Can we be honest about how colorism operates now? There is no instance of a woman w/ skin darker than a paper bag & unambiguously African features being permitted to masquerade as other-than-Black or “mixed race” or receiving social benefit/ professional promotion from doing so.

Instead, being unambiguously racially Black is precisely what results in systemic marginalization. There are no dark skin Dolezals & Krugs nor do ppl cape for actual BW as hard as they do for blackfishing WW. It’s directly tied to how colorism operates. https://mobile.twitter.com/BreeNewsome/status/1301617663622471681

We’re not unpacking race when folks continue to treat colorism as a third rail issue or pretend that it isn’t fundamentally about anti-Black discrimination against dark skin, 4c hair & other physical features that are considered racially “black”.

People remain culturally fixated with the idea/image of people being able to traverse the “color line”. This is where “mixed race” & “exotic” identities reside. That fixation does not exist for the unambiguously Blk person b/c we know they can never transcend the rules of race.