Global Colorism: How Shade Became a Social Currency

[00:00:03][music] [music] I am.

[00:00:18][music] I know.

[00:00:29]>> [music] [music] >> Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Willis podcast. How you guys doing, ladies and gentlemen? First of all, I apologize for being negligent late uh simply because I hadn't been on in a few days and uh you know, I had to take some time time to myself. Sometimes you got to rejuvenate.

[00:01:00]You got to renew your thoughts, renew your mind and uh sometimes rediscover and make sure you stay, you know, basically studious, stay reassured, stay understood, and never give up your space and your time for nobody that's, you know, not worth it. But anyway, I had a lot of good time and effort to spend with family over the weekend and a lot of time and and space to think about the next episode and then being around so many people and still seeing the mind state in the uh the propensity of how people operate, how they get down. I see growth and I see people that are, you know, stagnant and I see people that are learning on a continuum. So, I'm I'm kind of like cool with what I've seen.

[00:01:51]I've been out and about. Do I record everything? No. Some things are sacred.

[00:01:55]Some things you don't need to record and put on camera for everybody to see. Some things are just meant for you and the other person or you in your group of people. And that's a beautiful thing.

[00:02:05]But understand this, this show is about global color global colorism and how shade can become a social currency.

[00:02:15]Yeah. See, you think you have to understand the origins origins of the new world, origins of this country and how people position and wanted to have one thing that's that they associated with whiteness. And I don't think that was indigenous black people's issue at all.

[00:02:37]I think indigenous black people, we wanted to get as far as away from white people as we could.

[00:02:44]It's kind of how we understood the world. How we understood everything because of the trauma. But then the world started changing. Then you start understanding that oh white people ain't bad. Oh my god. Wait a minute. Because of the relationships, the relationships and how people started to view each other really differently.

[00:03:03]See, America matured a great deal.

[00:03:08]But the government set in implanted principles and propaganda techniques to never let us come together fully. You see, that was the conversation before immigrants ever came to America.

[00:03:24]So from my understanding, immigrants that came to America considered themselves to be white or white adjacent even if they were black or uh uh visibly black [laughter] identifiably melanated as if wait a minute you may or you may be melanated but you don't you're not you don't quite look like the indigenous American in which we they were not even allowed to say or allowed to even admit what and who we were. So think about it that was the original situation between the Americans. But then when you had immigrants that come here and they became more so white adjacent and that white adjacency they believe gave them this false sense of uh an ideological power of being uh operating in a system that is adjacent to what was given to you as to why you were able to pursue success. Understand that. But let's be clear. We're going to get the show started. Why colorism shapes the world because of what you want to be affiliated with, adjacent with a relationship with or how it can benefit you, you and your society and how you wanted to what gather and garner success for you and your family and those that you are liking that are like you. Well, let's keep going. There the philosophy of colorism. Who taught us the value of shade?

[00:04:55]Well, in the Latin American countries, they taught themselves and they got a great deal of training with it. Even within their own households, they discriminate against each other. Like I was speaking about an earlier podcast I did maybe a year ago. I was talking about Egoria and she said she was the ugly duckling cuz she was dark, beautiful, fine ass, pretty ass Mexican lady. Gorgeous woman. Gorgeous. I like her. She's my type. But anyway, ugly because she was didn't have their shape, man. So, the thing is, crazy part about these equations is I go on Facebook, right?

[00:05:32]Go on Facebook and you have uh Spaniards, uh uh uh Siberians, uh uh uh Filipinos or Mystos. You got them calling me saying with you and your afro hair and your dark skin, you look African. That's what you look like. You look like you're I'm like, "Oh, oh, okay. You don't." So, you don't understand your your roots, where you come from, and what your phenotype, your watered down version of your granddaddy.

[00:06:04]He was dark skinned, too. I don't care how far you go back or how new you are.

[00:06:08]Your origin is a dog. That's just kind of how it goes. It don't matter what anybody told you or what you think you know. I promise you if you're light-skinned, you're just a lighter version of a dark-kinned person somewhere. Tada. Anyway, um so be careful what you say out your mouth because the uh the antenna afro hair is the most Aboriginal hair and you should be lucky that it is associated with the Americas because all blacks are not from Africa. That's just the facts. You can't change that. I love when people say, "Oh, everybody's from Africa." No, everybody share DNA.

[00:06:52]We're all one race of beings with a lot of colors.

[00:06:59]Some colors that are, you know, not so favorable to the sun. That's what you call a pale complexed person. That's not me speaking negative about people that have lighter or no pigment. It means that they have less or far less melanin and that is a issue as well because it create an issue when you don't identify with people of a different color or race or or or or being. It creates xenophobia.

[00:07:28]It create a limited way of thinking and orchestrating and understanding. It limits your connection to humanity. So if you identify as being white or a person of less lesser melan lesser melanated complexion that means you don't understand that you're you you're a little further away from what is humane and you should want to come back to it but you prefer to distance yourself. That's not my problem. That's a personal problem. Unfortunately uh you see that your daddy is a is a mutant and that's you. But anyway, let's move past that. So, colorism is different from race. It refers to the preference of discrimination based on a skin tone within across communities.

[00:08:16]What I'm trying to explain with this episode, we can examine where those ideas can become from, where they come from, how they influence identity, relationships, and media opportunity, and how individuals and communities can build a healthier perspective. So you have to understand what your disdainment is first and foremost. You have to understand what that look like, how it feels. So what is colorism? A definition of colorism in disguise in distinguish it from racism. There's no real distinguishment. But examples of colorism across different regions and origins of the world, how beauty standards have changed. You know, it speaks a lot about the psychosis and mentality of the European effect and the enlightenment of the so-called uh white man or the European and this revolution and this renaissance created chaos, havoc, destruction, and turmoil for the rest of the world in order for you to eat good, in order for you us to solve your problems.

[00:09:19]That's not efficient when you talking about a global economy or a world that everybody's supposed to have their talents, their lands exist within proprietary proportions and understanding how those that work harder and those that are distinguished should rise to the top. But you seem to not make a way for the people of color in established mediocre whites. That's kind of what you did. But okay, so the philosophy of colorism is how repeated messages shape selfidentity.

[00:09:55]So if you're going to tell black kids with the the test the black child is the black child and you got the black child is the bad child and you got white kids and black kids white te kids and all the kids associating everything bad with black just because of how they shape society and what they see around them what they're surrounded around what they what succumbs them and so when you understand even within the communities in the uh the African community on the continent in Africa or the the Caribbean islands where they they they they literally wear a a hell of a lot of cake soap and they they they formulate a lot of different practices and and elements that are associated with European practices even the way they want to manner themselves and how they want to treat well well hell I understand that's your children and I can't really say that Europeans are fashioning themselves after Africans when they're actually they're fash Europeans are fashioning themselves at the Africans. So Africans are learning their old concepts. So maybe they've always had them concept.

[00:10:58]That's their children.

[00:11:01]They gave them the rights to do everything that they did. I'm telling you, it's in this book right here.

[00:11:06]It's the affairs of West Africa.

[00:11:08]I'm telling you, and I've shown you. I read you many times out of this book. I got a I got I got more to say today, but we will get more to this book. I know I keep showing it and I know I keep saying we got more to say about it, but I can't help but tell you that the absolute about some things that are true and some things that just will never be true. I don't give a damn how anybody want to shape it because the real identity is or the real actual problem is they don't understand that melanated people are the global majority and we're in every nick and cranny of the globe. So whether they be a straightaired melanated person or a curlyhaired melanated person, a woollyad melanated person, we're everywhere and always have been every singlewhere, every single nook and cranny on the globe. So your out of Africa theory, that [ __ ] just ain't true.

[00:12:07]There was one land mass. You think we didn't survive on all of them?

[00:12:11]You think they find what they wanted to find in some places that you just can't go today because they know things that they don't want us to know at all. But let's keep going.

[00:12:22]That's the philosophy of colorism in in a in a destructive way. But the global perspective, see, let's discuss how colorism appears in different parts of the world. In Africa, they call that the dark continent because of all the melanated people there. And they also produce white uh uh uh uh albinos.

[00:12:43]They still produce a mass number of albinos on that planet this day. On that continent of this day, they produce albinos. This got way more ways of protecting them. And they send and they have in in in Dr. Francis Chris Wilson's work, if you know the ISIS paper, they'll tell you the Grammaldi tribe was taken to Europe to save their children.

[00:13:02]Uhhuh. So they've always defended and protected what they have created.

[00:13:08]Didn't YaKob do so? Didn't do you understand the story of YaKob and how he protected and wanted to create that different basically snatched snatch the melanin from the being and see what it is. He couldn't wait. He wanted it.

[00:13:28]But you got to study who he was too.

[00:13:30]That's another story. So you got the Caribbean which have an amalgamated amount of uh traits and influences of the world because of you know their presence the the Tyeno presence the the indigenous presence there and in Jamaica the Chinese presence then you got hated the French presence they fought the French out then you got a whole bunch of people that uh would slaughter themselves because the western world they actually defeated the French. The biggest problem that people have with the western world has with Haiti is they gave the way they gave their friends their hands. Friends can never fight for real though. But they really beat the piss out of them and that pissed them out. So they punished they punished them forever. They said regardless of your product, your lands, everything. They the the the people of had the hiat did not want the French in their lands nowhere around, no shape or fashion. And it cost them for not, you know, for not being a real people. And uh well, they did have bad and false governors, Papa Duck, and you know, a lot of um you know, uh uh infiltrated pres presidents that were um um uh compromised.

[00:14:43]So that the country would stay in a failure state due to the lack of leadership and understanding and a lack of connection to the people of what they really needed. So anyway, all of those things were orchestrated and the Caribbean that's that's Hades issue.

[00:14:56]Then you got uh you look at South America. I know that's South America, not the Caribbean, but you look at the Argentina story. It's a shame. It's pitiful. Look at that. Look at what they do to and look at how they still view blacks today. If you go to Cuba, uh if you go to every single solitary hole in South America, there is extreme division. It looks like unity. It looks like they're divided. It looks like they're unified by their language, but they are extremely divided, extremely uh destructive nations upon nations. And I wish it wasn't that way, but they have the worst forms of colorism that they even have brought here. That's even more despicable to whites. Whites don't even like the kind of brand of racism that they got in South America and in Central America, in the in the Caribbean. And they act as if that [ __ ] don't exist.

[00:15:44]Are you crazy? That shit's rampant. And it's been like that. But anyway, so you got North and South America, you got Asia, Asia, Asia is a very uh magnificent land mass. You got South Asia, which you have all of the uh uh negro or let's let's say this melanated, beautifully complexed people in South Asia. And uh you have a lot of um Nordic or Siberian or uh you know uh Russian uh pale Europeanist they're a bit big rough you know they're not so happy and they have these things that exist on the same continent. So there are differences and I'm not saying oh you know uh uh some people or the other are unbarbaric and not barbaric but you you know there's there's a people that have a a a state a mind state that they carry and if they're comfortable or or or secure within themselves they're not so angry. But when you're so angry you may not be so comfortable and secure a lot. You may have a lot to prove a lot and that may be your own [ __ ] problem. But anyway, let's keep going.

[00:16:55]We got media and representation. You got the castings in television. Bollywood says the same thing. Oh, they think there ain't no uh darkkinned people in India. Damn. Why why we always got pale complexed uh Bravians on TV? Why we always got them on? Why why why we're not represented in India?

[00:17:15]And then you got uh you know and that's that's global. This a global situation.

[00:17:19]And it's a global issue of casting the pale image globally. Acting as if or or playing a role as if you don't come from the darker races is is is almost like an extreme insecurity.

[00:17:37]being a pale complexed person or a lighter skin complexed person and it shouldn't be but it's the insecurity and the lack of understanding of identity which leads you to your your failures in your and your tragic situations with wanting to compete instead of learning.

[00:17:59]So, uh, social media filters and beauty trends, marketing, cosmetic industries, uh, you know, representation of who gets to portray as successful or desirable.

[00:18:13]Man, it's so crazy how you people make dark skin a fetish. Even now, like more so than ever, you sign, you see all these white girls globally hopping on every every dog dick they can find.

[00:18:28]Every melanated paint that'll give him a give him a uh a stroke down, they'll give him a wet down. I'm not hating. I'm just saying it's just that's that's kind of how that [ __ ] going. Ain't nobody Listen, people people do what they want.

[00:18:43]I mean, you got a lot of fine [ __ ] women all over the world right now and they got BBS. You can't tell depending on how much money they paid on it. You got so much [ __ ] going on. I mean, it's it's it's quite nice. It's quite good to look at, too. It's entertainment, you dig? [laughter] Everybody want to be entertainers and because they want that paper. But anyway, all I'm saying is, man, think about the equations and how the world spin and how marketing and how this expansion and how everybody wants a some some some blonde hair want to be want to be Auburn. Some some dark hair want to be blonde. And you know, all of these people want a different look, but everybody want a darker complexion.

[00:19:23]Everybody want a tan. Everybody want the shape. Everybody want a taste. Well, that's in your DNA, too. Always have been. And you ever read the dectable negro?

[00:19:35][snorts] Let's be clear. Let's be for real. The [ __ ] happen like that sometimes, right?

[00:19:40]Anyway, let's keep going. All right. The cost.

[00:19:45]Oh [ __ ] Here go the cost of this colorism [ __ ] You got mental health.

[00:19:51]That's a problem. Self-esteem, dating and relationships, workplace perceptions, family dynamics, and community unity. So when you want to be the black person I hear all the time, I live in an all-white neighborhood. I'm black and I'm just tired. Well, why the [ __ ] you moved in the first place?

[00:20:11]That's your problem. See, I like to go home and be happy. And I like to say, hey neighbor, what's happening? What's going on? Even if I don't like them, I'm like, they cool. They going through the same [ __ ] I'm going through. Oh, it's cool. But I [clears throat] know my neighborhood may look like [ __ ] the United Nations and that's fine with me. I'm cool with that. But I don't have a problem with them. We ain't judge. We just say what's happening. We uh speak. We keep it light and easy because everybody understands like the air, the tone. People are not struggling and starving where they ain't got enough money to think, damn, is something going wrong here? Do I have to is there something I have to do? Is there something I need to do? Is do I have to make some changes? See understand when you have trustworthy a trustworthy atmosphere and you have uh a subtle place around you, you can think different, you can think further, you can strategize, you can orchestrate, you can build, you can have the ability to stretch your imagination to always be safe, even if it calls getting a couple more toys to make yourself feel a little safer. So anyway, be aware of where you at. Also, be aware of your mental health, of where you live, your mental health state. If you stressed out and you can't sleep, if you ain't healthy where you are, you got to you got to get a skill set to change your situation. That's kind of how that happens. You know, dating and relationships, things of that nature. Be date who you're comfortable with and also date your grade, you know, do do [ __ ] like that. Use common sense. God damn it. Anyway, so solutions, teaching accurate history to your children.

[00:21:56]That's especially for white people. You don't have to feel victimized by saying, "Well, you know, we did a lot of awful things." Just say, you know, we had a we had we are very immature people and we can learn a lot from other people. That's humbling, ain't it? But it's also applicable just to be clear and concise you know I ain't trying to keep it too long but uh encouraging confidence independent of appearance you know be confident in your capabilities be confident in who you are be confident in what you can bring to the world as a good thing is a good space as a good place think about those things and your confidence will appear because you know what you have to offer then you won't rely so much on superficial things that you want to be real, but they're just not. So, you focus on the good things that would that are inside you so you can portray them, walk into them, mature yourself so the steps become clearer. It's a better path. So, anyway, check this out.

[00:23:05]You want to um support media that reflects human diversity, dignity, abstractness amongst beings that you know people that are learning and people that are you know elevating their mind to see further and beyond this vessel.

[00:23:24]They like to see the intricacies and the and the beauty of how people mature.

[00:23:29]So anyway, I'm going to give a part two to this show. I just didn't want to keep it too long. We coming back to you tonight. I thank you for tuning in and I appreciate you tuning in. Thank you so much. I will be back and I will share part two. But anyway, I got company. I got my family here. You know what I'm saying? I've been having a wonderful time. I had a wonderful time off, but I had to get back to my people. I love you. I appreciate you. Subscribe, share, and uh you know, share the show with your people, man. I'll be back.

[00:23:56]I'll do another one, too. I'm not done.

[00:23:59]But as it's good and refreshing to always rejuvenate and take a break. I love you guys. I appreciate my people.

[00:24:06]Thank you. And have a great night. Have a good time. You know it's my favorite part of the show. You know what it is.

[00:24:10]The will is yours. Be cool. Be easy. Be peaceful. I'll come back around too.

[00:24:18]Holl at you guys. Peace.