Up to date with the stories were covering the following stay with us on aljazeera the street is coming up next well see a bit later. Ok. And these are our guests on the three thirty you see i see in a different shades of p. T. On todays show why people with dot skin are facing discrimination from within and outside their own communities this is color what is it then and what does it not and one of those gusts you just saw was fashion model which she uses her large instagram platform and following up more than a quarter of a Million People to break traditional western standards of beauty but before she found pride in her skin color she was chided for it insulted and even told to bleach it take a look. So stunning. And even though she was attacked with a invalidating opinion of those she never admitted because of confidence she knew she was in the same brilliant sunshine. And spun money. So stop look please dont Touch Computers dont stare. Youre witnessing the purest form that no. Skin so floods. Beauty so beyond. Those she was actually bleach she climbed. And bracing his skin. Place in which to be the beauty of the. Hour. Might be. Well thats relevant something simple now before we get something lets explain colorism its defined as prejudice or discrimination against individuals with adult skin tone often from people of the same ethnic or racial group light skin people are deemed more attractive more successful and small to people the term was mostly popularized by american author alice walker and in one nine hundred eighty two essay in search of our mothers gardens she wrote colorism in my definition prejudice you or preferential treatment of same race people based solely on their color joining us on a set to have this conversation we have now which in london noise stops is associate professor of journalism at Temple University image of beer is a social historian and broadcaster in the u. K. And the ron barton is a writer and author in San Francisco california so i guess im really curious as to how you describe your skin to him how do i describe. As beautiful and dark you know what i am is who i am so you see your doc all right laurie describe your own skin tone when you when youre making. I describe my skin tone as chocolate medium somewhere yeah basically chocolate with chocolate. Or any immediate. Yeah. Yeah i dont know. I would describe my skin tone as being dark my dark chocolate i was cos knickers in high school. And im just black and black people are so. Much a fascinating range and you already have that you know you have that macabre already there right there yeah kim why do you think people differentiate even when theyre brown different shades of black between each other if you could explain what it was that was happening how to explain it as a really good question because like when i grew up in the thought you know where i was around so many different shades of black of light to as dark as me and there was never i was never a been put aside all been look at differently because im dr going all the people that im around so when i came to the u. S. And attended middle school and seen like little kid the African American kid that im ducking than me and making fun of me that im too dark a we cant see you. Open you know you know smile so we can see you in all these comments toward me and i never no i never totally understand why they think theyre better than me just because they to show a lighter than me to them you know why they think that its ok to make fun of me just because im. The real force and then you know so i never truly understand why the same people you know we both black if somebody asks you what color is you youre black if you ask me what problem im black you know theres not different i can say im dark thats you know i could i just am black so i never truly understand what they mean why they would make fun of me or why they would you know be feelin that type of neuron. You know ive experienced zero zero a lot of their relation with the market with the Mon Community especially coming would tease me they would say things like. When you saw black i bet that if i turn on the like i can see the only way that we can see you. Is by your see i was. Dark dark blacks i was i was look. Ugly when i was a child because i wasnt as as white as the quote unquote pretty kid. You know i mean just growing up a lot of the insults throw with throw at each other when we were younger was always attacking the color of yours it would always be like. Your mama she saw black and im like you know for some reason like that for me just answer blackness was always around us i mean you know its ok while to really embrace who i am and to realize that my skin is beautiful and and clearly now there is more but i realize that even amongst us here on the set and on the show because we started the show theres laughter there but underneath it there is pain as were hearing which is what this tweet here from robert west says theres coping utilized in public and in private private battles and where one realizes such a construct wreaks havoc on us all and so what that might look look like is a tweet from robert d. Jordan who says there are cliques that can be created in School Settings just by shades of skin color and the girls get it based on their looks so am i do you want to weigh in here to do this did you experience this in School Cliques based on what you look like. I have a very different perspective because i grew up in our land which is especially when i was growing up there was no black population so there was no such thing as being light skinned i was just black and it was very it was also like a very racist environment and that racism wasnt. Kind of mitigated by the fact that i had a white parent and i was light skinned it was almost as though people actually like white irish people couldnt make that couldnt distinguish in that way and they would see my mom people would meet my mom and theyd be like oh your moms why youre youre adopted oh youre adopted that so its not like no that you cant you see like people just kind of could do that and it was only when i went i have a lot of family in atlanta in the state and it was when i started going to spend the summers with them when i was sixteen that i for the first time my life encountered the kind of hierarchy that existed in terms of shade and how i was kind of positioned very high risk in that but i was very difficult let me get around lets break this down this case i use a different than to say i understand what you mean about the hierarchy of shades resit down for us a lot of it for people who are not aware of how you can be not just black but different groups of Different Levels of black yes said this was new to me but when i when i was kind of catapulted into the realm in ireland it was like the equivalent of having like long hair and blue eyes which was like the beauty standard there and having skin my color was seen as making me very against it by virtue of bout it. So ive got a. Quote here from a loon he says i am proud to be a dark skin african all the way i live and role in lagos Lagos Nigeria west africa laurie but this origin of this hierarchy of blackness if you could put your finger on where does it come from what would you say. Very easily comes from White Supremacy i mean it really comes from a systemic belief that there is a superiority in skin in the white race not just pale skin but a european european race and you know this adaption of a belief system that the later your skin is the better you are is a direct result of both colonization and slavery in the United States where there was a real actual intentional. Kind of brainwashing if you will of all things that were african dark our features were demonized all of that were all of those things that made us uniquely african we were taught to believe that those are the things that made us inferior and so if you know you had later skin you had looser here you had a straighter nose in other words the closer you approximated the master the one in power the one with privilege then i guess that meant you were that much closer to kind of the promised one or the better ones and unfortunately because colonialization because. Lets say the the white man spread his seed all over the world this is been and this is a belief system that has spread throughout all of the people of color throughout the world and its tragic that there are more people of color in the world who clearly have their own. Their own culture their own customs and yet they still look at likeness as some sort of stupid some sort of outward signal of superiority to laurie you were on the. Same wavelength as our guests who are also nodding their heads but here this week from jacqueline she says ive always wondered if its to justify colonization slavery. Inequality through avoiding seeing the obvious humanity of darker victims but i want to add in another tweet here because you know weve been talking about women its not just women you get this from i am colorful quel who says this is what i deal with frequently and its not just dark skinned women getting the little for their complection he sent us a video comment on what hes had to deal with have a listen to what he told the stream. Or skin color beauty. Me in ways that made me feel. Less attractive than those who have lived skin and. Ive been told from a very young age that my dark skin is just me. And i need to reach my skin and i. Attempted to do so which left me with darker discoloration and parts of my skin and that would be with me forever but i am now in a place where having dark skin does not make me feel bad. Thank him for sharing that with us but lurana do you think other black men know that they are part of this is still the end part of the problem as well or do you think that they think this is an issue. Well i think that were actually gaining consciousness and realizing that not only do black men perpetuate this i call it from and i call it very pensive but also black women i remember growing up and. The lighter that you were you were considered to be pretty you know and that goes back to what this is said earlier about the closer proximity you are to whiteness the better looking you will be so in high school you know the most prized would be the very minor complected god with the curly here or what they would call the. Quite a poke good good hair or it would be the biracial man. And its interesting because not only does colorism of affect the way that the way that we think about ourselves from from the inside but this can also cause us to do things such as bleaching our skin such as permanent permanent or hair and im not trying to slam anybody that does that but again going back to what young lady said earlier all these things were doing is trying to get us as close to whiteness as possible because the white european beat a beauty standard i mean like thats the thats the standard of beauty blonde hair blue eyes so if you can take a person and if they get blue blue contact lenses if they can doctor her blind they can be as dark as me but thats some consciously what they are trying to to assimilate society and thats a really good i mean. I have i know what. Is the level to which. People have internalized and reproduce White Supremacy and will and how white people to many extent to to an extent often. Not that they express shock when like some kind of white friends i know initially often the prize when they see the level to which we have black people discuss people shade peoples hair texture people speeches they are often very surprised and i think as i said its this trading that system that is so beneficial to them they can kind of remain ignorant of and were wearing ourselves apart. Literally that i dont know its not just i think hundred of them sometimes its a slightly misleading word because its also because i just focus very much on the actual skin shape its very much to do with have texture and to do with facial features as well people and that entire know that. Yacub what you say i just feel like it is about entirely you know come from hair. For me and my community the commits the south Sudanese Community that i have been around is like the bleaching is bleaching your skin is a big deal in my community and i never understand why you know until i came here and to get in i was bullied for being too dark and i realized that this is why they do believe they want to you know feel like they are importing all day. Until some new friends weve implemented that their children and yet to be i had this is one of the theres a lot of this one because this is the whole School Principal i thought prices there was i was taught having a conversation with a friend of mine and you know she at the time she was dating a cock is a man you know and then i have never been in remission i was not there that i was not there because i was like i you know how does it feel like being in an interracial relationship i was just asking a normal question and she was like i just want my kids to be and have long enough and i dont want my kids to feel like to go through what i went through i just want my kids have clearly hear software and i dont want my kids to get made fun of just like i was the one i was like and ill felt so sad and now i was i felt really bad and im like so you married man do you want to have kids with this man because you want your kid to have. Like i would love to i would love to talk to your friend because i actually wrote a book called same family different colors because you know kind of inspired by my own situation i my husband is spanish hes very pale and my children are actually came out three different colors and d. N. A. Is very funny so just make marry a person of a different race doesnt mean your children are going to come out with that quote unquote good here or that later never know exactly what youre going to get i got three totally different looking children in terms of skin color and hair texture but it is actually people are i mean i dont many women in the research ive done i wrote a book about black hair and i wrote a book about. Colorism and the lengths that people will go to women will start trying to straighten their children here childrens hair from birth including youre just saying. Well burying someone or just getting impregnated by somebody strictly to. Increase the chance that their offspring will have looser hair or later skin and sadly weve been doing that since weve been enslaved in the United States we have records of in slate women. Trying to bleach their children skin with arsenic and wrapping their hair at birth so yeah i was rape in those out so. It was more about survival it was hoping you or maybe your baby would get taken to the big house and freed are given food or you know given the opportunity to learn to read today were doing it you know and thats what. Yeah i think of it. Come and tell us about it had to start yet to be exactly right and that which i agree with the molly he was a dark skinned somali guy and he told me we started he started after me like when i was from and i read what i mix and i always have like often feel that theres like a level of kind of like blackness inherent in it and its isolation of being mixed and stuff but i was at a mic so i told him and then he was like you know what i have to i just have to marry an english woman and i count my out because i wish id spent kids so they come out and i would just like i am not the one how do you remember is this is that everybody and where can we meet your fiance. Not remain in the i mean what i saw was just i mean really i want to miss the point because ive got ive got nigeria i did not get i did not. And i know youre trying to get in here so im going to direct this to you because these are two sides and argument so mike here says living four years in or africa with less pressure on appearance i found that people were more comfortable in their own a skin they were able to process sensitive issues away from in your face images constant see and compare consumerism so he says this could be a problem essentially his saying this could be a problem of being in the west and being bombarded with consumerism on the other hand though robert west sent us a video comment and he says this is a global issue have a look i always think its best to address color as the global that. Its not a construct in talking about one people or some people but truly horror that is spread across the world i say this as it relates to any attempt to deal with and the most macro and micro way. So. You know now can i say i saw you nodding when i was he has tweeted about this not being a problem if youre in parts of africa but the right im wondering what your take on that is ok first i totally agree with the brother that was in new york we have to understand the racism wise for him is he is a global system we cant just say oh you know its really bad in the self or its really bad and in parts of london there is no part of the world that racism lies from if he has not touched and coming with that also with the standards of beauty i think think about it this way so brazil what has the largest population of black people outside of africa right why is it that the most Beautiful People that you see coming from brazil are looking like caucasians i mean i believe the models name. Is just sell shes from has it all but but yet theres tons of people that dont look like they dont look like just because they are the most beautiful im sort of i guess what the media deems as the most beautiful black women in america usually are highly barry beyond say and other like skin women but the majority of black people dont look like those women so you know even though we can be around a bunch of black people all of our lives colorism will still come up because wise because thats a part of racism i supremacy and that is in that is internalize with us and if people sing the white shirt theyre saying that youre on instagram like well why dont you show your Instagram Account color as well and you can see these these stunning stunning pictures people are feeling you because of just being under her skin tone and i know theres a a little story about a little girl contacted you yes tell us that story there was a little girl sent me an m s a told me that how she always feel like shes the ugliest girl in the root because of our skin color and she always feel like kids make fun of her just like theres like what does and does like what i went through when i was as her age lets just see the seventh grade at the moment so shes telling me how much i fire her and how she started to love herself as a person how she see beauty in me and she see herself as beautiful as well so i i just feel like. You just gotta learn to love yourself you know i feel like i learned to love mys