives knew the land better than the Europeans, they did a pretty good job of

resisting their attempts to enslave them. They could easily escape and survive. This lead colonist

to finding other sources of cheap labor, so Dutch traders brought Africans from the West Indies

to Virginia (Hall, Russell, Wilson 10). By the 1700s, slavery was a well-established institution in

the colonies.

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Race mixing became wide spread as Africans, Native Americans and Europeans began to

mate and reproduce children of many different skin tones and other physical aesthetics. It gets a

bit confusing as to how this happened because “English setters and Indians rarely seemed to trust

each other long enough to mate” (Hall, Russell, Wilson 10), but when you begin encapsulate

ideas of rape, forbidden love, power and privilege, it all makes sense.

In the American Colonies, white indentured servants and black slaves worked side by

side in plantations, and because they lived such similar lives, they often developed relationships,

many of them romantic. The shortage of both African and white women contributed to the

widespread of race mixing in early America. The ratio for blacks was about three men to every

two women, and the ratio among whites was about three men to every woman. (Hall, Russell,

Wilson 12). Free white men began to marry African slave women and enslaved black men began

to do the same with white women. Because of the shortage of black women, black men also

began marrying Native American women (Hall, Russell, Wilson 12). Anthropologists calculate

that one fourth of blacks in America have some Indian ancestry (Hall, Russell, Wilson 12).

Interracial relationships between blacks and Indians did not really matter to white colonists, but

black-white race mixing threatened them. They wanted slavery to be morally accepted and in

order for them to do that, they had to keep the two races separate.

Legislators in Virginia began to pass anti-miscegenation statutes. “…They proclaimed

that sexual union between whites and blacks was twice as evil as fornication between two whites,

and that sex with Negros was equivalent to bestiality” (Hall, Russell, Wilson 13). One of the

biggest questions that was raised during this times was “what about the mulattoes?” Mulattoes

are people of mixed black and white race. Blacks were considered of lower life form, and whites

were considered that superior race, but with all the interracial relationships at this time, biracial

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children were of course the products. Colonist in Virginia voted that mulatto children would take

after their mother as opposed to the traditional English law that the child takes after their father.

However, not all mulatto children have black mothers; many had white mothers and those

children were considered free (Hall, Russell, Wilson 20).

Quickly, the number of free colonial mulattoes grew and they were treated as outcasts

because they were “visible reminders of the state’s failure to keep the races separate” (Hall,

Russell, Wilson 23). Soon in upper southern colonies like Maryland and Virginia, legislators

decided that any person even with one drop of black blood would have the same legal status as a

pure African (Hall, Russell, Wilson 25). This statute is commonly known as the “one-drop rule”

(or one drop theory) of racial identity. This classification created a color-caste system that still

lingers today.

Deeper in the South, in places like Mississippi and Georgia, mulattoes were not always

the children of black slaves and white indentured servants; some had white parents of upper class

families. Some plantation owners freed their mixed children (who were often their only

children) and helped them start their own businesses (Hall, Russell, Wilson 30). White legislators

who had fathered mulatto children decided to put them in their own separate class because they

felt they were better than full negroes, but not as good as whites. This created a divide within the

colored community. Mulattoes were glad to be a part of the higher classes, but feared that whites

would associate them with the poorer full-blooded Negros. They desired to only marry other

mulattoes or whites to avoid their children from being dark. This class distinction was also

common among Creoles. Creoles are people of French, Spanish and African descent. They

acquired a lot of the same benefits as mulattoes because of their non-black ancestry.

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Many Negros envied the lives of mulattos and Creoles while others rejected their

snobbish ways. Although mulattoes were still considered black under the one-drop rule in many

areas, they were considered above full blooded blacks and they thought of themselves as such,

and this is what colorism stems from. Traditionally, the color colorism involved light skinned

Blacks’ rejection of dark-skinned blacks. However, the complex also shows up in the form of

dark-skinned African Americans hating their light skinned brothers and sisters for being “too

good” or not being black enough. The color complex also includes attitudes about hair texture,

nose shape, and eye color (Turner 39).

In the early 1900s, an infamous phenomenon known as the ‘brown paper bag test’

surfaced. The ‘brown paper bag text’ was what author of The Paper Bag Principle: Myth and the

Motion of Colorism Audrey E. Kerr described as objectionable and taboo because its color is the

marker that distinguishes light skin from dark skin (Kerr 272). The brown paper bag test was a

test used by upper class blacks to decide acceptance into many social circles such as clubs,

organizations and churches. If you were the same complexion as the bag or lighter, you were

admitted and socially accepted, if you were darker than the paper bag, you were less desirable.

The brown paper bag test is another reiteration of the misconception that lighter skinned blacks

are better than dark skinned blacks.

Beauty standards have played a big role in the continued obsession with color

discrimination in the black community because colorism is not limited to just skin complexion, it

includes hair texture and facial features as well. Countless black girls share the fantasy of being

white (Townsend et al. 274) which makes sense because they live in a society whose ideal

beauty is blond hair, pale skin and blue or green eyes, traits that embody everything the average

black woman lacks. The desire for lighter skin is arguably universal. In places like Central and

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South America, India, Asia and even Africa, women use skin bleaching creams to lighten their

skin for the acceptance from their society. (Harris 55) According to psychiatrists Price Cobbs

and William Grier, authors of Black Rage, every American black girl experiences some degree of

shame about her appearance. There is no shortage of products that are especially designed for

black women. Black women often use hair relaxers/perms to straighten their hair, products which

have the opposite effect on white women, and use flat irons and pressing combs. Now, don’t get

me wrong. I’m not saying that black women who relax or flat iron their hair have identity issues

and want to be white, but for a long time that was the reason it was being used.

Overall I feel like this was a good draft! I feel like you delve deeper into how colorism

affects both sides of African-Americans. Also how colorism affects younger girls, like expand on

the black girl experience with shame about their appearance. Love the background of where

colorism stemmed but could expand on how it still plays a role today light skinned vs. dark

skinned stereotypes, derogatory names, etc. Also add to the ending, give more examples of ways

that African-Americans have attempted to alter their appearance to appease Eurocentric beauty

standards.

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Works Cited

Turner, Beth. "Colorism in Dael Orlandersmith's Yellowman: The Effect of Intraracial Racism

on Black Identity and the Concept of Black Community." Southern Quarterly 50.3 (2013): 32,

53,126. ProQuest. 3 Mar. 2015.

Kerr, Audrey E. "The Paper Bag Principle: of the Myth and the Motion of Colorism. “Journal of

American Folklore. 118.469 (2005). Print.

Harris, Angela P. “From Color Line to Color Chart: Racism and Colorism in the New Century”,

10 Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository. Afr.-Am. L. & Pol'y 52 (2008). Print.

Townsend, Tiffany G, Anita J. Thomas, Torsten B. Neilands, and Tiffany R. Jackson. "I'm No

Jezebel; I Am Young, Gifted, and Black: Identity, Sexuality, and Black Girls."Psychology of

Women Quarterly. 34.3 (2010): 273-285. Print.

Russell, Kathy, Midge Wilson, Ronald Hall. The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color

among African Americans. New York: Doubleplay, 1992. Book.

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