Speaker 1: Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Talk podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
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Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts. Hey everybody, I hope everyone's doing well
Speaker 1: out there. Before COVID nineteen, Red Table Talk had already
Speaker 1: been filming, but once the pandemic hit, we realized that
Speaker 1: we had to put those particular episodes in a vault. Well,
Speaker 1: now we feel like we can share them with you
Speaker 1: now if you see us close together, that's why. But
Speaker 1: we love these episodes, and our first one is colorism.
Speaker 1: And this is a subject we've been wanting to bring
Speaker 1: to the Red Table for a very very long time.
Speaker 1: So now we are on this Red Table Talk. This
Speaker 1: is like the secret, the thing we don't want to admit. Colorism.
Speaker 1: It's discrimination or prejudice based on skin tone from members
Speaker 1: of the same race. It began during slavery. Owners often
Speaker 1: raped their slaves who gave birth to light skinned children.
Speaker 1: They were given preferential treatment. Lighter meant better, smarter, and
Speaker 1: more beautiful. This hateful bias seeped into black culture and
Speaker 1: continues to divide us whether you're dark, light, or in between.
Speaker 1: The complexities and conflicts within our own race when it
Speaker 1: comes to the shade of our skin are devastating, deep rooted,
Speaker 1: and affect us. All. This red table is devoted to
Speaker 1: our beautiful dark skinned sisters like my lifelong friend Mia
Speaker 1: and her daughter, my niece Madison, who are revealing the
Speaker 1: deep wounds caused by colorism as she got darker. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is a problem. Wow, my grandmother,
Speaker 1: she definitely did not like dark skinned people. I've gotten
Speaker 1: buoyed one kid in particular, he would always call me
Speaker 1: like blackie, And we confront our own preconceived prejudices right
Speaker 1: here at the table. They're gonna put you in a
Speaker 1: light skin fair category. You consider me fair? Yes, the
Speaker 1: conversation is really going to be intense. Maybe it's a
Speaker 1: new thing, but I definitely feel like nowadays, like in
Speaker 1: the dating world, dark skinned girls in particular feel like
Speaker 1: they don't get as much absolutely attention as light skinned
Speaker 1: girls get. Yes, And I don't think that's new. I
Speaker 1: think that's that's been the case for years and years
Speaker 1: and years. Yeah, I actually had the opposite in my
Speaker 1: experience kind of being picked on for being light skinned.
Speaker 1: And also I remember having plenty of conversations with you
Speaker 1: and Aunt Karen about not revealing other heritage in my
Speaker 1: blood that it was like, you're black and that's so
Speaker 1: much about not revealing. It was like, don't get don't
Speaker 1: get it twisted. Listen. Karen's like, don't talk about it
Speaker 1: because it means absolutely nothing. Your black. Yeah, don't let
Speaker 1: me hear you talking about you got this in your blood.
Speaker 1: You've got that in your blood. You got that your blood.
Speaker 1: She was like, it doesn't matter. People think it was
Speaker 1: because you were trying to be like I'm above this,
Speaker 1: Like I'm above back in the day, like you know,
Speaker 1: you would always hear black people, Oh I got empty
Speaker 1: in at me and all of this and not wanting
Speaker 1: to be not black, still not owning our own blackness.
Speaker 1: And that's just a result of you know, all the
Speaker 1: brainwashing that has happened over the years that started from slavery,
Speaker 1: with the perpetuation of white supremacy or lighter skin supremacy.
Speaker 1: It's true, and it's not with just women. That's the
Speaker 1: other thing. Then darker skin also have a very very
Speaker 1: difficult timely. Darker Black men are targeted. Yeah, definitely, that
Speaker 1: it is for them to negotiate the corporate world, corporate America.
Speaker 1: My husband had to do it. My my husband, one
Speaker 1: of your third husband, I think it was, Yes, your
Speaker 1: third has been had to deal with that. Yeah. All right, ladies,
Speaker 1: Well I say we take it to the table. Are
Speaker 1: you ready? Let's do it? All right? Okay, gam that listen.
Speaker 1: I know I'm stressed already. I'm stressed already. It's such
Speaker 1: a sensitive issue. So that you know. This one here, okay,
Speaker 1: miss me and Pitts is my lifelong friend, okay, And
Speaker 1: we went to high school together. I did a year
Speaker 1: of college with her before I quit. We have lived
Speaker 1: together several times, we worked together every day, and so
Speaker 1: she has been a big part of my life for
Speaker 1: a long time. And Miss Madison here, this is her daughter.
Speaker 1: We also grew up together like my niece. She and
Speaker 1: Willow grew up together. So this is family right here.
Speaker 1: And I really wanted to bring her on to talk
Speaker 1: about colorism because she and I had several conversations over
Speaker 1: the years about this issue, so I thought she would
Speaker 1: be perfect. I know, it's chocolate thunder, Okay. It was
Speaker 1: crazy because when I was getting myself together. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is kind of a plunging uh neck run here.
Speaker 1: But it's also a part of the character that I created,
Speaker 1: a part of my colorism issues that I had because
Speaker 1: I never considered myself beautiful, so I always would go
Speaker 1: to the other side of the spectrum of being sexy.
Speaker 1: That was one of the ways that I could sell
Speaker 1: myself in another way outside of my skin color. I
Speaker 1: think it was a camouflage for not having being told
Speaker 1: that from men, primarily like you're beautiful. When did you
Speaker 1: start to feel like you had issues with your skin color?
Speaker 1: You know? I really I didn't really realize how many
Speaker 1: problems I had with it until we were dancing with
Speaker 1: the Knicks and one of my be A friends says, Hey, listen,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a shame that you're not going to
Speaker 1: ever be able to marry an nbair an athlete because
Speaker 1: they're not going to be able to see you because
Speaker 1: you're so dark. We ultimately choose women that are lighter.
Speaker 1: And that was said by a black man. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: always like, oh, you're so pretty for a chocolate It
Speaker 1: wasn't full impact until I had madisone. As time went on,
Speaker 1: I noticed that she was just getting darker. As she
Speaker 1: got darker, I was like, Oh, this is a problem
Speaker 1: because somehow or another along the line, you become inadequate.
Speaker 1: And I just didn't want that for her, Like I
Speaker 1: don't want her to have to have the same type
Speaker 1: of scenarios that I did, like never being told that
Speaker 1: you're beautiful, but I unconsciously started putting that on her,
Speaker 1: like oh, you're such a you're so pretty, for your
Speaker 1: skin is so beautiful, Like always over complimenting her on
Speaker 1: her skin and to the point where it could cause
Speaker 1: her to have a complex, like well, what's the difference
Speaker 1: with my skin that you're always talking about my skin?
Speaker 1: Every time Madison wanted a toy or anything, it would
Speaker 1: have to be a black toy. If she wanted a
Speaker 1: white doll, Oh no, no, no, no, we can't get
Speaker 1: that doll. It's we have to get a doll that
Speaker 1: looks like us. Like I went on a whole thing
Speaker 1: of trying to find like all these beautiful black women
Speaker 1: so that I could just show her the imagery so
Speaker 1: she could feel good about who she was. Ultimately, I
Speaker 1: was crushing her with too much of it instead of
Speaker 1: just allowing her to be who she was without having
Speaker 1: to have consciousness on her skin color. Yeah, Madison would
Speaker 1: have been some of your experiences, well, you know, going
Speaker 1: to like a predominantly black elementary school. That's why was
Speaker 1: my first experience. I got bullied in one black kid
Speaker 1: in particular. He would always say, like, your skin looks
Speaker 1: like poop and like call me like blackie. And I
Speaker 1: remember going home to my mom of course, like crying,
Speaker 1: like what's going on? Like why would he do that?
Speaker 1: Like why would he say that? And that's like was
Speaker 1: my first introduction to it. And then when I transitioned
Speaker 1: to like a predominantly white school, I was scared because
Speaker 1: I was like, if I'm getting this from my own community,
Speaker 1: what am I going to get from this? And I
Speaker 1: didn't have any issues, So that was really shocking to me. Wow,
Speaker 1: that is so deep that you were to see all
Speaker 1: white school basically yeah, and had no issues. That doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. When I liked black boys, they never really
Speaker 1: liked me back. So I always got that, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't date I don't date um dark skinned girls.
Speaker 1: And I was just like, okay, then I would just
Speaker 1: forget you guys. Then I'll just date something else. And
Speaker 1: then I kind of got that backlash for that, you know,
Speaker 1: why would you do that? I'm like, you guys don't
Speaker 1: even like us anyway, so what's the point the hurt?
Speaker 1: Of course, and we have those little bit of lanes.
Speaker 1: You're like, okay, like I'm not good enough, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm dating black guys again, and now I'm getting that
Speaker 1: like appreciation that I've always wanted. I don't I don't know,
Speaker 1: like what changed in their minds or hopefully because being
Speaker 1: more confident or me That's what I was going to
Speaker 1: say that too. That's probably yeah, that you're more confident
Speaker 1: you know and who you are, because confidence is very attractive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot of people say, I've actually read
Speaker 1: about it too, that the best way to control a
Speaker 1: group of people were to really just get control of them,
Speaker 1: is to pit them against themselves. And that's exactly what
Speaker 1: colorisms exactly. And that's that so it was all by
Speaker 1: design exactly. Well, there's a fascinating documentary on colorism that
Speaker 1: we wanted to tell you about. Skin color amongst the
Speaker 1: black community is a huge issue. I used to wish
Speaker 1: that I can't wake up one day lighter or wash
Speaker 1: my face and think that it will change. Argie lighter.
Speaker 1: I thought it was dirt. You're not trying to clean
Speaker 1: it off, but it wouldn't come off. Certain people who
Speaker 1: may have lighter skin try to boost their self esteven
Speaker 1: to boost their you know, they're self worth up by
Speaker 1: putting others down because they know that darker skin, I
Speaker 1: guess isn't considered beautiful, and so they can that kind
Speaker 1: of puts them up on that pedal stool like saying, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm more beautiful than you because my skin is fair.
Speaker 1: Experts conducted an experiment to touch young children's attitude toward
Speaker 1: different skin colors. The results were just heartbreaking. Shoot the
Speaker 1: smart child, and why is she the smart child? Because
Speaker 1: she is? Why okay, show me the dumb child, and
Speaker 1: why is she the dumb child? She sat, well, show
Speaker 1: me the ugly child, and why is she the ugly child?
Speaker 1: Because she'd been like, show me the good looking child,
Speaker 1: and why see the good looking child because she life skinning.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine had recently had a baby, and
Speaker 1: I was very happy for her, and so you know,
Speaker 1: it was my first time seeing a baby and the
Speaker 1: baby was beautiful. She said, girl, I'm so glad. She
Speaker 1: didn't come out dark. And when she said it, it
Speaker 1: felt like a dagger, like someone took a dagger and
Speaker 1: stuck it in my heart because I was used to
Speaker 1: expecting hearing things like that from other races, but this
Speaker 1: was someone that I considered to be my sister as
Speaker 1: a younger person coming up. White people really made me
Speaker 1: appreciate my skin color. Black people made me question it exactly.
Speaker 1: Now that's deep because Madison, you said the same thing.
Speaker 1: The hatred of our skin tone is really just the
Speaker 1: overall picture of the hatred that we have for ourselves.
Speaker 1: And it's just so deep rooted, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: It's just so really deep rooted. Is a real testament
Speaker 1: to how we feel about ourselves. We all have issues
Speaker 1: with color, no matter whatside you on, and that's what's
Speaker 1: so interesting. It even for you know, light skinned women,
Speaker 1: you know, I know, just on covers of magazine is
Speaker 1: always like, no, have your hair super straight? You know, no,
Speaker 1: you don't cut your hair, you know, And even nowadays
Speaker 1: that happens online like people saying, oh you light, you
Speaker 1: think you're cute, you think you're And back in the day,
Speaker 1: light skinned girls would get ben light if you were
Speaker 1: light skinned, long hair. We call it getting a bank.
Speaker 1: You would get banked for no reason, right, and just
Speaker 1: think about how superficial that is. Okay, so let's talk
Speaker 1: about this, right. So if we're in a room full
Speaker 1: of people that are not black, right, they're going to
Speaker 1: automatically put me in a dark skinned category, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna put you in a light skin fair category. You
Speaker 1: consider me fair? Yes, And here this is now we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about gammies issues because but it's in comparison,
Speaker 1: it's right. But my thing is is that it won't
Speaker 1: be how you see yourself. It's gonna be how everybody
Speaker 1: else sees you, right, And I hate to be the
Speaker 1: very bad news gammy. This is what I had to
Speaker 1: deal with when I was throwing what. I feel like
Speaker 1: she had a lot of shame on having different cultures
Speaker 1: and our blood because my grandparents, with West Indian, we
Speaker 1: really didn't have an issue with color per se, more
Speaker 1: so with class. Well, there was a little bit of
Speaker 1: it with my grandmother, right, Yeah, she was um. They
Speaker 1: were from Barbados and she definitely did not like dark
Speaker 1: skinned people. I remember when I was really little, we
Speaker 1: had neighbors who were very, very dark, and she didn't
Speaker 1: want us to play with them, right right. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: Chica A Cooro is a Harvard and Stanford graduate who
Speaker 1: was studied and experienced colorism, and she did a very
Speaker 1: personal ted talk that millions of people watched. Growing up,
Speaker 1: I definitely felt the effects of colorism. Guys didn't find
Speaker 1: me pretty. It really made me feel like I wasn't
Speaker 1: good enough, like I wasn't valuable enough. The situation came
Speaker 1: to a head when Chica discovered an offensive casting notice
Speaker 1: for the movie Straight out of Compton that ranked women
Speaker 1: based on their skin color. I was outraged. I was livid.
Speaker 1: I felt betrayed. Turning her outrage into action, Chica spoke
Speaker 1: out about the dangers of colorism until subdecide for those
Speaker 1: with more favorable features light skin, light eyes, long, soft,
Speaker 1: real hair. Chica, can you explain exactly what you saw
Speaker 1: on the Straight out of Compton casting call? Yeah? It
Speaker 1: was so mind blowing. So it split out the girls
Speaker 1: from A through DEP so different categories. So there was
Speaker 1: the A girls those are described as the hottest of
Speaker 1: hot models, you know, long hair, beautiful, and went to
Speaker 1: the BE girls those were African Americans. You had to
Speaker 1: have real hair. It had to be your real long hair,
Speaker 1: light eyes, light skin. They said Beyonce of the prototype,
Speaker 1: which blew my mind that Beyonce was not an a girl.
Speaker 1: She's a big girl. Then there were for the Sea girls,
Speaker 1: it said you could wear weaves no darker than a
Speaker 1: medium skin tone. And then the D girls. Those were
Speaker 1: all Afrin America. Again, out of shape, poor and darker
Speaker 1: skin tone. Yeah, welcome to how they would. I'm just
Speaker 1: so surprised that someone wrote that out on an actual Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm just seeing that degradation and kind of thinking, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm in the D category. But this is
Speaker 1: like the secret, the thing we don't want to admit
Speaker 1: that even within us there's division because we don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about it stays undercover. We're not supposed to
Speaker 1: bring it up. The history goes all the way back.
Speaker 1: Everyone gets annoyed when it say it begins in slavery,
Speaker 1: but that's where everything begin. That's our history here in
Speaker 1: the US. That's where it begins. It's unfortunate because it
Speaker 1: started with the mass rate of slave masters with the
Speaker 1: female slaves, and so now there's this cohord of mixed
Speaker 1: race children who have the more lighter skins, right hair,
Speaker 1: lighter eyes, slimmer noses, like all the different you know,
Speaker 1: typic character of sticks. And they're treated better, right, they're
Speaker 1: given prefrontal treatment, get to work in the house instead
Speaker 1: of out in the field. And that has all continued
Speaker 1: even after slavery and just that classifications, separations, and that
Speaker 1: is how opportunities or acceptance into different social clubs or
Speaker 1: sorties or fraternities was based on these different features. Like
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about the different tests that you
Speaker 1: still see the aftermaths of it. Back then it was blatant.
Speaker 1: There was the brown paper bag test. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're darker than brown paper bag on the club one,
Speaker 1: on the on the sorty paper bag is you know,
Speaker 1: craol a brown and so if you're darker than that,
Speaker 1: you know, there was a pencil test. They run a
Speaker 1: pencil through your hair. It can't get stuck. I never
Speaker 1: heard the pencils pencil test would have failed. Then I
Speaker 1: would have failed that. That was one of the issues
Speaker 1: for me growing up with my hair. That was just
Speaker 1: a struggle. It was like it was always a struggle.
Speaker 1: I was always looking even like my cousin, like my
Speaker 1: cousins and my friends, and I alwas look at her
Speaker 1: hair and be like, oh my god, like like if
Speaker 1: someone like if I would just be so much prettier,
Speaker 1: if my hair wasn't so kinky, or you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, if I had longer hair, and it would
Speaker 1: always just be such a issue. It all ties in together,
Speaker 1: the hair sleeping, all that the approximation to white is
Speaker 1: what is valued around the world. I've heard that you
Speaker 1: feel a certain way about the different skin tony emojis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. At first I would always feel away when
Speaker 1: I would choose the last emoji right, and then I
Speaker 1: think it's great that there's all these different emojis. It
Speaker 1: was a moment for me to reflect on, well, why
Speaker 1: do I feel away? That he acknowled like, who's to
Speaker 1: say that the very brown emoji is worse than like
Speaker 1: so like, wait a minute, like why am I feeling
Speaker 1: this way? When you have to really hune in on
Speaker 1: how you want to look to the outward world, then
Speaker 1: that's when you really have a chance to acknowledge how
Speaker 1: you really feel about yourself. So Stacy started bleaching her
Speaker 1: skin when she was just eight years old and continued
Speaker 1: until she was twenty five. This is what Stacy looked
Speaker 1: like when she was bleaching, and this is Stacy today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a completely different person. That's so crazy because I've never
Speaker 1: really thought that it works. It was a common practice, huh,
Speaker 1: especially in an island household. In my background. I'm Haitian,
Speaker 1: So you find out a lot and people from the
Speaker 1: islands that they bleach, and they see it as you're
Speaker 1: more valuable if you're lighter. You know you will succeed more.
Speaker 1: If you're a different skin tone, you will make it
Speaker 1: more in life if you are not dark. The skin
Speaker 1: bleaching business is billion dollar business. Skin Bleaching dates back centuries.
Speaker 1: In ancient times, lighter skin was a sign of privilege,
Speaker 1: in prestige the upper class who worked indoors, out of
Speaker 1: the sun. Many dark skinned people used bleaching powders, paints,
Speaker 1: or ointments an attempt to seem wealthier or aristocratic. I
Speaker 1: can remember being in the bathtub asking my mom to
Speaker 1: put bleach in the water so that my skin would
Speaker 1: be lighter, and so that I could escape the feelings
Speaker 1: that I had about not being as beautiful, as acceptable,
Speaker 1: as lovable. Go to South Africa today and you will
Speaker 1: see billboards promoting skin bleaching cream, even in the face
Speaker 1: of knowing that it causes cancer. Wow, what caused you
Speaker 1: to even think that? Because at a young age of eight, Like,
Speaker 1: how did you think that you were not good enough? Then?
Speaker 1: Because I've always been bullied. You know, it's either I'm
Speaker 1: this big, dark, dirty girl, or in school, no one
Speaker 1: wants to work with me because oh she's black, she
Speaker 1: might have an adultude, or she's unwilling to cooperate. So
Speaker 1: I decided to bleach. Do you feel like people treated
Speaker 1: you differently when you were bleaching? Yes, the boys who
Speaker 1: were picking on me saying I was dirty, I'm black,
Speaker 1: are disgusted. I have an attitude problem. They found beauty
Speaker 1: and this girl. Once I bleached, you know, I was
Speaker 1: more polite. They see me as or you know, instead
Speaker 1: of me being angry, I'm just passionate. That's why I'm
Speaker 1: so outspoken, and I you know, I cashing it. I'm
Speaker 1: not angry. You know, I don't have an attitude problem.
Speaker 1: I just I can talk all day, you know. So yes,
Speaker 1: people definitely viewed me like I'm more worthy in a way.
Speaker 1: That and that's an issue with darker skins. We got
Speaker 1: an attitude got an attitude, but every black woman, I know.
Speaker 1: But how did your family feel when you were bleached?
Speaker 1: And how did they feel when you stopped? They were devastated,
Speaker 1: like I just committed suicide or something. You know. Up
Speaker 1: until the point when I was engaged getting married, I
Speaker 1: was hearing maybe you should start bleaching again because your
Speaker 1: wedding is coming up and you want to be pretty
Speaker 1: for your wedding day. And I'm like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: like why are you killing me? Did the bleaching cause
Speaker 1: any other medical issues? I broke out a lot, I
Speaker 1: was dealt with acne, dark marks, high pigmentation, but once
Speaker 1: I stopped, my skin became clear. And so what made
Speaker 1: you decide to stop? My husband? Yeah, wow. When I
Speaker 1: was engaged, I decided to show him my photo album
Speaker 1: when I was a younger girl, a baby, and he said, wow,
Speaker 1: you're beautiful. You're so gorgeous. Deep down in my heart,
Speaker 1: I was so set. I'm like, oh, how can you
Speaker 1: call that girl in a picture beautiful? You know? And
Speaker 1: he didn't tell me to stop, but because he found
Speaker 1: beauty in that girl, in my mind, I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: I have to stop. There's no way for me to
Speaker 1: treat eat myself. That's the way if my husband loved me,
Speaker 1: you know, keep on beauty and this little chocolate muffing,
Speaker 1: you know, like I have to stop. Let's get him around.
Speaker 1: So when he left, I went to the bathroom and
Speaker 1: I cried, and I believe that's when my deliverance happened.
Speaker 1: You know, I went to church all my life, but
Speaker 1: my deliverance didn't happen at church. It happened in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: my one on one I cried. I'm like, God, like,
Speaker 1: how can I be in church? And I'm so insecure
Speaker 1: and I have such a bad low sulf esteem. I
Speaker 1: feel so depressed all the time. But that day is
Speaker 1: when God literally removed that hurt inside of me. So
Speaker 1: that is amazing. I really appreciate you guys coming to
Speaker 1: the table to talk about this. To me, this is
Speaker 1: just the beginning. This is just the beginning, because there's
Speaker 1: so much to unravel, so much to talk about, so
Speaker 1: much towards healing that you know, you almost don't know
Speaker 1: where to begin and where to start, but this is
Speaker 1: the starting point exactly. Thank you, ladies, Thank you. This
Speaker 1: is great, awesome is great. Hey r t T family,
Speaker 1: join our Red Table Talk group. On Facebook to become
Speaker 1: part of the conversation, and be sure to follow the
Speaker 1: show page to catch up on all our episodes. So
Speaker 1: my fove when this came up to it, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can talk it. Take the day off. It's fine. Yes,
Speaker 1: you did a great, great fee. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't see. How did dad table talk that? That's too
Speaker 1: much worse. To join the red table Talk family and
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Speaker 1: dot com slash red table talk. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook,
Speaker 1: WHI Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.