@nubianhottie @Kelvin_Odanz Research-wise, I would say the evidence is inconclusive. First we need to start from the idea that different groups within Africa would have had different approaches to skin colour/colourism. Therefore the absence of colourism in one African culture is not evidence
@nubianhottie @Kelvin_Odanz of the absence of colourism in ALL African cultures. There is evidence in some cultures that lighter skin was associated with wealth i.e. not having to work in the sun. Wealth = Attractiveness and thus a form of colourism. Take this African colourism and marry it with European...
@nubianhottie @Kelvin_Odanz racial categories. Noting of course that race as more than skin is a 'relatively' recent creation. circa 18th century. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach’s influential 1776 volume On the Natural Varieties of Mankind posited five divisions of humanity, beginning with “Caucasians.”
@nubianhottie @Kelvin_Odanz The result of this combination (timeline of slavery and colonisation 1500-1960) means that Africans seem to have extended what was an aesthetic idea of colour tone to almost create an internal racial hierarchy within a racial category which is itself socially constructed.
@nubianhottie @Kelvin_Odanz We should also note that the effect of European conquest was to conflate racial, ethnic and national identities. Such that the ideologies of each identity complete overlap with the others even though they are supposed to serve different purposes.
@nubianhottie @Kelvin_Odanz In this article I discuss how our socio-political-economic structures entrench and reify colorism mixed with colonial racial categories. And how we seem helpless to break away from them
folukeafrica.com/there-are-shad…
folukeafrica.com/there-are-shad…
@nubianhottie @Kelvin_Odanz that's my 2 kobo sha.
@nubianhottie @Kelvin_Odanz @threadreaderapp please unroll. Thanks
