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Recently, my mother told me a story of myself as a child. When strangers approached me and said things such as: "Isn't she lovely?" or "What pretty hair you have!" I would innocently answer: "I know".

My unassuming arrogance would take people aback, then everyone would laugh at the adorable curly-haired prima donna, enough to assuage my mother's embarrassment. It would be easy to dismiss my younger self as a smug, precocious little brat, but it really just showed that when a child hears something enough times, they accept it as merely another fact of life.

As I grew older, I began to realise there were other factors at play, which made me uncomfortable.

Many of these compliments came from white women, but the majority came from black women, inside and outside of my own family. I was light-skinned with long thick hair thanks in part to my father's white English heritage. That was all that qualified me to be considered "beautiful".

It had nothing to do with being funny or smart but plenty to do with physical attributes over which I had no control. The confidence I had displayed as a young girl became insecurity then anger. I didn't want preferential treatment because of something as superficial as skin colour or hair texture. My mother, the first woman I ever knew, loved and admired, was a dark-skinned black woman and, to me, the epitome of beauty and glamour. What was the big deal?

And then I realised and checked my own degree of privilege - it is far easier to resent one's own skin for giving you advantages you haven't earned than despising it for what it takes away.

Darker skinned women and, yes, men too, face that reality - an issue brought to the fore in the documentary Dark Girls, directed by Bill Duke, premiered in the UK last week.

Focusing primarily on African American women, the film opens up the conversation of colourism - a shameful discrimination generally against your own community on the basis of skin colour.

It is a legacy of slavery and plantation society that placed white slave-owners at the top of the top of the social ladder, followed by those who were mixed race/lighter skinned (who were given work in the house, with the added bonus of being a plaything for the massa, wahey!), with darker skinned black men and women (who were also raped - hence, the light-skinned house slaves) at the bottom of the pile doing the back-breaking labour in the cotton fields.

While the physical chains of bondage may be broken, for many in the black and Asian community, colourism is still a part of life - a psychological prison of self-loathing and envy. Comments such as, "You're pretty ... for a dark skinned girl" or "I hope the baby comes out light" are par for the course.

Type dark skin or light skin into Twitter and you will seecolourismin action. One tweet: "Party on Friday. White Girls free. Light skin girls 5dollars. 50 dollars for dark skin girls". Another: "I thought cute dark skin girls with long hair was a myth ... I feel like I seen big foot." ( sic) Within the past week, 'dark-sinned vs light-skinned' has been a trending topic. As one angry tweeter kindly pointed out, "Is this what Martin Luther King died for?"

Dark Girls makes for a haunting and uncomfortable watch. Listening to beautiful women admit to insecurities thatled them to request bleach in their bath water or putting hair removal cream in the scalps of their light-skinned school peers as an act of jealousy would seem all but ridiculous if it didn't hit so close to home.

It features men with pixelated faces trying and failing miserably to justify their own prejudices - "I just prefer light skin women". "Dark skinned women just look wrong next me" -to stories from African American women confessing black men would lust after them in private, but opt for a light skinned trophy to parade in public.

Some find it bemusing that journalists, feminists and social commentators devote so much time to discussing the politics of hair texture and skincolour but it is absolutely, unequivocally, political.

Based on these personal accounts, is it a coincidence that 50 per cent of all Black Caribbean men in Britain have partners outside their own race? Or that the majority of high-profile black men- from politicians to sport stars - have a white partner? Are they simply exercising their right to choose, or attempting to exorcise their own demons?

In the Caribbean, such as the Bahamas where I was born, the minority light skinned community forms the majority of the ruling elite - the effects of generations of wealth and privilege and marrying the 'right' people from the 'right' (and light!) families.

The ugly truth is while racism - whether institutional, structural or ingrained - and inequality persists, so will colourism. It is no surprise that skin bleaching creams are most popular in developing countries.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 77 per cent of Nigerian women use them. In India - home to a third of the world's poorest people - two thirds of all skin products contain lightening agents. For some, lighter skin is seen as a route out of poverty, creating opportunities to cheat a system engineered to oppress. It South Africa, it is the difference between being black and part of the 'coloured' middle class.

The women featured in Dark Girls weren't born hating their skin, they hated the limited social outcomes it extended, the way they were treated and spoken to because of it. But while colourism differentiates, racism does not. Being mixed didn't prevent me from being called a P*ki or a n*gger while growing up in the north east. We are all dark girls.

Perhaps one of the most heart-wrenching moments of the documentary is its opening; when a beautiful cherubbarely five years old, cannot meet the camera's gaze as she admits to hating being called black.

I hope that by having these conversations and confronting the enemy within, as well as the bigger picture, little black girls of any skin tone won't ever have to question their looks. Society will learn to tell them they are beautiful, and their response, quite rightly, will be: "I know".

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Colourism: Why even black people have a problem with dark skin

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Recently, my mother told me a story of myself as a child. When strangers approached me and said things such as: "Isn't she lovely?" or "What pretty hair you have!" I would innocently answer: "I know". My unassuming arrogance would take people aback, then everyone would laugh at the adorable curly-haired prima donna, enough to assuage my mother's embarrassment.

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"COLOURISM - prejudice or discrimination based on the relative lightness or darkness of the skin. Generally a phenomenon occurring within one's own ethnic group"

Before we delve into the issue of colourism, or any prejudice experienced against a body of people based on the shade or hue of their skin tone, it is necessary to first discuss the history of how such a preference for a particular shade of skin came to exist.

Black people were enslaved for over 200 years, during which, they were not even considered to be human, let alone beautiful. Beauty is an entirely new phenomenon post-enslavement and the dimensions of this paradoxical beauty have weighed heavily in favour of white supremacy.

During the 18th and 19th century enslavement period, black female slaves were raped by their masters, producing mixed-race, light skin children. Although they were not provided the luxurious lifestyle of full 'white breeds', this shade of children were pitted above their dark skinned-relatives, who were quarantined in field labour, while the light-skinned slaves were promoted to house slaves.

Although archaic and hugely fascist, this social pyramid inspired the frameworks of society as we know it today. Although slavery is now 'illegal', there is a type of racism that is still heavily present, heavily toxic and completely inexorable - colourism. The belief in hundreds and thousands of ethnic groups all over the world, including black, Asian, and Hispanic, that dark skin is inferior to light skin.

Colourism has its roots embedded deeply in the history of colonisation. Countries annexed by European colonialism were imbued with a false perception of beauty based on an ideal of white supremacy.

Young, impressionable minds were geared towards the appraisal and pursuit of white power. Meaning that a venture towards "white" appearance was not only considered favourable in the realm of beauty, but would also win you greater opportunities and edge you closer to greatness. Sadly, this ideal lives on unabated.

In today's society, the contorted idea of beauty in colourism is often advocated within ones own ethnic group. Watching documentaries on the subject, women speak of being told from an early age to "improve the race", meaning not to marry black and if so, to marry 'light'.

The concept of dark skin is marred by European preeminence, so young girls are taught to aspire towards breeding lighter children. Not only is this a bleak desideratum, but beyond inhibiting a future generation of dark-skinned children, it is also resulting in severe bouts of low-self esteem leading to self-harm and suicide.

12 Years A Slave actress, Lupita Nyong'o speaks openly about her struggle growing up as a dark-skinned child. She exclaims that in her youth, she would pray to God for fairer skin and would bargain with him that if he would grant her this one wish, that she would stop stealing sugar cubes. This is heart-wrenching for me to hear, but at the same time I am glad that somebody who has acquired a certain clout in the industry is now speaking openly about the austerity of this issue.

It seems there are a generation of young girls (and boys) who have been left to suffer in silence for a lack of public outcry on an issue that has been comfortably embraced worldwide.

LOW SELF-ESTEEM: 12 Years A Slave actress Lupita Nyong'o has spoken openly about her struggles growing up as a dark-skinned child

Children are taught from an early age that all 'greatness' emanates from European or Western civilisation. All the great thinkers, philosophisers, writers and poets hailed from France to Germany, from Shakespeare to Freud to Nietzsche. History has been written to strongly favour European predominance and downplay black eminence.

Very little, if anything, is widely known about real black history other than their history of enslavement, which is pitched to us as the most notable historical occurrence in black history. It is shocking that people are not aware that black history did not begin with slavery. So if young children are taught that the history of their ancestors came from something so volatile and ferociously negative, logic permits them to aspire far from it. What needs to happen is that children, of all races, need to be educated properly. People in general tend to accept the notion that pre-colonial Africans were barbaric with no social inclination until they were 'taught' how to live by the white man. But if teachings begin with the representation of black people as slaves and victims of American and European civilisation, then those are the means by which thinking and partiality will prevail.

Centuries upon centuries of African King and Queendom have been lost in the muddiness of a reassembled history. If children are taught the truth of their ancestors, a deeper sense of cultural acceptance can be awakened, because they will no longer be forever escaping the shackles of slavery but instead be aspiring to the greatness in their own heritage.

This issue is not exclusive to black communities. Societies, including India and Dubai, where skin colour is heavily dissipated, suffer mass subjugation of dark-skinned people who are affiliated with the lowest cast and can only attain jobs in the lowest ranks of manual labour. Countries such as India still utilise casting systems which pit the 'fairer-skinned' people as higher casts and associate them with beauty and intelligence - as seen in every Bollywood movie.

The lighter the actress, the more beautiful she is considered. Fair creams are a huge commodity in these countries, where mass billboards are strategically placed to promote this ideal, even in knowing the medical dangers affiliated with it - namely skin cancer.

The crux of this issue is born through the media. This is two fold: The constant promotion and reinforcement of the white woman as the pinnacle of beauty. If not entirely white, then the closest thing to white possible (i.e. light-skinned black women with European hair) or the negligence and downcast of the severity and existence of colourism in the media.

Where do you see this issue being raised? Because it does not compete with the austerity of a holocaust, minor niceties in the realm of attitude to skin colours are acceptable or at least tolerable. But they are by no means acute - infecting a generation of children with lifelong subjugation and inferiority complexes. Young children suffer from extreme cases of low self-esteem and lack of confidence.

This prohibits the pursuit of their dreams, due to a belief that the shade of their skin bridles prosperity. Former Destiny's Child member Kelly Rowland speaks openly about the issues she grappled with growing up. She professes that she had a hard time embracing the 'chocolatiness' of her skin tone and experienced extreme levels of colourism in the dominion of the career she sought.

It can be argued that fellow band member Beyoncé was at the forefront of the group for being more talented, more ambitious and more driven, which eventually culminated in the success of her solo career. But there is also a dark twist in this parable, perhaps if we did not exist in a society of white supremacy, women of a darker skin tone would find the confidence, ambition and drive to pursue such alpine heights.

Even Black American rappers, who promote intense approbation of their black ancestry and speak out openly against racism, feature predominantly light-skinned women as the models and dancers in their music videos. This negates their 'promotion' of anti-racism and muddies the notion of skin tone impartiality.

Lest we forget Beyoncé's infamous L'Oréal commercial, where she appeared conspicuously lighter than her organic skin tone.

WHITEWASH: L'Oréal was accused of lightening an image of Beyoncé in an advertising campaign

Jay Z raps in That's My B**ch "I mean Marilyn Monroe, she's quite nice but why all the pretty icons always all white? / Put some colored girls in the MoMA /Half these broads ain't got nothing on Willona / Don't make me bring Thelma in it /Bring Halle, bring Penélope and Salma in it"

I always have to chuckle when I hear that line, because even in trying to promote black beauty he does a shoddy job. The 'coloured' girls he speaks of are no darker than an 'accepted' shade of brown.

Dark-skinned beauty is rarely embraced in the media. Aside from current developments that are empowering young black women like the Oscar-winning actress Lupita's recent success, it is too few and far between. Overall, the perception of black beauty has not yet been adopted widely enough in the media.

Black hair is not embraced. Dark skin is not embraced. Black bodies were not even embraced until Puerto Rican singer Jennifer Lopez made it fashionable to have a big bum - subsequently reality TV star Kim Kardashian followed suit.

All things associated with black ancestry were/are thwarted until made acceptable, or even fashionable by the white woman/man. But the acceptance of specific black features is not effective enough to reach our desired goal. The fact that something associated with black beauty was not organically embraced and internationally endorsed without white infiltration is unacceptable.

This is a bigoted and FALSE standard of beauty for young black children to aspire to. Although it is not openly stated, the adverse is frequently and chiefly promoted as the pinnacle of beauty in society. These are unattainable, falsely utopian ideals. They encourage people to believe that success, beauty and power come in 'lighter' packages, hence why skin bleaching is as shamefully common as it is.

One of the biggest platforms upon which this issue is finding preeminence is on social media websites such as Instagram and Twitter. I might even say that I was blissfully unaware of the severity of shadeism until I witnessed first-hand a division on social media between light and dark-skinned people. What has now formed all across the Internet are 'cliques' that promote light skin as superior and the ultimate semblance of black beauty.

I recently interjected a post by a famous basketball player Matt Barnes a few weeks ago.

He posted a picture of a gorilla looking very unimpressed with the caption: "Dark skin n***ers... when a light skin n***er walks in". He then wrote, "Had to repost this. The good ole days, we would walk n & shut it dooooown!! Hahaa #UMad?"

OFFENSIVE: Elicia hit back at this post uploaded by American basketball player Matt Barnes

I took the opportunity to air my views in comment section, writing: "somebody of your stature should not be using your fame to encourage "shadism" and colour elitism. Embarrassing and ignorant."

His response? "Shut up b**ch".

It is time for a renaissance, a cultural rebirth, an ethical reformat. It is time to consider every shade beautiful, to awaken people to the reality of the situation, to speak openly when we see situations where people are discriminated against based on their skin colour - even if it is just an Instagram 'joke'.

We must reprogram the perception of 'beauty' in our society and dismantle it from the colonial duplicity that has subjected an entire nation to favour white supremacy. We to reach a stage where we are all essentially colour blind.

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* This article was originally published on the author's blog ( www.Elicalebon.blogspot.co.uk) and reproduced here with her permission

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Light skin v dark skin: where it all started

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"COLOURISM - prejudice or discrimination based on the relative lightness or darkness of the skin. Generally a phenomenon occurring within one's own ethnic group" Before we delve into the issue of colourism, or any prejudice experienced against a body of people based on the shade or hue of their skin tone, it is necessary to first discuss the history of how such a preference for a particular shade of skin came to exist.

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Light Skin Vs. Dark Skin: Breaking the Mental Chains

By Akira X Roberson | Last updated: May 19, 2014 - 12:02:19 PM

What's your opinion on this article?

People often think that stereotypes are made by another race and their view of the race they are labeling. But what most don't think about are the labeling and divisive stereotypes that are used within a race; such as stereotypes often used in the Black community.

This type of division in a race can be poisoning and indirectly divisive.

Stereotypes such as Light Skin Vs. Dark Skin within the Black community are cancerous, dangerous, and shape how we view ourselves and our people. Fortunately, we can solve this problem by teaching and mentally reshaping how we've been trained to think and behave.

This stereotyping is seen as joking and not serious, at least that's what is thought.

It is also rare that anyone questions where Light Skin Vs. Dark Skin originated. "It just exists, and it is somewhat passed on. ... Even young children use these jokes and labels." But the question stands where did it get its beginning and how was it enforced?

Light Skin Vs. Dark Skin emerges at least as early as 1712 in the Colony of Virginia on the banks of the James River and Willie Lynch. Willie Lynch spoke of ways to break apart the tightly unified Black man and woman. The unity between the slaves led to revolts. They killed their owners and those families and often ran away. Considering this, Willie Lynch devised a plan that would control the slaves physically and mentally for 300 years or more if executed correctly.

The Lynch plan consisted of:

"Crossbreeding Niggers mean taking so many drops of good white blood and putting them into as many nigger women as possible, varying the drops by the various tone that you want, and then letting them breed with each other until another circle of color appears as you desire. What this means is this; Put the niggers and the horse in breeding pot, mix some asses and some good white blood and what do you get? You got multiple of colors of ass backward, unusual niggers, running, tied to backward ass long-headed mules, the one productive of itself, the other sterile, (The one Constant, the other dying, we keep the nigger constant for we may replace the mules for another tool) both mule and nigger tied to each other, neither knowing where the other came from and neither productive for itself, nor without each other."

Furthermore, he suggested destroying the mother language of Black people, and he wanted to limit the understanding of the English language.

"Being a fool is one of the Basic ingredients of any incidents to the maintenance of the Slavery System," said Lynch.

By making us foolish, small differences like color shade could be used to break our unity-thus creating light skin verses dark skin. Willie Lynch's plan ultimately was to take the small differences between Blacks and make them bigger. Lastly, he has to use a method to instill these differences among Blacks.

Additionally, Willie Lynch had principles for breaking apart unified Black people and turning them into foolish slaves. He used fear as one of the mentally bonding chains. He suggested taking the strongest Black male, tying his arms and legs to two horses, lighting him on fire and making the horses run into two different directions. He would then make the pregnant women, children, and slaves watch to instill this fear. He would then take another strong Black male and whip him to near death, but not enough to kill him. The pregnant women would pass this fear off on to their offspring and the children would have this image engraved in their brains. It was breaking the strong image of the Black male; making the woman independent of him. The male children would be made strong physically but weak mentally.

This process aided in allowing differences to become problematic; those differences have created a rift within the Black race.

Such differences and inequalities also manifest in the work place, the criminal justice system, socioeconomic status, and education. "According to research by Arthur Goldsmith, Darrick Hamilton, and William Darity, employers tend to prefer light-skinned Black employees over dark skinned black employees," noted one source.

"Similarly, research by Jennifer Eberhardt, Paul Davies, Valeries Purdie-Vaughns, and Sheri Lynn Johnson demonstrates that 'blacker-looking' African American males are more likely to receive the death penalty compared to their lighter-skinned counterparts for comparable capital crimes," noted other experts.

These inequalities have shown up in socioeconomic status, and education. For example, "Light skin attains a higher socioeconomic status in its own right, through greater education and workforce mobility," according to research on Colorism.

This "anti-Black" bias is evident in beauty standards and has caused self-hatred within the Black race. Beauty is measured by how White one looks. During an experiment in 2010, three psychologists found Black children chose a White doll and associated the White doll with good characteristics over the Black doll. Also the Black doll was associated with bad characteristics. The age group was 4 to 5 and 9 to 10; at such ages how do they know that Black is ugly? What images have they been shown that would make them believe that Black is beautiful?

"Studies show that non-whites tend to embrace the beauty standards prevalent in most societies, which grant a higher desirability to lighter skin than to darker skin," noted an author on Colorism. Why is that?

It has also come into the light, that Black celebrities are bleaching themselves. Some of the most notable Black celebrities accused of bleaching are Sammy Sosa, Rihanna, Beyoncé, and many others who are not famous use dangerous skin bleaching creams.

But why, what and who have convinced them that their skin wasn't beautiful when it was brown? Unbeknownst to them this self-hatred has been indirectly affecting them.

There is a solution to this Light Skinned-Dark Skinned problem and the issues that come with it.

The solution to this problem is simple: Educate Black children at an early age about history and how race mixing was used as a weapon of mind control. Once they understand this, all the other issues such as self-hatred and the divisions are erased. This is the only way to ensure these mental chains are broken. Light Skin Vs. Dark Skin was created through a process. So education has to reverse that process. This teaching will have to be instilled into young children at an early age all the way into adulthood.

Once these teachings have been correctly executed, the process that Willie Lynch instilled in the Black race will be broken completely. There will be a new enlightenment in the Black community and there will be more progress as a race. Self-hatred will be a thing of the past. The inequalities that exist because of divisions made by our ignorance will be no more. The Black race will be unified and strong like it once was before our enslavement.

(Akira X Roberson of Muhammad Mosque No. 28 in St. Louis, Mo., is a member of the Nation of Islam's Vanguard Class and attends Francis Howell North high school. She will graduate this year. This commentary is adapted from an essay she was required to write and present as a senior. "I chose to write my essay on Light Skin Vs. Dark Skin: Breaking the Mental Chains. I chose this topic because I've dealt with being labeled light skinned from a very young age up until now. Now that I'm older I see it a lot more, and it's mostly from Black people of course. The school that I go to is somewhat diverse, but predominately White and interracial. That being said, there is a great number of Light Skin Vs. Dark Skin stereotypes. So I knew I had to try really hard to get this message of where this label came from and what it has done to our people. My overall grade on the paper was a 91 percent-one of the best grades in the class," she said.)

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Light Skin Vs. Dark Skin: Breaking the Mental Chains

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By Akira X Roberson | Last updated: May 19, 2014 - 12:02:19 PM What's your opinion on this article? People often think that stereotypes are made by another race and their view of the race they are labeling.

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In a Q&A for his 2011 PBS documentary "Black In Latin America," Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. said:

There were 11.2 million Africans that we can count who survived the Middle Passage and landed in the New World, and of that 11.2 million, only 450,000 came to the United States. That's amazing. All the rest went south of Miami as it were.

There's no doubt that the intersection between Black and Latino identity runs deep, and yet the Afro-Latino experience remains largely invisible in mainstream media. In honor of Black History Month, we asked HuffPost Latino Voices and HuffPost Black Voices readers to send us their thoughts via Facebook on what it means to be Afro-Latino. What makes being Afro-Latino beautiful? Challenging? Unique?

We received dozens of responses and compiled a list of our favorites below. We also paid homage to a few of the many Afro-Latinos who've influenced American culture.

"Being Afro Latino is being a bridgebuilder, standing squarely at the crossroads of pan Africanism in the US. I am a proud Black Panamanian! We exist! And we exist with the knowledge that Blackness is global in its scope. No one has hegemony on Blackness and we are the proof!" -- Merrick Moise

"Afro-latino is not about being Black and Latino, Afro-Latina means to be a Black Latina/Latino hence why the term Afro-latino came about in the late 70's. Since Latino is not a race, its really not even an ethnic group, it is false to say that folks are Black and Latino, we are racially Black and then many refer to their ethnicity or i.e Afro-Boricua, Afro-Dominican. Often in the US Black becomes synomus [sic] with those that are African-American which then does not take into account the millions of african descendants, Black people globally that are in the world and in the USA." -- Rosa Clemente, Ph. D candidate at UMass Amherst's W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies.

"It's obviously about people who identify as Afro Latino...to complicate what it means to be black and Latino and any combination because the diversity of black identity is often oversimplified. Just because people are both doesn't mean they are less of one..." -- Sophia Raine Surage

"Black is the racial group, while the pan ethnic identification of 'Latino' refers to language, culture, and nation of origin. To be a Black Spanish speaker in the Americas means to feel, taste, hear, see, etc the West African heritage at all times in our phenoytype, in our music, in our dance, in our rhythms, in our food, in our language/daily lexicon, etc. We are the manifestation of our cultural memory. Often overlooked, when the very aspects of our culture that are praised as being 'Latino' come from the African influence on the Americas. We transmit the knowledge passed on to us from our ancestors through our very being; the very act of us living, surviving, and thriving is an act of resistance in the face of white supremacy in both the United States and the rest of the Americas. Sometimes this means living life on the hyphen, to borrow from Professor Juan Flores, neither being perceived as 'Black enough' nor 'Latino enough'...but we're Afrodescendientes and proud." -- L.Tamar Minter

"I am black and Latina...I might only be HALF black, but I am still black. It is silly to take pride in black history month yet to singlehandedly exclude those of us who are TREATED like blacks, yet some of our black sisters and brothers refuse to accept us as one of 'them'. As a biracial minority, we grapple with a constant state of acceptance from both cultures." -- Olivia Love

"Yes being black and Latino is challenging, beautiful and unique. From growing up filling out job applications that asked if I was: White, Black, Hispanic, Hispanic not of African decent. Which left me having to choose only part of who I am. To being told by my Black and white friends 'your not Black your Cuban'. To also experiencing racism from white Cubans from remarks they would make toward me but now at me. But when I would respond to those remarks in Spanish I would hear this 'Ohh tu eres Cubano, perdon el mano'. As if now I became less black because I spoke Spanish." -- Roger Garcia

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In a Q&A for his 2011 PBS documentary "Black In Latin America," Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. said: There were 11.2 million Africans that we can count who survived the Middle Passage and landed in the New World, and of that 11.2 million, only 450,000 came to the United States.