Lawrence Potter, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, discusses “colorism,” a social divide between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned African Americans, Monday in the President’s Dining Room. Potter considered a debate between W.E.B Du Bois and Marcus Garvey on colorism, a phenomenon that disadvantages darker skinned African Americans. Potter says that modern day colorism persists because media has created a beauty standard and superiority for lighter skin and Caucasian features. / photo by Cortney Mace
Layla Abbas
Assistant Editor
Lawrence Potter, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, explained the notion of the “color line,” or “colorism” within the African American community, otherwise known as intraracial prejudice between light skinned and darker skinned African Americans, Monday in the President’s Dining Room.
Potter learned about colorism at a young age growing up in New Orleans.
“It was important for me to become very observant about what was happening within the African American population, particularly in the context of whites and blacks in Louisiana,” Potter told the overflow crowd of students and faculty.
“When I moved to the great state of Mississippi, where I finished my high school years, race became pervasive.”
Potter then attended Stillman College, a historically black liberal arts college in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where his interest in the dynamics of race and literature grew.
“The reality is when you attend a historically black college or university, where there are fraternities and sororities…you witness first-hand this notion of intraracial prejudice,” Potter said.
He opened the Monday talk with excerpts from an essay called, “The Color Fetish,” by Toni Morrison.
Potter referenced Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston and Wallace Thurman in his essay for a co-edited book about race and ethnicity in the 21st Century, which is due to publish in December.
Potter read from Morrison’s essay: “None of these categories is outside the writer’s world or his or her imaginative prowess, but how that world is articulated is what interests… Colorism is so very available – it is the ultimate narrative shortcut.”
Potter moved on to a 20th Century debate between W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, while overlaying historical context intraracial prejudice has in the color line, a reference to racial segregation.
“Many of the students who are assembled in this room today probably only think about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.,” Potter said. “The only kind of black structures and figures they have been taught about.”
Potter said the literature in the late 19th and early 20th Century show the constructs of color, racism and divisiveness have always been present.
Potter explained a brief history of Garvey’s arrival to the U.S. in 1916 where he sought out Du Bois at the NAACP office in New York to help raise funds for a school he wanted to build in Jamaica.
“The plethora of white and light skinned people on the NAACP staff and all the black skinned people in desirable positions in Black America no doubt contributed to Garvey’s decision to remain in Harlem and establish the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1917.”
Potter said the topic of colorism proved to be an immediate threat for Du Bois.
“Du Bois was not oblivious, he and his light skin peers felt their light skin privileges were threatened by discussions of colorism and color equality,” Potter said. “Not unlike whites who felt their white privilege was threatened by discussion of racism and racial inequality.”
Du Bois copied his enemies by using racist ideas and power to silence the anti-racist challenge to color discrimination Potter said.
“I call this behavior the oppressed mimicking the oppressor,” Potter said. “And if you know nothing about it, young people in the room, the oppressed mimicking the oppressor is alive and well around you today.”
Potter made sure to inform the audience that Garvey was not right in his argument as a separatist either.
“Garvey was dark skinned and believed all light skin people and people who could pass as light skinned were just as evil as the white people who privileged them,” Potter said.
“Instead of viewing light skinned blacks as equal to dark skinned blacks from an anti-racist standpoint, Garvey fashioned the other, less acknowledged ideological side of colorism.”
The Monday talk was sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Center for Multicultural Services, and the Multicultural Club.
Misty Levingston, assistant director of multicultural services, asked the audience to raise their hands if they had ever been affected by colorism. A few hands, including Levingston’s, went up.
“This event was born out of the need to discuss the phenomenon that occurs within communities of color (who tend to) disproportionately discriminated against darker colored skin women the most,” Levingston said.
Aracely Torres, assistant director for diversity and inclusivity, said Potter’s talk gave the audience an overview of colorism with historical context.
“When we are not talking about the historical context and lack understanding with what has transpired, we can get lost in why we function the way we do now,” Torres said.
Potter spoke about the differences between historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic serving institutions.
Before starting at the University of La Verne, which is a Hispanic serving institution, he was dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Jackson State University, a historically black college.
Historically black colleges and universities were created because African American were not allowed to go to predominantly white colleges and universities, Potter said.
“The mission at HBCUs (was) nurturing black students to have self esteem to fully understand their roots as well as the larger sphere around them.”
Hispanic serving institutions, on the other hand, were founded as predominantly white institutions and shifted to Hispanic serving due to changing demographics.
“When I think of black students at Jackson State University, they walked around with a sense of pride, ownership and belonging,” Potter said. “They knew why they were there.”
During his time at La Verne, Potter said has seen a stark contrast.
“When I interact with students who are black at an HSI, they find it difficult just to get through the day, because they feel as though they have been beaten down,” Potter said. “No one is here to champion (their) rights. No one is here to see (them) through and they feel like they are carrying a weight.”
Laurie Rodrigues, assistant professor of English, said the lecture reinforced the importance in assessing work of artistic writers, poets and painters to learn about historical events.
“Literature is an important resource when it comes to figuring out details or perspective that comes through a historical moment,” Rodrigues said.
“I have found from my time spent as a student and researching that a history textbook may not always tell the whole story.”
Rodrigues said the images Potter shared about the Madinola advertisements found in Ebony Magazine, which encouraged people of darker skin color to purchase bleaching cream, was striking for her to revisit.
“Colorism is a specified form of racism and can sometimes be worse than racism,” Rodrigues said. “Colorism inside these communities can erode any sense of solidarity and recreate the problems they are trying to solve.”
Potter said skin is a loaded signifier of identity and value. Even in a diverse population like California, race still matters.
“From an anti-racist standpoint, no group of black people are inferior, not now, not ever,” Potter said.
“A century ago both Du Bois and Garvey were wrong. We have to recognize that dark skin is not the essential and pure standard of blackness. We have to recognize that colorism is a form of racism.”
Layla Abbas can be reached at layla.abbas@laverne.edu.
