Blue Veins & Brown Bags: "Post-Colonial" Roots of Colorism

The post-colonial period is considered to start in the 1940s when several countries around the world were rising up, resisting colonial European regimes, and fighting for and starting to gain independence or sovereignty.

For my academics, I have to say that this discussion is not based on post-colonial theory. I’m just using that to frame a specific span of time.

When we talk about that period of history, many people born during that time are still alive. It might be you, your parents, or at least your grandparents who lived through this particular historical period.

Today, I’m just whetting our appetites by briefly sharing some of the forms of colorism in the United States during this time period.

Watch Live or Scroll to Keep Reading:

(Full Transparency, I thought about calling my live stream, “A Brown Bag on Brown Bags.”)

Additional Context:

The context for this is that during slavery, mixed-race descendants of white, male colonialists and enslaved Black women were more likely to be given an education or to be taught a trade. And they were more likely to be manumitted or set free.

So during slavery, there was a growing social class of “free people of color” or “free Black people” who were largely mixed race and lighter skinned.

Those privileges compounded for generations born after slavery. So the advantage of possibly being freed during slavery, access to education, and sometimes property or inheritance, etc. gave many of these mixed-race people a head start post-slavery.

This is why during Reconstruction, the period just after slavery and before Jim Crow, when historians say there was actually a lot of positive advancements and accomplishments for Black Americans—nearly all of that progress was made by lighter skinned mixed-race people because they had the benefit of already being in position to do so.

Many of these people started to intentionally form a social class of their own, with social networks, organizations, clubs, schools, churches, events, neighborhoods, even their own marriage market. This was in many cases intended to be and very often viewed as and operating as a separate middle class of people between Black Americans and Non-Black Americans.

Blue Veins & Brown Bags:

So I titled this week’s talk “Blue Veins and Brown Bags” because this phenomenon of creating a separate class of people included groups called “Blue Vein Societies” where acceptance required that your skin be light enough to show the blue veins under your skin.

They also used the Brown paper Bag Test, which required that your complexion be lighter than a paper bag in order to be accepted as a member of their communities. Even if there were no literal paper bags present, this ideology was reflected in the makeup of these communities.

A similar test was the Comb Test, where they had to be able to pass a fine-tooth comb through your kitchen without it getting caught. That’s an early example of texturism.

Exceptions were made if you were darker skinned but wealthy, or in the case of some schools, if you were skilled enough at sports (according to Mathew Knowles).

So, I’ve said in a previous live stream that light-skinned and mixed-race people, collectively, have not been innocent, unassuming bystanders in colorism. They have actively leveraged it for their own benefit.

If you’re interested in my speaking, training, or consulting services, send me a direct message here on LinkedIn!

HOMEWORK: Talk to someone from a different generation than you about colorism.

AFFIRMATION: I take responsibility for my legacy. I choose to be remembered as someone who stood for justice.