Well, color me not surprised.

I always hate to blog about colorism, because it always opens up to all kinds of craziness from black folks. Honestly, I would avoid it if I could, because lord knows we- as black folks- have enough stuff that divides us. (This is coming from someone who calls his blog the Field Negro.)

But sometimes when other people start talking about colorism and how it affects A-merry-can culture we can't help but talk about it.

My man Anderson Cooper (him of the very white hair) is running a series on CNN which is eye opening. Of course it isn't anything new for those of us in the know. The "Doll Test" might have been over fifty years ago, but it might as well have been yesterday. Colorism is real, and, sadly, it effects our children more than anyone else. (Lately I have been thinking a lot about our children, and for all the wrong reasons .) Most of us end up falling in love with ourselves and who we are as we get older. We learn to appreciate people for who they are and not how they look. And, as a result, we get in where we fit in within the grand scheme of things as human beings. Most us us. Some of us, like the children in CNN's program, sadly buy into what society is selling in terms of what beauty is supposed to look like. As a result,we live our entire lives with society's twisted projection on us or projecting our own messed up pathologies on others. We didn't need some fancy University of Chicago professor to do a study for us to realize colorisms lingering
effect on all of us. (Maybe even the people producing the show. Think about it.)

"(CNN) -- A white child looks at a picture of a black child and says she's bad because she's black. A black child says a white child is ugly because he's white. A white child says a black child is dumb because she has dark skin.
This isn't a schoolyard fight that takes a racial turn, not a vestige of the "Jim Crow" South; these are American schoolchildren in 2010. "

So where do they get it? We can't blame it all on television and marketing. Most of this behavior is learned right at home. Don't front, you have all heard that black parent: "Tenisha get your black nappy headed ass over here before I tear you a new one." I don't know what goes on in some white homes with their little children, but I watched CNN, so I can only guess.

"Spencer was also surprised that children's ideas about race, for the most part, don't evolve as they get older. The study showed that children's ideas about race change little from age 5 to age 10."The fact that there were no differences between younger children, who are very spontaneous because of where they are developmentally, versus older children, who are more thoughtful, given where they are in their thinking, I was a little surprised that we did not find differences."


Don't be surprised professor Spencer; it's called the real world.