That flyer you see above is for real. It isn't a joke. It appeared this morning in my inbox and I saw it being discussed on blogs like Sandra Rose's and Crunktastical's.
I feel like it's 1992 all over again back when everybody wanted a light skinned male or female. This was when Christopher Williams, Halle Berry, S-Curls, and green contacts were the thing. Hard to admit but there was actually a "I want to date only light skinned" era.
I wonder how this club will enforce the policy. Obviously they can check your ID to see if you are a Libra. But what determines if you are light enough? Will they do like the AKA's (Alpha Kappa Alpha) and Kappas (Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity) use to do to determine if their prospective members were light enough? What did they do? They used a brown paper bag to test a person's level of lightness. So I am guessing that the club will do like amusement parks and hold a paper bag at the door that you have to stand beside.
What are your thoughts?
22 comments:
That is some bullshit......... I am a brown skin female and I would not attend if I was invited.... What's the purpose of that??? It's stupid and whoever thought of that is stupid.
Welcome to Detroit, lol. If you've ever seen the airport there then you will get an idea of where some people may have their heads at.
I am brown skin as well and I would be on guard all night waiting for some to jump out yell "You've just been PUNK'D"..this is ridiculous to me.
Hey incognegro...this is Tara. I am a light skinned woman and I have green eyes and although this party glorifies what I look like i think that it is wrong because it does not uplift the other colors that exist in the african american spectrum. We are beautiful because we come in all different colors, shapes and sizes. I feel like this type of gathering is taking us a step back as far as the unity that we are trying to maintain within our own race. This is only going to cause undue havoc because there will be a light skinned sista that will try to rub it in a brown skinned sista's face and they will go at it. Oh there may be a brown skinned sista that will just go hard on a light skinned sista just because she is light skinned. hope they bulked up on security for the nite.
@ Still
Lol, that is funny. If this were summertime, I guarantee that there would be some knucklehead refusing to go out in the sun because they didn't want to get too dark to get in for free.
Hey Tara,
Sometimes you just gotta shake your head at your people though. To think that someone actually went to Kinkos with this idea for a flyer and then passed it out. Did they not pass it out to people not considered light skinned?
It's not just type of gathering but also the music being played at these clubs that take us back.
When you sent me a text about this I immediately had to check you website out to see if it was real. I mean, I know people still have the paper bag complex but didn't know they would actually advertise it into a party...and we wonder why racism still exists when people still have parties like this that separates the African American community, as if media wasn't doing it enough...But I guess it hurts worse when someone tells you " If only you were light skinned you would be a dime for real" ( Not that i cared that much bc who wants to be called a dime(choice of language not the best) but to know that people still put up those barriers in their brain)...we shall overcome someday, apparently not on October 12th, thanks to a party hosted by Ms. Randi...
Reminds me of how a girl can be light skinned and throw in some weave and dudes will be like " Man she is bad", but in order for them to consider a "dark skinned" female bad, she has to have the hair, eyes, and body...Shows you who is brainwashed...My cousin and I could go to the mall, and I would become invisible to guys...makes me think of the time I was at track camp and there was this girl with beautiful porcelain like dark dark brown skin and the kids were making fun of her. I pulled her to the side and had a conversation with her on how she will have to learn how to ignore ignorance like that bc some would love to have smooth skin like that...as if we need to be separated as a community...goes back to the house slave and field hand
@ AB
You speak the truth on both comments. I can't believe our people would have the nerve to advertise this. If someone white made a flyer saying that white people get in free, Jesse and Al would be on Bill O'Reilly right now.
I think this summer gave me a whole new perspective on what it means to see a black woman as beautiful. I normally would go for the lighter skin women but then I began meeting women who were more brown or dark as we would say. True beauty is in the eye of a beholder who knows no limits to what defines beauty.
I'm disgusted...
so there is some fool out there patting himself on the back because he came up with this "genius" plan to get light-skinned girls to come to his club. What a freakin' IDIOT. I'm so frustrated with this that the right words can't come out to express my absolute disgust :(
How exactly do you determine which skin tones are light skinned and whose isn't?
Oh I am sure that same fool is loving all the attention as well.
@ Shawn, there is something called a brown paper bag test. If you are lighter than the bag, then you are considered "light skinned."
Just because you are light-skinned does not make you attractive. I hope it's a party full of ugly people.
This flyer glorifies pure ignorance to the fullest! And to be honest I'd expect this nonsense to come from tha dirtty south, but not Detroit!! C'mon man it's 2007 and people are still living w/ this slave mentality that light is alright? It saddens me to the fullest! But all that nonsense about all light skinned females are beautiful is a fcking lie! Prime example...Tisha Campbell-Martin! As a brown skinned sista when me and my light skinned cousin would go out, all the dudes would flock to me first! Which goes to show that not all men believe that bullshyt about light being better...'cause we're all beautiful!!!
@ 1st anonymous
Thank you for the comment. I think any person ignorant enough to attend this party is ugly.
@ 2nd anonymous
Damn Gina! Lol. I think people are allowed to like what attracts them, it is when people start thinking that one is better than the other for superficial reasons that bothers me.
Amid furor, DJ cancels party for 'light-skinned' blacks
'I made a mistake,' local party promoter says after Internet backlash.
Oralandar Brand-Williams / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- A local DJ and party promoter retreated Thursday from a plan to sponsor a bash that would let "light-skinned" black women into a downtown club for free.
But the "Light Skin Libra Birthday Bash" at Club APT on Woodward Avenue turned out to be a bashing -- of promoter Ulysses "DJ Lish" Barnes after word of the unusual party spread on the Internet.
"I made a mistake," Barnes said. "I didn't think there would be a backlash."
Barnes, who said he's been a party promoter for six years, canceled the event.
He said he has gotten angry calls and e-mails from around the country about the party.
"I didn't mean to offend anyone," he said. "I had planned a party for other shades (of black women). We were going to take a shade of color each week. Next week was going to be a party for 'Sexy Chocolate' and the week after that 'Sexy Caramel.' "
Barnes is African-American and describes himself as "dark skinned." The issue of skin color is an often painful and emotional among African-Americans. The history of slavery and the resulting legacy of intra-racial segregation have sometimes pitted darker-skinned and lighter-skinned blacks against one another.
A noted Los Angeles-based activist who goes by the name of Pearl Jr. was among the chorus of voices complaining about the party.
"I had a good conversion with him and he understood," said Pearl Jr., founder of the Black Women's Movement in Los Angeles and the author of the book "Black Women Need Love, Too."
"Ignorance can't always be an excuse," she said. "Colorism is real in the black community. It's especially very degrading to dark-skinned black women."
The party's discriminating tone harkens to the day of the "brown paper bag test," which compared the complexions of blacks to a brown grocery bag before they could be admitted to social clubs and affairs, said Pearl Jr.
The activist said she had a heart-to-heart talk with Barnes and he immediately told her he would cancel the party.
"He was basically falling in line with what we have been taught (by society) that the less African-looking you are the better you are," said Pearl Jr. "Basing whether someone is admitted on their skin color is discriminatory, which is really against the law."
Comments on Web sites and blogs about the party included urging a boycott of the party and filing a lawsuit against the party's promoter.
"The way this should be handled is that our light-skinned sisters should refuse to go unless the darker-skinned sisters received the same treatment," wrote one blogger. "We must stand together and not allow ANYONE, especially, a club to divide us."
Barnes said he is hoping to host an event to raise money for a charity to make up for whatever problems or pain he caused over the party flier.
so does anyone know the outcome of this event?
sorry, I didn't read the previous post. I'm glad they cancelled the event :)
Im way late on this blog Che, but its the same in the Mexican countries, people that are light skinned and have colored eyes think they are superior than to those that are dark skinned with dark eyes. Its all just ignorance. Goes to show that there is alot of similarities with these two notr-so different races.
Peter
I heard that Mexican attitudes are like that. Actually a few Latin American countries have the backwards view that light is right.
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