Seventh Ward Passe Blanc

In my hometown of New Orleans, there is a long history of discrimination by skin color. The neighborhood of the Seventh Ward of New Orleans is known for “high-yellas” or Passe Blancs. This is a phrase in New Orleans that means Pass for White. To get into various school, organizations, social clubs and higher level employment, a paper bag test was used. The paper bag test as shown somewhat in the image above was meant to decide if you were light enough. While some of the emphasis on color has faded, the city has held on to it’s colored mesmerized roots.

I have dealt with this personally. I am what some would call a light -skin, high yella, or red bone. To the most of America I am Black, however to my race I am of a different class of black. Throughout life I have had undeniable privilege due to this. As a child I was told, don’t mark up your face, you're too bright and pretty for that. I have been told by a teacher, I could maybe pass for white back in the day if I didn’t have my negro nose. I have received a much greater interest from boys, than dark skin girls, throughout my life.

These things as a young girl never meant much to me. I looked at all girls as beautiful and that may have been because I was behind the shell of my own privilege. While I was in high school I would hear these light skin versus dark in conversations truly rise. I watched dark skin girls have low self-esteem simply because of their skin tone. I watched darker girls hate me because of mine.

It was here when I became the light-skin black, ready to throw my fist in the air and fight for blacks. I became Angela Davis, the main character on Dear White People, or even the main character of School Daze. I was the typical light-skin willing to risk it all to stand up for a race that rarely accepted me as “fully black”. For some reason, there is a pattern of having a light skin person ready to fight for the cause. I am not sure what it is. Maybe we want to feel blacker, or maybe we want to prove we are black. I personally think we are able to see the beauty in the darker skin black, the beauty that they often times can not see due to self hate. Not hate brought on by themselves, but by the culture of racism. The ideas that convince blacks that I am superior because of my color. Or the ideas that make others think that I think I am better than them. The ideas that make them think something about them had to change. The idea that tells them they have to be “cute for a dark skin girl.” These ideas and notions have made black little girls divide. They gave light skins a false sense of privilege and made black men value queen's based on complexion.

I hate to write all of this and not end off a good note. The current movement is slowly changing the way we think. Melanin is popping, and Black I mean true Black, any Black is beautiful. Afro’s of all shapes and sizes are being flaunted. Ghetto nails, big asses and thick eyebrows are celebrated. It has starting to be okay to be black. People are “woke” and starting to think differently. While we still have systemic issues and racist thoughts, the black race, through our pain and strife is joining together, to uplift one another.

#Neyci