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Ever experienced racism from members of your own race?

jwk94

Member
I guess as the title says, have you?

As a kid, I had noticed that there really weren't many dark-skinned black males on TV, so I vaguely knew of the whole light-skin vs. dark-skin thing. I even noticed that my sister was a little lighter than me, but whenever I asked my mom about it, she'd hush me real quick.

It wasn't until my late teens that I really experienced up-front racism. I had some girlfriends (white gals) who all had a parent or two who was racist. One of them refused to meet me, though the other parent decided to finally meet me and turned out he actually liked me. Go figure. Anyway, at that point, I had never experienced up-front racism to my face. Then a group of black kids around my age and older decided to mock my skin tone, calling me midnight black, dark, and anything else you could think of.

I guess, I had always felt inferior to a degree among other black people, but damn did having insults from members of my own race just make that worse. To this day, I still don't feel 100% comfortable around black people I don't already know because I feel like I don't fit in.
 

Switch Back 9

a lot of my threads involve me fucking up somehow. Perhaps I'm a moron?
White people are too busy hating everyone else. Plus I'm not Eastern European, which seems to get the most flak from other white folk.
 
As a white person who tries to be an ally to people of color, I am occasionally accused of racism against white people when I try to explain the concept of privilege. Sometimes it's unclear whether the accusations are meant to be sarcastic
 

LCGeek

formerly sane
Yep was the first form of racism I experienced and in the first grade. Hate of what others got will make haters say stupid shit against their own inevitably Pathetic too that I learned I learned what uncle tom the and the N word were within a month..

Colorism sucks for the record and its exceptionally stupid considering to most others dark is dark at some point when you consider racists.
 
Sure. I'm "ABC," so some Chinese people just assume I can't understand Mandarin.

I also get just as pissed as anyone else when "Mainlanders" skyrocket property values in my neighborhood, so I've been on both ends, I guess.

There's also the whole Taiwan vs. China thing, but that's more of a thing for older generations, and I leave that well alone. I never know when I answer wrong, sometimes, regarding my parentage, though. "Oh, I'm Chinese . . . BUT my parents are from Taiwan . . . BUT I was born in California, so...I'm American."
 
White people are too busy hating everyone else. Plus I'm not Eastern European, which seems to get the most flak from other white folk.

Yep. Mentioned this in another thread, but I'll bring it up again here, even if it's still a fairly mild example: Normally my Polish ancestry (by way of my grandfather) doesn't affect how people perceive me - there's nothing visible about it, and my Dad grew up in South London, so I never received any particularly 'foreign' accent. Usually, I just get a small bit of surprise when someone sees my last name, and I have to explain where it comes from.

But one time, it just changed the tone of a conversation in a way that got really uncomfortable. Friendly, polite conversation just turned kinda sour and blunt. Nothing overt - no slurs or the like - but it was noticeable.
 
Was the butt of some jokes for liking rock/Jpop/videogame soundtracks, watching anime, and generally engaging in nerdy shit. Not that unusual, I guess, since a lot of kids get made fun of for the same stuff regardless of their race, but a lot of it was accompanied with "what kind of black person are you?" and "you must want to be white/Asian" stuff. I still feel pretty embarrassed telling people what I'm listening to even these days, as I expect to get made fun of for it. Also had some black coworkers tell me I sounded white on the phone, but I thought that was more funny than anything.

All in all fairly mild stuff, I just wish the attitude that you have to conform to a fairly narrow range of interests or you're trying to be pretend to be something you're not wasn't prevalent among kids.

Yep was the first form of racism I experienced and in the first grade. Hate of what others got will make haters say stupid shit against their own inevitably Pathetic too that I learned I learned what uncle tom the and the N word were within a month..

Colorism sucks for the record and its exceptionally stupid considering to most others dark is dark at some point when you consider racists.

That's what gets me about colorism, no matter how milk chocolate your skin is you're never going to be accepted by racist assholes who would care about the darkness of your skin in the first place. Just another means to feel superior to someone else, even if you're both really at the bottom of the pile.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
I'm the whitest shade of white, redhead without the red hair (got the freckles and all, burn real quick in the sun). So no. I don't even get discriminated as a ginger.

Edit: I mean I've had comments about how pale I am, but I wouldn't call it racism whatsoever, and it's never really mean-spirited (except maybe once and I just shrugged it off, wasn't from my own race either).
 
Does getting called white trash count?

Suppose so. Though where I grew up we actually used it as an identity more than a derogatory. Like even today when I refer to myself as being from a 'white trash' family. It basically meant growing up in a rural white household that liked doing 'hick' things like shooting guns, riding dune buggies, etc.
 
Myself never but my mom was bullied pretty hard by other white kids for being a "pied noir" with an algerian name. She still talks about it a lot, those scars are pretty deep.
 

Neece

Member
I guess as the title says, have you?

As a kid, I had noticed that there really weren't many dark-skinned black males on TV, so I vaguely knew of the whole light-skin vs. dark-skin thing. I even noticed that my sister was a little lighter than me, but whenever I asked my mom about it, she'd hush me real quick.

It wasn't until my late teens that I really experienced up-front racism. I had some girlfriends (white gals) who all had a parent or two who was racist. One of them refused to meet me, though the other parent decided to finally meet me and turned out he actually liked me. Go figure. Anyway, at that point, I had never experienced up-front racism to my face. Then a group of black kids around my age and older decided to mock my skin tone, calling me midnight black, dark, and anything else you could think of.

I guess, I had always felt inferior to a degree among other black people, but damn did having insults from members of my own race just make that worse. To this day, I still don't feel 100% comfortable around black people I don't already know because I feel like I don't fit in.

When did you grow up?

Though I guess it depends on what you watch, when I was growing up I felt as if I saw lots of black males on TV that matched my skin tone. But then again, I watched lots of black movies and tv shows , so Omar Epps, Taye Diggs, Morris Chestnut, Denzel Washington, Mekhi Phipher, Wesley Snipes, etc were sex symbols of the time in black media. Even sports stars like Michael Jordan and Shaq and comedians like Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy and singers like R. Kelly and Boyz II Men and rappers like Biggie/Puffy and Outkast helped normalize the idea that dark black male skin was cool. And I always used to hear that "dark skin was in" but usually only in regards to black men. It always felt like dark skinned black women that received the short end of the stick in that area.
 

Pein

Banned
Not being a light skin indian is crappy, indian people know whats up and will tell you straight up that you're not as good looking as these light skin bollywood types.
 

Imbarkus

As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
I was a ginger, though they didn't really use that name for it until South Park came around, and then my son got to be one too, only by name this time.

I mostly got beat up or made fun of for having red hair and freckles. It passed long before the hair turned grey.
 
Nothing remotely close to racism, but I do vividly remember being incensed when I was taken to a University open day in Cambridge, and both student rep and other students legitimately would not stop alluding to me being a thief since I had a Scouse accent. One of the girls, I found out later, did question whether I had gone in her purse since she couldn't find her mobile too. Beyond that alone, it was one of the first times I did feel the class divide I'd only heard of in school.

Difference though, I can turn that accent off, I can play up to a different class if I didn't feel it degrading. A PoC can't turn off their skin colour when exposed to a racist.
 
The one time I experienced anything remotely resembling racism was when I went over to a friend's house for game night right after the election, and before letting me in, he openly accused me of voting for Trump because I was white. We're both Hispanic, although I am a light-skinned Hispanic, and I'm pretty sure he's a registered Republican.
 

Gin-Shiio

Member
I've gotten dissed for being a ginger boy on more than one occasion. It's part of why I developed a defensive sense of pride in my hair color, despite it not being a feat in any way. Not sure if that counts as far as this topic goes, but that's what I can contribute.
 
Not being a light skin indian is crappy, indian people know whats up and will tell you straight up that you're not as good looking as these light skin bollywood types.

I noticed in the media that they show light skin Indians a lot of the time and I see some similarities with the black community. I was watching Jus Reign I think and he had a skit where one his boys was pretending to be his mom and she was shouting at her daughter not to stay out in the hot sun for so long before she get black and my mom used to say the same thing to me when I was growing up.
 

Dali

Member
When Kanye said "ima make sure these light-skinned niggas never, ever, ever, come back in style" he cut me deep.

And there's this old black dude that cleans,tables at Wendy's. He said something like "You know how they do" to me once when talking negatively about black people.
 

PixelatedBookake

Junior Member
It's probably all in my head, but being a light-skinned Nigerian who was born and grew up in America used to make me feel some type of way when I was/am made fun by older Nigerians. It may not be because I'm lighter-skinned, but I feel like that plays apart in it.

Also the term you're probably looking for is colorism, OP.
 
Yeah all the time, being a light skin makes life easier for you I guess...

But when it comes to your fellow black folks the older people treat you nicer but the young ones your age roast you, god forbid you speak "intelligently"

Nothing serious mostly for the lulz
 

gdt

Member
Light skinned Dominicans like me reeeeeally have a problem with dark skin.

They are racists as fuck. Black Dominicans will spend all day insisting they aren't black. Its a country that very much values lighter skin. And of course Dominicans as a whole have a huge problem with Haitians.

cue the dominican racism defense force

edit: lmao to clarify I don't have a problem with dark skin
 
Yeah I think so, but I'm having trouble recalling any specific incidents. Probably nothing too spitful.

However, I've also likely enjoyed some levels of privilege over members of my race due to having a lighter skin tone...
 
I'm a half white half Japanese.

Never experienced racism from other half white half Japanese people lol. I've only met a few so far.

I've experienced racism from both white people and Japanese people though. Don't know if that counts.
 

FZZ

Banned
When Kanye said "ima make sure these light-skinned niggas never, ever, ever, come back in style" he cut me deep.

And there's this old black dude that cleans,tables at Wendy's. He said something like "You know how they do" to me once when talking negatively about black people.

Lonzo Ball already on the come up

Kanye fucked up because his ass went senile
 

StillEdge

Member
I'm Mexican and my father who "jumped the border" is also. He would always tell everyone he was Aztec Indian (which might be partially true I have no idea) and would never speak Spanish even when Spanish speakers would try to communicate with him. I don't know if he was self hating racist or just trying to leave his past behind. He also had no accent which was super weird to me.
 

FUME5

Member
I mean....kinda?

Back in the early 90's listening to hip hop / wearing baggy jeans and shit would mark you to the bogans, I heard quite a few variations of "You want to be a fucking n****r" when dudes were trying to start fights.
 

KillLaCam

Banned
I'm pretty sure I've only experienced obvious racism from white Americans a few times. Way more stuff from other black ppl about me not acting black enough or being light skinned
 

PSqueak

Banned
I guess only in the way of seeing Latino Americans (uh, that is, americans with latino heritage) being all "FUCK YOU, IM AMERICAN" and talking shit about Latinos because in their mind they're practically white americans and all of us who live in actual latin-american countries are thus inferior.
 
I guess only in the way of seeing Latino Americans (uh, that is, americans with latino heritage) being all "FUCK YOU, IM AMERICAN" and talking shit about Latinos because in their mind they're practically white americans and all of us who live in actual latin-american countries are thus inferior.

Like the Irish before them, these people are probably the most likely to be "added" to the definition of "American white".
 
Not to myself directly (that I can remember at least) but a couple of my black co-workers use the words "Spooks" and "Colored" when describing other black people. It destroys my sense of intra-racial unity.

Personally, I have been ridiculed by other black people for being so articulate, saying "You talk like a white person". I don't/didn't consider that overtly racist, though.
 

Supha_Volt

Neo Member
I guess only in the way of seeing Latino Americans (uh, that is, americans with latino heritage) being all "FUCK YOU, IM AMERICAN" and talking shit about Latinos because in their mind they're practically white americans and all of us who live in actual latin-american countries are thus inferior.
I was going to post this but yeah pretty much this. I saw this a lot when I was younger towards people from Latin America and Afro Latin. Don't see it as much these days but I'd be naive to say it's not still there
 

I_D

Member
Oh man, this feels like a serious Pandora's box of a thread.
I'm a high school teacher, so...

I've heard the occasional "You're so white" when referring to nerdy kids, or kids who can't deal with bullies, or are bad at dancing or something. It's pretty rare, though.

I've heard waaaaaaay more people who say things like "You're not black enough" or "You're trying to be white" when referring to other African-Americans who are bad at sports, or who study for a test, or date a white girl, or something along those lines.

There's a sort of self-hating mentality among a lot of low-performing minorities in schools. I know most of them don't do it on purpose, but it's certainly quite prevalent. The peer-pressure is definitely real.

Even just last week, I heard a student (17 year-old freshman) who told another student that he's "The whitest black kid I know" because the kid actually likes to read.
The sad thing is that it's not even a rare phenomenon.
Before he was elected as President, Senator Barack Obama, was criticized in 2007 as "acting white" by Jesse Jackson
 
Yeah, I've had it happen a couple of times from black people. Most just tell me I can't be black because I'm too light skinned. Then they'd start with the high yellow and red boned thing. Kinda made me feel less than, as a child. Like I didn't fit in. Can't help the fact that both my parents are light skinned. Dad's black, mom is half black (don't know her bio father's race) but she identifies as black since that's all she's ever known.
Edit: I guess this would be a case of colorism, and not racism.
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
Im as white and american as can be, and I once called a filthy italian. Does that count?

Context: I was in college on a trip through southern illinois and trying to reserve a camp ground space, some old white lady was cussing up a storm at the park ranger and when she walked away from him she looked at me and said "what are you looking at you filthy italian".

My great great great grandfather came from italy, but other than that Im a 3rd generation american. and what's wrong with italians? Are Italians considered white? Or was this a nationalistic insult?
 
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