Light Vs Dark

I am a proud African American women however I am what we in the African American community would call light skinned. I do not feel I am all that light though I refer to myself as more caramel than light but this has been an issue for me my whole life but only when it comes to dealing with women in my community. During grade school I would constantly be picked on for not being dark enough to be all black that I must be mixed with either white and/or Spanish, I always had to and still to this day try to prove to people that I am not mixed and 100% black and proud. I would go to great lengths to not "look" mixed my hair happens to be very curly naturally and long so I would relax my hair to make it look more along their norms of how a black girls hair should look I would NEVER wear out out our in its natural state since that seemed to be the biggest thing people would point out as to why I must have been mixed  and not possibly all black. I always felt every uncomfortable around black girls at that time because they did not accept me all because of the way I looked however being young I could not understand why and the history behind it all. Fast forward I am now I 31 year old women and have been natural for over 10 years but I still encounter the same issues with women who are susposed to be my sisters, when I walk into a room with all black women I get look as if they are wondering what I am and they are very stand offish at first until someone ask me "what are you mixed with?" And when I say I"m not most of the time they don't believe me but it does open up a line of communication.  So I guess my question is why as black women we can not seem to just except each other for who we are why is there is issue with the color of our skin ? No matter the shade black is black lighter doesn't mean your better and darker doesn't mean you are any more black then the next sister, sometimes I feel like we are our own worst enemy, how can we expect others to accept us for who we are and what we bring to the table and not for our outside appearances if we don't do it for ourselves ? I know the long time issue has been the plight of our dark-skinned sisters issues but we as lighter - skinned sisters don't have it any better in most situations when out comes to dealing with our own people also so I just wanted to pick your brain so to speak, and get your thoughts on this issue, have you heard of this before, how do you think it compares if at all to the issue of our darker skinned sisters, do you think being lighter is easier in certain situations ? But most importantly why do you feel we are so unaccepting of each other as women.

I thank you in advance for your response and keep doing what you are doing it's great.

I think that this is an issue that can have so many layers to it. I agree, we can be so cruel to each other. What really stuck out to me is the way that it still affects you. I think that you can actually use this energy to have a very positive impact on people. :)

I think that as a whole, black women have been oppressed. Scratch that... I know that we have. So, in turn we did what essentially has been does to us. Discriminate. It is so easy to make fun of each other than to actually unite. I know that as dark skinned I can relate to all the hate, but the opposite affect. One of the phrases that really bug me is, "You are so pretty for a dark skinned woman". Really? Like dark skinned women aren't?

I think that the media and the way that we let it guide us has a lot to do with our issues. Look at the way the media portrays women in general.

We could discuss this until we turn blue in the face. There are millions of reasons why. My question to you is how do we make it better. What steps can we go through to make sure that this stops?

XOXO Honey Bii