The Dark and the Light

This weekend I fell victim to a violent familial assault based on a very common error in judgement that people make when dealing with black people of varying shades. It is basic knowledge that within the black race, there are alternating degrees of brown intensity. No big deal you may think. But black people who don't observe patterns of behaviour that are informed by social heirarchies easily succumb to these negative habits. The darkest of us are considered the worst off. The lighter ones in an apparently better position. I'm not just talking about beauty. That's old ass. There's more. It's character interpretation I'm talking about here.

Religious iconography and ideas linked with the darker shades on the spectrum are especially guilty of perpetuating notions that sit in people's subconscious minds. Informing the ways in which they choose to perceive others.

Taking the example of my family for instance. Deeply religious and mad about Jesus. There seems to exist a spirit of white worship and black hatred latent in discussions I observe. I can't help but think that the way in which the Bible narrates in terms of dark and light, beast and angel (mostly so in Revelations) has some impact on the way in which devoutly religious people view race. I see this in my family's insistence on the notion that I am apparently possessed by an evil spirit whenever I express my displeasure of an issue. Hmmm...I can't help but think that the fact that my skin is deeply dark gives them more reason to associate me with mystical, imaginary ideas such as demons. It is quite an insistence that over time I began to parody it in the former title of my blog. That my dark skin often seems to impress on people even those in my family that there is something diabolical about my character and motives. The more ignorant one is of the true nature of dark black people on an individualistic level, the easier it is for them to depend upon these generalizations. I say, Educate thyself. Black people are not exempt from this either. Even I have fallen prey to these patterns of thinking.