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Author Topic: Color Complex in the US Virgin Islands  (Read 23400 times)
QuasiFem
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Posts: 11


« on: April 17, 2006, 03:38:58 PM »

Greetings to all.

I am from the US Virgin Islands and I've really noticed how prevalent the "color complex" is here and in the General Caribbean. My mother is black and is of intermediate skin tone whereas my father is Indian and has the darkest most beautiful skin tone I have ever seen. When I was in elemenatary school, people would always walk up to me, touch my hair and ask me "Are you mixed with puerto rican?". This would always upset me I never understood why people would always assume that without me telling them anything. I also remember how people would stare at my father. If they didn't see him up close, his hair and facial features weren't visible and they would always assume that my mother was Latino or mixed. I remember a girl once said "Damn...you father looks like he purple or someting" This always angered me as well. My father's hair is staight. He considers himself to be Black and so does my mom.

Aside from that, I've also noticed how anyone whose hair is more on the straight side and whose skin is more on the light brown side is considered to be beautiful. I don't think this stigmatism has very much to do with European "beauty" because while my classmates would oggle at ligth skin and wavy hair most never thought white people were beautiful. This is where my confusion comes in. What is the point of this color complex? What I learned in college is that this mentality is a post-slavery condition...ie. lighter skinned slaves were better treated than darker ones.

My mom is from St. Lucia and speaks french creole. In her dialect...there is a word for light skinned women  "chabin". I remember once how a calypso singer made a song about how he only dates chabins and that women who were too black were not for him because he needs to see them in dark.  Now that I'm older and much more mature I am utterly disgusted with these behaviors and mind-states. It's so horrible. I think darker skinned people are the most beautiful of our race.I wish people in the islands and abraod would come to realize how this mentality favors self-hate and discrimination. I'm always hurt at dissemniation  within our race. It's what I think is our greatest downfall.

My question to everyone else is How do you fix a problem like this?  How does it stop?
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QuasiFem
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Posts: 11


« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2006, 03:41:14 PM »

What I'm looking for is just opinions and theories and overall views. If anyone is angered, upset, or doesn't agree with anythign I say. That's ok and all I ask is that you present your qualms in a respectful way. I'm only here to learn.

Much appreciation
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mwanaafrika
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« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2006, 01:17:26 PM »


My question to everyone else is How do you fix a problem like this?  How does it stop?

Good question, I have been thinking, researching and formulating a solution to that. To solve such a problem, we gotta get to the root, examine how the problem has developed and been perpetrated, by who, why and where.

To begin with, We must realise that all people with "black" complexion are one and belong to one AFRO RACE. They share/have a lot of similarities, from physical features to diverse but linked/related languages and cultural heritage.
In particular, the Africans (Excluding all Non-"blacks" like berbers/Arabs e.t.c.) in Africa & Diaspora, have so much similarities to all other "black" races from South & south east Asia, Australasia, south pacific and the American continent at large. I have met and charted with some brothers and sisters from Fiji and Papua New Guinea and there folk stories mention that their ancestors originated from the land of the "blacks", a sunny land. My Dalit friends, the true Indians, will tell you that they are the first peolpe to occupy India before they were conqured and discriminated by the so called aryan-indians.
   
IN MY RESEARCH, I'AM COMING TO A CONCLUSION THAT THERE WAS ONLY ONE AFRO RACE & DEFINATELY AFRICANS WHO SPREAD IN ALL THOSE AREAS, EVOLVED DUE TO CLIMATIC CONDITIONS/CHANGE & MAYBE INTERMARRIAGE WITH OTHERS AND HAVE SINCE FORMED AFRO RACE SUB GROUPS AND ARE STILL AFRO.


Well the root of this problem as many of ya know can be traced back to slavery and the colonial error in Afrika as well as tha diaspora. The colonisers/emperialists used divide and rule tactics, discriminated, separated and grouped us so they can easily control and rule. They did this in many ways e.g using other ethnic group(s) to rule other group(s) in the same colony by brain washing them that they are a better stock bcoz they is lighter/darker/taller/straighter nosed e.t.c. On the continent of America, the Afro-Euro or any mixture with AFRO where given a special treatment and used to enslave fellow race men. This became stereotype and passed on to the next generations thru the colonial & emperialists error. After physical slavery, the same problem had persisted and passed on to today and our race men and women have been fighting it.
The whiteman did not sit and plan this, he used whatever means possible to keep Afro man in slavery for many years. Divide and rule is how he conqured our ancesters and hes still using it on us, for it is impossible to rule a united people. Nevertheless hes been writting biased history of our people to further confuse and divide us. Look at the history taught at sku, all pirates and even thieves who stole jewels from our ancestors graves/resting place are said to have been "good great men" whilest all our civilisation is termed barbaric and totally ignored/left out. Slave traders glorified and recorded that they discovered this river, that lake and that falls. What can be more barbaric than cutting open pregnant Afrikan women, burning them alive for entertainment, hunging and amputations to instill fear and prolong slavery. Or Greeks & Romans sentecing people to death by stonning.


So, COMRADES,  we got a job to do, we gotta fight this to the end and free ourselves. Lets do it and save the coming generations. We don't need a group or a leader to do this, we can do it wherever we are as individuals or a small group, its our call. Its ya call Bother. Its ya call Sister. This is something we can do for our race.


ALUTA KONTINUA ! ! !



AFRO MEN UNITE WORLD WIDE ! ! !



Mwanaafrika.
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gman
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Posts: 417

AfricaSpeaks


« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2006, 07:09:59 PM »

Wuh gyein on sistuh... an interesting question you raise... there are a lot of reasonings about this topic on the main board (Rastafari Speaks)... if you search for threads with "colorism" in the title you should find some of these discussions. They have gotten quite heated sometimes... check em out.
You live in the V.I. now? You must get to see Midnite and Dezarie and all dem all the time. I jealous of you now girl... LOL
Queen Mary lives... you know that story deh, of Queen Mary? That is who Dezarie talkin bout when she sing bout "destroy the enemies and burn their city..."
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Still_an_Empress
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Posts: 58


« Reply #4 on: June 14, 2006, 04:21:54 PM »

Well I am also from the Virgin Islands, and has seen many of the things you speak of.  My family are "born Crucians", meaning that there is more than one generation of folks born and raised in St.Croix.
 I am a dark skinned woman, but most of my family is rather light, some even looking white.  One of my aunts is just as light as alicia keys,if not lighter, and her mother is dark like me and her father is dark as well, with no puerto rican or any other island influences, her child even looks like a white girl. 
I have witnessed a lot of the favoritism with my lighter family members, coming from the older generations of my family, who themselves are rather dark.  I think around their timings, the early 1920s, such feelings of light-skinned people being held in higher regards was all too common.  It's a sad realization, and I dont accept ot make excuses for it.
My lighter family accepts me and treat me just fine, but when they meet darker people for the first time, their not so welcoming all the time. It's ironic,  I have a cousin who is notorious for doing this, yet she is married to a very dark skinned man, and shuns the idea of any of her kids coming out with his complexion (seeing that all of her kids have her complexion).
At 1st I thought I was the only person that had this in their family, but a couple of my friends go throught the same thing
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mwanaafrika
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« Reply #5 on: October 29, 2006, 11:46:51 PM »

Well I am also from the Virgin Islands, and has seen many of the things you speak of.  My family are "born Crucians", meaning that there is more than one generation of folks born and raised in St.Croix.
 I am a dark skinned woman, but most of my family is rather light, some even looking white.  One of my aunts is just as light as alicia keys,if not lighter, and her mother is dark like me and her father is dark as well, with no puerto rican or any other island influences, her child even looks like a white girl. 
I have witnessed a lot of the favoritism with my lighter family members, coming from the older generations of my family, who themselves are rather dark.  I think around their timings, the early 1920s, such feelings of light-skinned people being held in higher regards was all too common.  It's a sad realization, and I dont accept ot make excuses for it.
My lighter family accepts me and treat me just fine, but when they meet darker people for the first time, their not so welcoming all the time. It's ironic,  I have a cousin who is notorious for doing this, yet she is married to a very dark skinned man, and shuns the idea of any of her kids coming out with his complexion (seeing that all of her kids have her complexion).
At 1st I thought I was the only person that had this in their family, but a couple of my friends go throught the same thing

This is a clear example of mental slavery and the problem it creates. The sad part is that the enemy has almost faded away from the picture and its now our people perpetrating it coz of passing on this mental slavery from generation to generation. What we now need is to cut out this cancer of mental slavery and a racial purification where lighter skinned Afros only marry the darkest Afros. Most of all radical education to these perpetrators is urgently needed coz they are the cancer and a stubb in the back of our race.

PEACE, LOVE & HARMONY TO OUR MIGHTY RACE.

AFRO FOREVER.
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