Are You a Coloracist?

The colorism in my family was (and still is) so bad that I ran away from them as soon as I was 18 and I have stayed away ever since. In my own family, people range in color from extremely light to almost black because of our white, east indian and african ancestry. We also have hair textures ranging from short and “nappy” to long and almost straight. My mother is medium brown but she worshiped at the alter of light skin. She treated her light-skinned children better than she treated herself,while treating the darker ones worse than an animal hater would treat a dog. We were violently abused (thrown down stairs,threatened with butcher knives and hot irons, beaten to a pulp for no reason), neglected, sent to school without being fed, bathed or wearing clean clothes.

I am amber brown, but that was too dark for my mother. Until I was 17 years old and got my first summer job, I had to be content with having only one pair of slacks, one shirt, sneakers with holes, no socks, no boots, hat or gloves in the winter. All the while, my two light skinned sisters and 2 light skinned brothers were clean, well-dressed, well-fed and cared for.

Needless to say, no one wanted to come near me, looking as pitiful as I did, so I had no friends throughout my childhood. I tried to kill myself for the first time when I was 8 years old but I was not smart enough to know how many pills to swallow to cause death.  I had nothing but school but I guess it saved me. Since I always felt ugly and looked unappealing, I never had boyfriends, so pregnancy and abortions were problems I never had to deal with. I ended up getting a scholarship to a competitive college, left my mother and siblings 2 days after high school graduation and never returned to them.