Color Complex

Color issues in the Black Gay community

The color issue in the Black gay community is amazingly complex, and displays the subconscious self hatred that Blacks have and the desire to attain a certain idealized form. Before people write me off as another dark skin man complaining that he cannot get a date or people think I’m ugly or not attractive because I’m dark. Bitch please, my complexion has never hindered me from getting a date, other attributes I have had. But getting back to the matter at hand, it’s not just the assumption that lighter skin is better, but it’s also this eroticizing dark skin people as well.
People often attribute the color issues within the Black community as dating back to slavery and how that has trickled down into contemporary times. While almost everyone will agree that the color complex is a divisive issue that hurts the race as a whole. As a whole it seems as if there is a complacency that people have regarding it as one of those things that will stay with us forever. But I think there is another reason for this, and that is more people are benefiting from it than those who are not. So many people attribute it to just those who are light skin as being the benefactors of such divisive action. But this reasoning fails to look at the other groups that benefit, dark skin people benefit from this color complex because those who are uncomfortable with their own light complexion are attracted to dark skin people because it revalidates their own issues of being “Black enough”, and those who fetish Black people whether other Blacks or other groups tend to go for those who are “undeniably” Black. One only has to look at any high fashion magazine, or look at the make up of the modeling agency and see that the majority of Black models are dark. Brown skin people benefit by being in this quasi state that means that they don’t invoke a gut reaction as to those who are light or those who are dark due, in essence they are safe in many respects.
Within the Black community it seems as if any difference, or perceived difference can be bad, unless that difference enables you in some form of fashion to not look as Black as you are. Those who look Hispanic, Half white, Half Asian, or have physical attributes thereof are lauded for these, not because they have the elements of true beauty, proportioned body and face, great shape and structure, clarity of skin, and teeth. Merely because their difference is one that can be help them blend. It’s akin to the FemQueens and Butch Queens who use their attributes to become more “passable”.
In a community that has so many issues ranging from suicide rates, HIV infection, and abuse why incorporate issues of color that serves no real purpose in the Black Gay community?