The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was a 90’s classic and brought to light real issues that are faced within our community. One star in particular opens up about an issue some still face even in 2020, colorism.
Actor, Tatyana Ali shares her journey in dealing with colorism, specifically within the black community. “My journey has been interesting. There’s been colorism, but colorism, it’s funny. You assume that colorism only comes from the white community and that it’s sort of put upon us, but there’s also colorism within the black community. And so I’ve experienced that. I don’t even know if it’s colorism, or if it’s ‘are you black enough?’ That kind of stuff” she explains to SiriusXM Urban View host, Clay Cane.
Tatyana reflects on her admiration for her former co-host Janet Hubert, a darker skinned woman. “When we were working on the show together, I mean, we always talked about how beautiful she was.. I hope that she knows it for me as a young girl, I saw her with a spotlight on her, and that’s how I thought she was being represented on the show. She was in terms of beauty and black beauty and as a young black child, I thought she was radiant and I thought the spotlight was on her, and that was something that I wasn’t used to seeing. I didn’t get a chance to tell her that at the reunion, but if she hears that, I hope that gives her some comfort that for the things that she went through, she meant a lot to a lot of people, to young people.”
Tatyana recalls being a part of the project entitled ‘Dark-Skinned Girls and Light-Skinned Girls‘ in which she was featured in back in 2015. In the documentary she spoke on how she was unaware that she would be “sorted” into a skin tone category. “I thought that I could speak on dark-skinned girls or light-skinned girls.. We’re all black women, we’re all women having an experience, what it’s like to be cast into these categories. And yeah, I thought that was disappointing that we were separated in the project itself, and I don’t know who decided what category I was supposed to be sorted into.. My assumption at the time was ‘Oh my gosh, I definitely want to talk about that. I have feelings about it and stories and yes, I really thought that I could speak to both. I had no idea it was going to be sorted.”
Colorism as Tatyana stated is a very delicate topic and unfortunately still alters the world we live, but it’s amazing to see women of color come together and put an end to this social construction. “The truth is it’s a construct. The truth is it’s not real. It’s not real the judgments that we cast based on appearance, those are false, they’re based on false things. So yeah, it’s very, very sensitive.”
