Colorizing Educational Research

Historical Perspectives

The interplay of skin color and race has governed African American positionality throughout the nation’s labor, legal, educational, and civic histories. Indeed, roots of colorism were seeded during the colonial period as skin tone became entwined with a prejudicial hierarchy that was stimulated by White racism. Thus from the slave era through legal segregation, the historical record chronicles relative advantages for light-complected Blacks as compared to dark-complected Blacks (Frazier, 1957/1962; Hall, 2010). Within the slave system, light-skinned Blacks often worked as house servants, foreman, or were trained as artisans rather than forced to endure grueling field labor (Bodenhorn & Ruebeck, 2007; Lacy, 2007; Patillo-McCoy, 1999). ³ Slave narratives also suggest that house slaves had more desirable clothing (Brown, 1847), were given a rudimentary education as children (Douglass, 1845/1988), and were periodically promised their freedom, although manumission was inconsistently granted (African American Lives, 2006) and frequently mediated by parentage (Bodenhorn, 2002b). Social scientists speculate that slave masters’ actions may have sprung from a variety of motives, such as racist beliefs that light-skinned slaves were “closer” to being White and therefore “more intelligent” and “less threatening” than dark-skinned individuals. Archival evidence further indicates that “White slaves” may have garnered special sympathy from wealthy Northerners (Cadet, 2012) and privileges from slave owners who acknowledged their offspring (M. Harris, Bell, & Lennon, 2003). Mulattoes also appear to have received better nutrition (Bodenhorn, 2002a) and steadily accumulated wealth faster than their Black counterparts (Bodenhorn & Ruebeck, 2007) among the free population. ⁴

Basic prejudices notwithstanding, working in “the big house” placed many light-skinned Blacks in close and regular proximity with Whites, thereby enabling house slaves to learn “White ways” and become fluent in some forms of White cultural capital, such as slaveholders’ speech patterns, while field slaves often retained remnants of their African dialect (Frazier, 1957/1962). The totality of former house slaves’ experiences, coupled with ongoing biases favoring Whiteness and lightness, likely helped such individuals gain some forms of social mobility during Reconstruction. For example, Bennett (1961/1993), Frazier (1957/1962), and others note that Blacks who entered Negro colleges as well as those who became proprietors, landowners, politicians, and community leaders were overwhelmingly from mixed racial backgrounds and relatively light-complexioned (e.g., Frances Harper). Historical advantages accrued to light-complected Blacks surely had a long reach, as African Americans who built some degree of wealth through land purchases, home ownership, and the accumulation of other assets likely set the course for family well-being generationally. Moreover, because light-skinned Blacks often married Blacks who mirrored their racial aesthetics and/or social standing, economic growth likely multiplied within a set range of the Black population. A notable exception is when light-skinned Blacks married high-status dark spouses. As African Americans carved post-Emancipation lives, colorist discrimination was maintained through Greek letter organizations, “blue vein societies,” Negro fraternal orders, and societies that restricted membership, such as through brown-bag and pencil tests. Fair-skinned African Americans further had the flexibility of “passing” into White society to circumvent employment, housing, travel, and other restrictions erected against Blacks (Drake & Cayton, 1945/1962). As Anthony’s (1995) study of passing among Black Creoles demonstrates, participation in racial masquerades was often economically motivated and, thus, contributed to intragroup economic stratification, as fair-skinned Blacks used their outwardly “White” appearance to secure better-paying and higher-status occupations than what was available to most Blacks.

Hochschild and Weaver’s (2007) review of census data since 1890 also documents how race mixing created a foundational basis for alternate legal recognition. According to their work, with the exception of the 1900 census, the government distinguished between Negroes, mulattoes, quadroons, and octoroons into the early 20th century, thereby setting the stage for alternative standings, as the court case State v. Treadaway (1910) emphasized. ⁵ Specifically, Octave Treadaway, who belonged to the White caste, and his companion, a woman who belonged to the “colored” caste, were charged with violating a 1908 Louisiana act that banned racial admixture. Although most Southern states restricted interactions between racial groups until 1967, the Treadaway case became noteworthy for the earnest effort to determine whether the colored woman was considered Negro. The presiding judge’s conclusion that colored people were not Negro and, therefore, not bound by the same racial constraints ultimately became the basis for the couple’s acquittal. Although privileged legal status for mixed-race people tended to be an exception rather than a rule (Hochschild & Weaver, 2007), cases such as the Treadaway affair reified the power of being “more” or “less” Black in the segregated South. Within the colorist domain, the historical record clearly illustrates how African American lives were affected by “privilege” and impingement based on racial codes and widely accepted assumptions.

Contemporary Perspectives

Although “official” racial classifications steadily moved toward global categories during the early 20th century, the effects of skin color discrimination have persisted into the current century. Marginalization surfaces as a general theme when colorism is narrowed to experiences among dark-complected African Americans. In mainstream society, people with dark pigmentation tend to encounter exclusion and particularly harsh treatment if they are “more African looking,” as Blair, Judd, and Chapleau’s (2004) research makes visible. After collecting a random sample of data on 216 male inmates from the Florida Department of Corrections, they explored whether sentences varied on the basis of how “African looking” the defendant was. After comparing Black and White inmates with equivalent criminal histories, Blair and her colleagues concluded that sentences did not reflect systematic racial bias; that is, Black defendants did not receive harsher punishments than White defendants with similar backgrounds. When turning attention to in-group differences, however, Blair et al. found that being more “African looking” was correlated with longer prison sentences. In real time, having Afrocentric features amounted to a prison sentence that was approximately 7 to 8 months longer than the average for other Black or White inmates, respectively. Burch (2005); Viglione, Hannon, and DeFina (2011); and others have reached similar conclusions.

In education-related areas, social scientists regularly unmask gendered dimensions of colorism. Using data from the National Survey of Black Americans, for example, Thompson and Keith (2001) found, in part, that skin hue predicted perceived self-efficacy among Black men, as dark men ranked lower on indicators of self-efficacy than light men. ⁶ Careful consideration of related research suggests that color prejudice may inform such results. Certainly in the workplace, a traditional source for male effort and accomplishments, employers have been shown to favor light applicants as documented by Harrison and Thomas (2009). They write,

The mean ratings (both for recommendation and hiring) given to applicants in this study seem to suggest that darker skinned Blacks (particularly males) can have more educational background, prior work experience, and perceived competence and still not be as highly recommended or more likely to be hired over someone with lighter skin and noticeably less skill.

This finding is possibly a result of the common belief that fair-skinned Blacks probably have more similarities with Whites than do dark-skinned Blacks, which, in turn, makes Whites feel more comfortable around them (Williams, 2002). (p. 155)

As a result, dark Black men’s rankings on self-efficacy may be motivated by the unfortunate reality that color bias may frustrate their goals. Likewise, the social sciences and humanities are replete with examples of how dark-skinned women are excluded from depictions of beauty, attractiveness, and femininity in mainstream society and heterosexual relationships (Bond & Cash, 1992; Ross, 1997). For instance, M. Hunter (2008) notes the value of light skin on the marriage market particularly among women, a theme poignantly reverberated in other studies (e.g., Hill, 2002b) as well as popular media (e.g., Spike Lee’s (1991) Jungle Fever).

Despite the real ways in which skin hue intrudes on Black life, conversations about race largely obscure colorism and mute scholarly engagement with the construction’s implications for research access, data collection, interpretive analyses, and data-based applications. Yet if educational researchers are to conduct and relate authentic Black stories, they must interrogate how colorist propositions shade investigations, particularly, qualitative inquiries in which participants articulate their own insights. Such a body of research would accelerate calls to improve research experiences and evade unanticipated and underexplored dangers of scholastic investigation (see Milner, 2007, for an analysis of cultural processes related to researching African American communities). Moving beyond racial classifications to the colorist realm is an empirical challenge but one that must, nevertheless, be confronted methodologically. Because skin tone difference is a relative concept and likely to provoke disagreement based on individual backgrounds and spheres of exposure, ⁷ researchers must be wary of extrapolating findings across racial taxonomies and create spaces in which participants enunciate their own interpretations.

Summary and Caveats

Colorism mobilizes both inter- and intraracial skin tone bias for Blacks. White racism seeded initial color consciousness as racist notions that light-complexioned African Americans were “closer” to being White and, therefore, more intelligent, trustworthy, and desirable than their dark brethren became popular. The historical narrative unveils an undeniable legacy of light-skin preference by Whites from slavery onward. As previously established, light-complected Blacks were more likely to work as maids, cooks, butlers, artisans, and coachmen rather than as field hands. House servants’ physical positioning also gave them more ready access to literacy and work training. The disproportionately large share of the free Black population that light-skinned Blacks composed also enabled them to acquire wealth and carve successful lives by several measures (e.g., educational attainment, property ownership).

As the nation lumbered into the modern era, antebellum biases continued to cast a long shadow on widely held perceptions and corresponding action. The result for Black America has been a dual system of racial stratification. On one level, African Americans, regardless of their skin tone, grapple with the implications of discrimination, such as segregation and redlining (Darling-Hammond, 2012). On a second level, skin-tone privilege has helped light-skinned Blacks to power ahead of their peers in areas such as wealth accumulation and occupational status (Keith & Herring, 1991). As previously articulated, both realities preserve White advantage in society at large because (a) Black advancement tends to be mediated by White decision makers’ preferences and (b) ramifications of skin-tone difference within the Black community do not disrupt overarching Black-White disparities.

Although the previous sections outline broad understandings that encircle inter- and intraracial color lines, researchers should receive the information with several caveats in mind. First, despite skin color variations, individuals with Black ancestry were (and are) generally faithful to an overarching Black identity. Even during legalized segregation, individuals who stood to benefit from colorism pushed for democratic inclusion among African Americans. The Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Supreme Court case is an iconic example, as Homer Plessy, who was one eighth Black and seven eighths White, was not permitted to sit in the White-only section of a train traveling through Louisiana. Incensed by the requirement that he be seated in the train’s colored section, Plessy sued the railway company. Given his attempt to dismantle a segregated system, Plessy’s actions were plausibly an act of racial solidarity with other Black Americans and perhaps indicative of a desire to better accommodations for people with African ancestry. Other examples include Walter White’s and Ben Jealous’s activism through the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Adam Clayton Powell’s and Cory Booker’s accomplishments as elected officials. While historians correctly criticize the regrettable role that light-skinned African Americans played in upholding color prejudice, the Plessy, White, Booker, Jealous, and Powell cases are high-profile models of individual exceptionalism that force researchers to temper unyielding portraits of light-skinned Blacks as an exclusionary bloc that stubbornly upholds self-interest over racial justice.

Second, some work stresses racial aggressions that light-complected Blacks face (Piper, 1992). Examples include chronic challenges to their racial identity, particularly denouncements that they are not “authentically Black” and expressions of resentment from other Blacks regarding real or perceived advantages. M. Hunter’s (2008) synthesis poignantly captures such sentiments and is worth quoting at length. She writes,

The task of “proving” oneself to be a legitimate or authentic member of an ethnic community is a significant burden for the light-skinned in Latino, African American, and Asian American communities. For many people of color, authenticity is the vehicle through which darker-skinned people take back their power from lighter-skinned people. . . . One common way they regain their sense of power and pride is to accuse light-skinned Blacks of not being “Black enough.” . . . Not being Black enough, or authentically ethnic enough, in any ethnic community, is a serious insult to many. It implies that they do not identify with their fellow co-ethnics, that they do not care about them, that they think they are better than their co-ethnics, or in extreme cases, that they wish they were White. . . . Light-skinned men and women are typically not regarded as legitimate members of the African American or Mexican American communities. They may be excluded from or made to feel unwelcome in community events and organizations. (pp. 70-72)

The Interest Convergence Principle

According to Bell (1992), actions that enhance African Americans’ social standing and/or move racial progress forward are catalyzed by contextual factors that ultimately serve White interests as well. Because the abiding effect that racial justice strategies and battles have on Whites ultimately mediates outcomes, long-term success or failure is foreseeable and predicted by the degree to which African American goals harmonize with the aims of White America. Across time and location, the principle’s hardiness is reinforced by two conditions: (a) Promoting “Black aims” does not require Whites to abandon their own interests, and (b) existing power relationships remain intact.

Once celebrated as a decisive victory for Black democratic inclusion, the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision has been recast by many as a clear illustration of the interest convergence principle. Writings by the late civil rights attorney Derrick Bell (2005) capture the asceticism of this stark truth. Relying heavily on C. Harris’s (2003) scholarship, Bell argues that the Brown verdict aided state and national interests, such as by reinforcing the tradition of state’s rights. Most plainly, state and local segregationist governments were allowed to determine how integration efforts would be handled. As a consequence, high-quality Black institutions were closed, Black educators were dismissed and demoted, and schools were simply resegregated en mass. Simultaneously, the United States’ international image and ostensible dedication to equality were bolstered, thereby countering global criticism and pressure to uphold birthrights for all citizens. Ultimately, such motives, among other causes, led Bell to conclude that

Brown was not a revolutionary decision. Rather, it is the definitive example that the interest of blacks in achieving racial justice is accommodated only when and for so long as policymakers find that the interest of blacks converges with the political and economic interests of whites. (Bell, 2005, p. 1056)

When considering how colorism meshes with the interest convergence principle, Palmer’s (2010) study of a dual-language program in a racially integrated setting highlights the need to mature CRT’s analysis of race. Based on interview and observational data from a yearlong study in California, the author found that two-way immersion (TWI) classes were largely populated by Latino and White children despite the fact that the student body was fairly evenly distributed among Blacks, Whites, and Latinos. ⁸ Given that the program was “designed to promote equity and help children bridge cultural and linguistic differences,” the author questioned why Black youngsters were generally excluded (Palmer, 2010, p. 95). She ultimately faulted deficit orientations toward Black students, middle-class Whites’ power to exclude others, and seemingly color-blind admissions processes as primary reasons for low African American participation rates.

Although Palmer’s (2010) study sheds insight into why most Black students were obstructed from entering the program, unanswered questions are raised about the small percentage of Black students who were selected for admission. Given current knowledge about light-skin privilege in the Black community, querying the backgrounds of Black TWI students would help unravel how colorism operates in school settings. What impressions did teachers hold of Black TWI pupils? Did the instructors’ perceptions resonate with prevailing color biases? When researchers adhere strictly to race, they miss opportunities to disaggregate nuanced content of Black racialization, such as skin-tone bias.

Since Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) published their seminal article, researchers have steadily built on the call to enhance racial conceptualizations and expose educational constraints in the lives of students of color. Yet within this rich body of work, few voices acknowledge that colorism nurtures asymmetries within racial groups. As a result, there remains a great deal to learn about how African Americans negotiate and are affected by tenets of CRT within their own race as well as in society at large.

Mentoring

Given that Whites compose the top tier of U.S. racial stratification, social stereotypes place individuals with dark coloring at a disadvantage because they are (a) the most distant from desirable characteristics associated with Whiteness and (b) the closest to disparaging traits that are linked to Blackness. Such impulses are translated into the academic terrain, as racist beliefs and practices wrongly position African Americans as being “less intelligent” than Whites (Jensen, 1969) and incrementally “smarter” than other Blacks on the basis of the percentage of “White genes” in their biological makeup (Lynn, 2002). ⁹ Because light-complexioned Blacks tend to have higher levels of educational attainment than dark-skinned Blacks (Allen et al., 2000), learning more about how colorism informs steps associated with educational completion rates is worthwhile.

The critical role that educators’ expectations play for K-12 students is particularly important, as Black students exhibit strong academic performance when professionals adhere to high expectations (Lewis, James, Hancock, & Hill-Jackson, 2008) and provide quality instructional experiences (Ladson-Billings, 1994). Additionally the relationships that teachers and other individuals forge with Black youths are especially meaningful in helping youngsters “develop educational goals and make the transition from high school to postsecondary education and future careers” (Wimberly, 2002, p. 9). To date, however, relatively little is known about the mentoring relationships that exist between educators and phenotypically different Black students. Similarly, there is a dearth of research that systematically narrows attention to Black educators who represent a range of Black visual images.

Scholars are encouraged to systematically investigate professional mentoring activity among teachers, administrators, counselors, paraprofessionals, and other stakeholders (e.g., academic coaches) to shed insight into whether and why interactions vary along colorist boundaries. For example, what types of classes and academic tracks are Black students encouraged to pursue? Are educators equally receptive to Black students’ presence and contributions in their classes? How does skin tone relate to Black students’ perceptions of the educational figures in their lives? Unfortunately, minimal scholarship on colorism in PreK-12 settings suffocates insights to these questions.

Professional Experiences

In addition to examining educator-student relationships, colorism may also surface in professional experiences. While not a study of colorism, the teacher’s comments in Milner’s (2005) study of Dr. Wilson, a Black educator in a predominately White suburban setting, illustrates how African American teachers negotiate both race and color in the workplace. Reflecting on student learning through the implicit curriculum, the study participant remarked,

I keep my hair cut short because I want my kids to see a dark skinned Black woman with short hair. For many of them, Rich, they have never seen this. And yes, there are lessons in that. And, yes, I plan this. I am aware of what I’m doing. I want them to see a Black woman with Black features and how yes, I am OK, and I am smart, a reader, successful, you see? I tell them how I’ve traveled the world, and they look at me in awe. . . . Their interactions with me and their acceptance of me will help them to take the time to be accepting of other people who may not look like them or have the same kinds of experiences. (p. 411)

As enunciated in the excerpted quote, perceptions of Black educators are inherently catalyzed by their race and color. As a consequence, Black educators may grapple with stereotypes that are color specific and “live out” Blackness differently on the basis of their physical appearance and the school social composition. As alluded to by Dr. Wilson, dark-complected Black teachers may be particularly motivated to challenge assumptions about Black intellect, while light-complected Black teachers may be moved to dismantle preconceived ideas about who is “authentically” Black. While the overarching narrative of Black educators documents a common commitment to excellence (Foster, 1997; Mitchell, 1998), researchers’ slow movement to chronicle Black phenotypes in contemporary studies relegates a critical dimension of Black teachers’ professional lives to the realm of conjecture.

Other professional experiences that should be investigated include employment practices, such as hiring, promotion, and evaluation decisions; mentoring relationships; interactions with students’ families; and exchanges with colleagues. While evidence exists that light-skinned Blacks benefit from preferential hiring decisions in the general marketplace (Harrison & Thomas, 2009), relatively few researchers have investigated whether such tendencies hold true in educational contexts specifically. In a related vein, the degree to which skin tone influences career advancement, job-based recommendations, and professional evaluations is unclear. Given the steady increase in Black-on-Black grievances that are filed through the legal system and administrative agencies (Valbrun, 2003), questioning the role of skin tone in perceptions and claims of unfair treatment is a ripe area of study. Investigating such matters through a CRT lens would also stimulate new questions about the degree to which segments of the Black community benefit from progressive hiring practices as compared to other historically underrepresented groups such as White women.

School Discipline

Researchers have documented racial disparities in school discipline since mass desegregation and highlighted how Black children are affected at a disproportionately high rate (Children’s Defense Fund, 1975; Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2000; Taylor & Foster, 1986). The regularity with which males are menaced in school settings has focused attention on gendering patterns (Monroe, 2005); however, insights about color bias are severely wanting. Interrogating colorism as related to behavioral perceptions and disciplinary moments will help clarify connections between race, gender, and discipline, as researchers will acquire a firmer understanding of differential perceptions that frame inequities. Determining whether Black students have qualitatively different interactions with teachers, administrators, campus resource officers, or other school officials on the basis of complexion will be a major step toward refining conceptual understanding of culturally grounded classroom management frameworks and formulating reform plans. If dark-skinned Black males do, in fact, have the most troublesome encounters, as tends to be the case in the criminal justice system, theorists will have a fuller understanding of how discipline intersects with overarching sociopolitical forces in the nation (see Weinstein, Tomlinson-Clarke, & Curran, 2004, for an articulation of a culturally focused classroom management model). More importantly, the field can depart from mundane portrayals of Black students that fail to acknowledge color lines from an intraracial standpoint.

CRT

More than 20 years ago, Bell (1990) urged the nation to “‘Get Real’ about race and the persistence of racism in America” (p. 393). His compelling body of scholarship became a foremast that demonstrably moved social analysts to apply the pillars of CRT to the field of education and amplify the role of racism in structural challenges. While African Americans historically express concerns about tackling prejudice, the ferocity and effects of racial bias do not affect all segments of the community the same way. Critical race theorists should revisit the framework and interrogate how colorism intersects with racism in both structural and personal opportunities for bias in educational settings. While extant research suggests that the consequences of racism may fall particularly heavily on dark-complexioned African Americans, empirical insights are constrained. On one level, educational researchers do not tend to explicitly foreground colorism in empirical endeavors—at least in contemporary studies. Rather, racial descriptions for study participants, settings, and researchers largely rest with global categories, such as “Black” or “African American.” On a second level, scholars who do comment on skin color tend to limit descriptions to binary labels that crudely denote individuals as “light” or “dark.” As a consequence, knowledge about colorism frequently proceeds from fields such as sociology and psychology and does not always deliberately address educational factors. Substantial benefits would emerge from critical race theorists’ decision to make colorism a basic component of their interpretive framework. By the same token, scholars should abandon monotheme or dualistic approaches to data collection and analysis. Educational research, rather, needs studies that attend to the continuum of skin tones that exist in the African American community, as colorist asymmetry admits varied and relative forms of discrimination to the lived experience.

Moving color analysis from the margins of academic discourse to the center of educational research may further elucidate how basic tenets of White advantage mediate the comparatively better standing that light-complexioned African Americans hold in society at large in relation to dark-complexioned African Americans—at least by several traditional measures (Allen et al., 2000; M. Hunter, 2005). Thus, critical race theorists stand to learn a great deal about the tenacity of colorism as well as racism and how color bias sustains the interest convergence principle. For instance, does the tendency to hire and promote light-complexioned African Americans, as documented in other fields (Harrison & Thomas, 2009), also hold true in education? How do teachers perceive Black students as related to youngsters’ academic and social identities? And how do Black students interpret popular ideas, such as “acting White” (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986), racelessness (Fordham, 1988), and oppositional identity development (Ogbu, 2003)? Foregrounding physical appearance as related to race, especially via a broad color continuum, will help liberate findings that are stifled by generalized labels.

Applications to Additional Communities

Researchers are encouraged to grow educators’ understanding by investigating how the construct operates in other communities particularly as related to intersectionality. Telles and Ortiz’s (2008) study of Mexican incorporation into U.S. society provides a foundation for how colorism may be examined among Mexican Americans. Their study traces Mexican Americans’ experiences across four to five generations, and they conclude that such families slowly enter the working and lower-middle classes with a large share of the community living in or near the poverty line. The authors proceed to challenge assimilation theory on the grounds that their evidence is a marked departure from findings among European Americans, who tend to become middle class by the third generation.

Although Telles and Ortiz’s (2008) study was not designed to query colorism, questions that arise from their work resonate with the call of the present article. In light of current knowledge about colorism as a social barrier, educators would benefit from sustained efforts to expand understanding of intragroup experiences. Namely, did racialized barriers that Telles and Ortiz cite, such as stereotyping, mediate intragroup socioeconomic stratification? As evidenced by Fergus’s (2004) study of Mexican and Puerto Rican youth, skin color may be linked with important responses to discrimination. Among the participants in his work, Fergus found that so-called “Mexican or Hispanic-looking” students and “Black or biracial-looking” students tended to acknowledge race, ethnicity, gender, skin color, and language as factors that influence success or failure. “White-looking” males, however, did not attribute inequities to race or skin color. These types of basic differences in student perceptions may spur trajectories that partially explain core beliefs that guide individuals’ future pathways. Unfortunately, as reiterated throughout the current article, too few researchers recognize how skin complexion defines difference within racial groups, thus resulting in a body of educational research that generally overlooks a powerful operative in communities of color. Fergus’s findings, alongside Telles and Ortiz’s thorough research, further highlight the need to investigate how colorism complicates race. Completing studies with Latino, Asian, and indigenous communities also allows educators to engage questions related to immigration, citizenship, colonization, and language—arenas that will facilitate valuable comparisons and contrasts to the African American narrative.