4 ms·
> * For those who don’t know, there used to be a racist practice by some fraternities, etc called a “brown bag test” where a brown bag was used to judge skin co
by tablespoon 4y ago
> * For those who don’t know, there used to be a racist practice by some fraternities, etc called a “brown bag test” where a brown bag was used to judge skin color for entry. This made brown bags racist, which in turn made brown bag lunches racist.
I think that's a inaccurate and misleading description. I think the correct term is "colorism" not "racism," and it sounds like those distinctions were more significant within the black community than outside of it. I don't think a stereotypical anti-black racist would accept a black person into a social club if his skin was as light as a paper bag.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Paper_Bag_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Paper_Bag_Test:
> "The Brown Paper Bag Test" is a term in African-American oral history used to describe a colorist discriminatory practice within the African-American community in the 20th century, in which an individual's skin tone is compared to the color of a brown paper bag....
> The Brown Paper Bag Test was heavily documented and normalized with historically black fraternities and sororities (especially among sororities) and historically black social clubs founded before 1960, whose members selected others who resembled themselves, generally those reflecting partial European ancestry.[8][9] Some privileged multi-racial people of color who came from families freed before the American Civil War attempted to distinguish themselves from the mass of freedmen after the war, who appeared to be mostly of African descent and from less privileged families.
- not_a_pet_rock 4y agocolorism is just racism.
- rayiner 4y agoColorism isn’t racism because racism isn’t about color. Color is merely an imperfect proxy for distinguishing different groups of people. (Many white people, especially Greeks or Italians, are darker than many East Asians, but that doesn’t change the racial categories.) In some communities, colorism is a byproduct of racial categorization based on color. But in many places it’s just an aesthetic preference. Colorism in Asia and Africa long predates colonialism or contact with white people. An important thing to note is that in these societies, colorism doesn’t imply that white people are seen as the most beautiful. A person can be too light, just as they can be too tall or too skinny.
- mikrotikker 4y agoI think that in the DEI ideology, racism is not the sane, traditional definition, but rather that postmodern power + prejudice equation that is used to prop up the idea that only whites can be racist. So in order to keep their ideology consistent in the face of clear and present racism throughout the non white communities as well, they had to invent the term "colorism". So yes colorism is just racism.
- tablespoon 4y agoIt's an embarrassment to HN that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34683200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34683200 got flagged to death. IIRC, the author of that comment is from Bangladesh and is a position to actually know something about colorism.
- satvikpendem 4y agoI vouched for it as I'm from India and see it a similar way.