Nappy Headed Black Child

People were mad today because wale's video didn't have any dark skinned women in it and rightfully so. For a song to be entitled Pretty Girls and only show light skinned women is offensive and furthers a phenomenon called colorism.

Colorism is a form of discrimination that assigns value on a person based upon the color. Now some of you are saying "that sounds like racism" thats incorrect they are both forms of prejudice but they are based on two different bases.

Racism is based on ethnicity. Essentially where u come from or what your descent may be.

so for example take these two pictures.





Both of these women are of African Descent a statement of heritage but the second woman is black while the first on is not. Why? Because the term black is an adjective. Black is a color. Often times they are used interchangeably (i do it all the time) but are really quite different.

To elevate the 1st woman over the second woman because of the fact that she is lighter is colorism.

Colorism has its roots in white supremacist beauty standards that says the closer one is to those standards the more valuable. Which is why often times why you often see women that look like the first photo being highlighted as the epitome and often the only representation of blackness one sees in the media.

for example here is the same woman from the first picture looking extra caucasian for her "High Fashion" clothes. If you think the super fair complexion and the hair is a coincidence guess again.



So placing this video in that context. Pretty Girls is yet another example of light skinned women being better than black women. This lack of affirmation of causes self conciousness and damages self esteem and while this particular incident by itself seems inconsequential if one pays attention you'll see just how prevalent it is.

Now this discussion was all over twitter and folks were going at wale left and right for the lack of Black women in this video.

Wale had this to say







I have to admit he has a good point. The making of a music video is a complex and casting is generally the responsibility of the director and not the artist. Who gets cast is dependent on who shows up to the casting call. Valid arguments. Personally i dont feel as though Wale has some anti dark skin agenda such as ya boy Mr Get Smacked Up Himself Yung Berg. My biggest issue with this whole discussion was in the approach. I saw soooo many people just attacking out of anger and defeating the whole purpose of having this as discussion. Putting someone on the defensive is not a good way to shine some light. Some of yall should be ashamed trill talk.

The Mic is a powerful tool and as an artist or anyone with such a platform should take care to deal properly with these situations and part of that is processing the anger first before speaking.