Nubia 'Queen of the Amazons' Appreciation Thread 2022

[HestiasHearth]

No. No, it doesn't.

Colorism is a system in which the closer your skin color and aesthetic features are to white/European characteristics, the more privileges you receive and the more valuable you are considered. Colorism is a system that clearly and distinctly says that the darker your skin is, the more savage, unintelligent, ugly, and worthless you are.

Colorism isn't "Wow, where are the light-skinned comic book characters?" or "I got called light-bright when I was a child" or "Dark-skinned Black people are jealous of me because I'm light-skinned."

Colorism is dark-skinned Black people being more likely to: get suspended in school, be turned down for jobs, be perceived as criminal, be perceived as guilty in a court of law, get harsher sentences when convicted, be harassed and abused by police officers, etc, etc, etc. There are hundreds of studies and tons of scholarly work around this topic. Start with: https://www.facebook.com/colorismhealing.

All of this is not to say that there shouldn't be any light-skinned Black comic book characters. But it is to note the sensitivities around representation, since light-skinned Black people are over-represented in other forms of media because white supremacist capitalist patriarchy finds them more appealing/less threatening.

Bravo.
Bravo a thousand times.
"Why are my light-skinned black people so underrepresented in comics and other media" (which is demonstrably false because they are actually overrepresented) is pretty much AllLivesMattering this issue. It also reminds me of when there is a conversation about toxic masculinity and some dude immediately says "but not all men are toxic!" It's a form of whataboutism designed to undermine/minimize/silence the conversation and the issue at hand (in this case colorism), but it doesn't surprise me. Comic book fandom has always been plagued by colorism, racism, misoginy, xenophobia, LGBTQ-phobia and all kinds of toxic attitudes, values, and beliefs. And rarely do the comic book fans who wield these attitudes, values, and beliefs admit to them.