Are we still color conscious?  I’m not simply talking about issues regarding Black versus White versus Brown versus Yellow. I’m talking about dark skin versus light skin. 

While some people argue that we’ve moved beyond that, Angie Stone thinks that’s it’s still a big problem. On Black Voices, she claims that she’s lost movie roles to both Jill Scott and Macy Gray because of her chocolate skin tone. “I’ve been told so many times that it’s a certain look that they’re looking for,” Stone claims. “So you can’t even use weight anymore. You can’t use age because everybody’s over 35 that’s running around doing it. It comes down to what is more appealing. I’m only good for the pro political stuff that will afford all of my people from the hood to vote for the right president – or to support whatever because I’m more on their level, so to speak.”

Well reflecting on my own scars of being a dark-skinned kid, growing up in the ’70s in Mississippi, I can attest that those wounds of being teased run deep, especially when it came to people quickly equating dark skin with less attractive. As a child, I thought that I was the blackest kid on the face of the earth. It wasn’t until the mid-’80s, when I was introduced to the likes of Grace Jones and Benetton that I began to see myself as attractive. And even now, it’s ongoing battle with me sometimes reminding myself when I’m feeling less attractive due to skin tone that it’s just an inner-demon trying to destroy me.

Probably one of the saddest things is that Angie Stone is super attractive and very articulate.  Are any of you going through the same battles of Angie Stone regarding skin tone?

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