![]() ![]() In many cases, the colorism displayed by educators stems from implicit biases they have about people with darker skin-biases they may not know they have. “The Relationship Between Skin Tone and School Suspension for African Americans,” a study published in 2013, found that among the students sampled, African-American girls with the darkest skin tones were three times more likely to be suspended from school than African-American girls with the lightest skin tones. ![]() These kinds of biases can be held by educators, a factor that could directly impact the quality of education certain students receive. ![]() Studies have shown that students of color with lighter skin are perceived and treated more favorably. At a recent workshop for middle school faculty, I presented the following information on how colorism might affect students, along with strategies for identifying and addressing it.Ĭolorism is a social phenomenon that, like racism, leads to disparities and inequalities between groups. Many people place the burden of dealing with colorism on “the home,” but children spend way too many waking hours at school to deny the influence of this environment in their lives. In my own experiences as a student and as a teacher, I’ve witnessed how significant the school environment is in perpetuating colorism among children. Then I might like them.” There were even times when students expressed judgements about characters in stories based solely on descriptions of the characters’ skin tones. Students would say things like, “I’m ashamed because I got dark over the summer,” “I wish I was light-skinned like my mother” and “I don’t like dark-skinned people until I get to know them. I realized the urgency of addressing colorism while teaching freshman English at a predominantly African-American high school in south Louisiana. In 1983, Alice Walker used the term colorism to describe “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color.” (Read more on the topic in TT’s feature story “ 'What’s ‘Colorism’?'”) Although the focus is often on skin tone, colorism is also associated with prejudice based on other physical traits, such as hair texture, eye color, nose shape or lip size.Īlthough I experienced colorism growing up, it wasn’t until my first year of teaching that I decided to do something about it. ![]()
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