Am I Sensitive or Are You Insensitive? Colorism in the Media

If you were to look up the definition of sensitive, it would say something along the lines of easily offended or upset. Many people use “sensitive” as an insult for people who “can’t take a joke” or are “too woke”. In today’s society, people have normalized using a person’s darker skin as an insult. When people within the black community address colorism, they respond, “it’s just a joke ” and “you’re too sensitive”.  

Recently, GloRilla created a diss track towards Young Thug and Mariah the Scientist called “Brianna”, which she released in response to them calling her “ugly” on a recorded prison call. In the song, GloRilla made a lot of comments about Young Thug‘s skin complexion. She referred to him as a “Tootsie roll with dreads”, “Whoopi Goldberg by the face”, “dirt under a rock”, and even compared him to the night. Why is having darker skin an insult? When she started to talk about Mariah The Scientist, her skin complexion wasn’t mentioned once. 

GloRilla isn’t the only one to use colorism in her lyrics. In his hit song with Lil Dicky (“Freaky Friday”), Chris Brown wrote that “I’m in Chris Brown’s body, I drive his Ferrari and I’m light-skinned black.” Colorism is used in our community to make dark skin an insult and favor lighter skin. When looking through comments under these videos, some people spoke out about colorism and how hurtful it was to see this. In response to those comments, other supporters stated that “it was a joke”, to “live a little”, and to “stop being so sensitive”.

Colorism has existed in America for centuries! It can be traced back to colonialism and slavery. During slavery, Europeans would force darker-skinned people to work in harsher conditions, while the lighter-skinned people were required to do domestic work. This was the start of ideas about lighter-skinned people being superior. Now, it is embedded in our entertainment, from songs to TV shows and movies. Sitcoms often portray light-skinned women as classy, bubbly, and feminine, while darker-skinned women are portrayed as bitter, mean, and unsupportive, such as in the show Martin. 

As a dark skinned woman, seeing colorism being broadcast casually in entertainment is hurtful. It’s offensive when public figures are insensitive towards a whole community of individuals who have dealt with the pain and embarrassment of being the butt of the joke for years. These trends don’t help us grow, they set us back. No matter how much you love a celebrity, it’s important to acknowledge the hurt they bring to some of their fans by being insensitive.

• Colorism
• culture
• music