Racism finds people discriminating against others because of their race. While considered a common hot button issue within the entertainment industry, an even more complex prejudice exists: colorism. Coined by novelist Alice Walker in 1982, the term means “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color.” In other words, those of the same race can instill a hierarchy dictated by the whiteness of one’s skin tone.
Recently, Mathew Knowles, the father of Beyoncé, has spoken up about the dangers of colorism and his unfortunate past experience with it, as The Washington Post points out. The former manager of Destiny’s Child and a current professor at Texas Southern University, Knowles admitted to Ebony that he grew up believing light-skinned black women were better than their darker-skinned counterparts.
“When I was growing up, my mother used to say, ‘Don’t ever bring no nappy-head Black girl to my house,’” explained Knowles, who spent his formative years about 60 miles northeast of Birmingham, Alabama. “In the Deep South in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, the shade of your Blackness was considered important. So I, unfortunately, grew up hearing that message.”
His dating preferences mirrored this warped message and affected perhaps his most important relationship, the one he formed with Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles Lawson. According to Knowles, he pursued her because she appeared more white to him. “I actually thought when I met Tina, my former wife, that she was White,” he commented. “Later I found out that she wasn’t, and she was actually very much in-tune with her Blackness.”
Trying to make sense of his prejudice, Knowles continued, “I had been conditioned from childhood. With eroticized rage, there was actual rage in me as a Black man, and I saw the White female as a way, subconsciously, of getting even or getting back.”
Despite having initially built a relationship on the foundation of colorism, Beyoncé’s parents stayed together more than 30 years before divorcing amicably in 2011. Knowles now realizes his wrongheaded ways; he’s speaking up in hopes of drawing more attention to the topic, especially as it pertains to the music industry. He suggests colorism plays a part in deciding which black musicians make it into the mainstream spotlight. “When it comes to Black females, who are the people who get their music played on pop radio?” said Knowles. “Mariah Carey, Rihanna, the female rapper Nicki Minaj, my kids [Beyoncé and Solange], and what do they all have in common?”
Although she may be a possible product of colorism, Beyoncé has been doing her part to proudly showcase her blackness through her music.