With Black History Month in tow, many people have banded together to begin celebrating BHM. The month can bring light to the history and injustices black people have faced, but it can also bring light to the discrimination in the black community. As a lightskin girl myself, I have been told on numerous occasions that I can’t celebrate BHM to its full extent and that the celebration ends for me on the 14th because I’m “not black enough.”

First, let’s address the discrimination against lighter skinned people in the black community. Rewinding a couple 100 to 1000 years, lightskins were commonly known as mulattos because of being mixed with white and black. Lightskin babies were often born from white slave masters having affairs with or sexually assaulting their slaves. Now that we had a brief history lesson, let’s fast forward to the present day. Just because lightskins used to be just white and black back then doesn’t mean they are now. Lightskins can come from every different culture and ethnicity, and some people can even be fully black but still have lighter skin.

Another argument that can be made is that “White people favor lightskins over darkskins and often find them more attractive for all aspects (diversity,marketing purposes,etc.)” This might be the case, but this shouldnt be used as a reason to excuse excluding them out of the black community. I’ve had the experience of being too dark for the hispanic/white groups and too light for the black groups. I doubt I’m the only one to experience this. Why should we be denied acceptance into our own race just because we’re favored by those outside or our race.

Darkskins also face discrimination in their race too. Many black boys call dark skin girls ugly and say all sorts of bad things about them while disregarding their own black mother and all the dark skin women in their family. I’ve also heard all the jokes against dark skins about their skin color and the amount of divide in the black community is actually insane. We shouldn’t have to be oppressed by people outside our race let alone our own people.

The point that i’m trying to make is that the divide within the black community needs to be stopped. Whether a person is lightskin,darkskin,brownskin or whatever, we’re all equally black. Everyone might face their own hardships and discrimination, so we as a community need to come together rather than going against eachother. It’s black history month,and we all need to become one.