Dark Girls: A Documentary

May 27th, 2011 - By Veronica Wells

As much as we love being black, we can’t pretend that we’re a people without flaws. One of the deepest, nastiest burdens we carry is our attitude about skin color. The dismissal or downright distaste for darker skin tones is an attitude that’s been a part of our culture since the days of slavery, if not before. While this belief is certainly not representative of all black people, there are still several women and men with darker skin tones who have felt and experienced pain because of these sentiments.

Actor and director Bill Duke, decided to tackle this issue, as it relates specifically to black women. He interviews several dark skinned women, both in and outside of the African American culture, who describe their painful memories and detail their hurtful experiences. Hopefully his work will provoke discussion, change mindsets and lead toward the healing we so desperately need.

You can watch a clip of the documentary, which will be released during the Fall/Winter of this year, below.

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  • John

    I love dark skinned women. I’d pick them any day. However, it doesn’t matter because God made females to be an image that represent beauty, no matter the race. Man are the ones that convinced us of what’s beautiful and what’s not. That is one the problems with relationships now, letting man make us too judgemental. We all should seek the opposite gender of how close they are to God and how close the can bring us to God vs what our culture and society says we should look for. I’d love to have a wife that looks like that girl at top ;-) .

  • Valerie

    I recently had a friend over for drinks and she actually came out of her mouth and said that I was "Red" as a lighter skinned black person is called in the south and particularly Florida. I was shocked and a little angry that someone I considered a friend could say this to me when clearly we were both the same color brown and beautiful. No, she said you are not the same color as me you just been out in the sun. I could not believe the ignorance and I really did not know what to say after she kept affirming her point saying I did not know what I was talking about or that I just could not see that I was really a light skinned black or "Red". One thing that my mother taught me is that ignorance comes in all shapes and sizes and colors. We as African American people have to stop denigrating each other period. But especially when it comes to skin color.

    I was in So Africa a few years ago and as soon as I got off the plane I felt that I was finally in a place where I belong. There is every color of black person there and it was beautiful to see the black black skin of my brothers and sisters who had been so oppressed for so many years finally free and being accepted for who they were and their talents recognized.

  • Bianca

    I think this is very interesting. My sister has dark skin and I am light skinned according to the definition but we didn't ever realize it or care.We grew up in a white community and no one ever made these light skin dark skin distinctions. But more importantly our parents never made a distinction. We are sisters, no matter what our skin color. It wasn't until my sister was about 19 years old that someone said something about her being dark skinned. The sad thing is it was another black person. Sadly ignorance and self hate still run rampant in our culture. Time for a change.

  • silky shine

    I think all our woman of color are beautiful and it is ashame that from young they are learning that dark is bad, we have such a long way to go still.

  • Nikki

    It starts with you. You have to love yourself and stop looking for acceptance from other people. It's unfornate, but I think the reality is we will NEVER come together and rise as a people. We separate ourselves. This I will never come to understand. I embrace my skintone and love it. If you are talking about someone skin tone its because you don't love yourself and you have issues within yourself. We are a society who likes to make others feel bad to take away our pain. SELF WORTH LADIES. To all the mothers out there raising your daughters with this foolishness, you need to check yourself, and accept and love who you are.

  • Cynthia

    Did anyone see the child that repeatedly pointed to the darkskinned girl when ever the instuctor asked about who was SMART PRETTY she pointed to the white picture) then when asked who was DUMB And UGLY )she pointed to the darkskinned pic). THIS IS THE SAME EXPERIMENT THAT WAS PERFORMED IN THE 60's THAT LEAD TO INTERGRATIN OF SCHOOLS BROWN VS WADE. We neen to wake up because this has and continues to effect our kids decades later. I am brownskinned and was called darkskinned by my friends in middleschool. As i grew older men have told me that they love my complexion prob because I'm in the middle no guilt no shame. I know that i have to love myself and not allow the people around me to define me. However we must begin to teach our kids before another decade goes by with them thinking that being a woman or man of darkskin is a curse.

  • Diane

    omg I need to see the rest of this!

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