The Secret Black Civil War - "Is The Industry Colour Blind?"

Welcome to Part 2 of The Secret Black Civil War.

In this chapter I want to speak about the difference in the way that dark skinned women are treated compared to dark skinned men.

While dark skinned women can be portrayed as being less attractive, dark skinned guys are blessed with comments like chocolate, sexy and fine.

Why is it that dark-skinned men are seen as being more "acceptable" to the public eye than dark-skinned women?

The "In-Thing" of the moment is tall, dark, chocolate, "brothers".

Idris 'Chocolate' Elba

Tyrese 'Sexy' Gibson

Morris 'Fine' Chestnut

But what about the dark-skinned female celebrities?

When will they ever be the "In-Thing"?

Keke Palmer

Serena Williams

Lupito Nyong'o

These women are never embraced for their beauty and sexiness like dark skinned men.

Music videos reflect this notion all the time, you hardly ever see a dark-skinned woman have the lead "eye-candy" role.

This cycle has tried to be changed many times in the past, especially within the hip hop culture.

Back in 2007, rapper, Fabolous, said in an interview 'he wanted to shake the stigma of only using Hispanic women in his music videos.'

"There are not enough black dark skinned women in modelling. If you look at any model agency there is way more light-skin or Spanish girls." - Fabolous

In 2008, Snoop Dogg stated:

"I have a chocolate daughter at home. I always tell her chocolate is the best thing in the world. Don't let that light-skin is in, chocolate ain't never went nowhere." - Snoop Dogg

Kendrick Lamar made a big statement when he decided to not use the light skinned model booked to play the lead role in the video for his song 'Poetic Justice', and instead chose dark skinned model Brittany Sky to take over the role.

Brittany Sky with Kendrick Lamar - video for 'Poetic Justice'

Picture courtesy of IG/@BrittanySky

Kendrick spoke with Miss Info in 2013, and stated:

"We had another girl for the lead but I had an idea where I just wanted a little bit of a darker tone (girl) in the video. It's almost like a color blind industry where there's only one type of appeal to the camera." - Kendrick Lamar.

Is there a colour blind industry?

"Yes, as we have been made to believe that one specific shade is better."

This isn't just in America, the UK is just the same, probably worse.

There are hardly any prominent dark skin females within any industry let alone being seen in any music videos.

It is quite common in the UK for an artist to stray far from having dark-skinned women in their videos, "actually black women full stop."

Now I understand, not all artist have control over what the concept of a video will be and which models are used...but some do have that control and the ones that do, DON'T choose to use dark skin females.

They are quite happy to run with the same  formula.

"I salute you Skepta."

Is Skepta one of the few artist in the UK aware of the reality and the importance of remembering where he came from...

...and being proud of 'his dark skinned women'?

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If you missed Part 1 press the link below.

The Secret Black Civil War - No Lighty, No Likey.