“No one likes dark-skinned girls, bruv.”
These are the powerful words that open director Marian Edusei’s film Dark Skinned Girls, which explores the ways in which negative stereotypes around dark-skinned women permeate narratives in the black community. Dark-skinned black girls growing up in the world are often seen in opposition to ‘desirable’ light-skinned black women, and as the voices in the film layer on top of each other, their ominousness becomes inescapable.
This is colourism in its most brazen form: “Them dark skin girls, they ain’t feminine,” says one voice. “I don’t like women with my complexion,” says another.
All of the statements in the video are taken from real-life incidents, and their ridiculousness is only dampened by the boldness with which the narrators say them – as if they’re facts, not malicious falsehoods.
In a Twitter thread, a dark skinned girl has asked what some people think of black skinned girls and the reactions and sentiments are nothing short of baffling:
Some other comments around black skinned girls in the internet:
“You are so pretty for a dark skin girl.”
Thank you for saying that you usually don’t find dark skin girls pretty but I am the wonderful exception to your standard of beauty that is significantly based on the lightness of someone’s skin. Have you ever heard of colorism? Because that’s what you’re practicing right now!
Congrats, douche.
“You’re so lucky you’re dark. White boys usually want darker-skinned WOC!”
You know, like a lot of dark girls, growing up you feel really inadequate because of your shade. And it’s a pretty awesome moment in your life when you get to self-acceptance in your skin, literally.
And as much as I love the love from the White boys, I don’t put it above anybody else’s. Moreover, let’s not pretend that some White boys are not just trying to fulfill a creepy, fetishized, fantasy.