Monday, June 15, 2009

#69. The Brown Paper Bag Test


Black people would like the world to believe that they truly are a universal brotherhood representing peace, tolerance and hope.

A Black man was just elected President of the United States running largely as the candidate who promoted change and tolerance. Black people voted overwhelming for him - 96 percent of Black voters nationwide voted for Barack Hussein Obama - giving the impression that Black people have a monolithic view on everything. However, this view is wrong when looking at the history of Black people, from Haiti to Black on Black crime in America.

Worse though for Black people, is the Brown Paper Bag Test. Black people do not like to talk about this sordid historical reminder that Black people can be prejudicial, because it is a well known fact that only White people can be racist and bigoted.

The Brown Paper Bag Test is said to have originated in slave days, and the impetus behind it was that light skinned Black people were more favorable than dark skinned Black people:

"According to an article written by Audrey Elisa Kerr, an associate English professor at Southern Connecticut State University, light-skinned slaves-particularly women-were considered "gentler, kinder, more handsome, smarter, and more delicate" than darker-skinned slaves."
Black people not only encountered racism from White people in the 19th century and 20th century, but from light-skinned Black People as well. The article continues:

"Washington, D.C., once played a large role in the dark-skin/light-skin game. Because slavery did not have such an economic impact in the District, many free blacks preferred to reside in the area. In the mid-19th century, barbershops began accommodating only light-skinned black men.

Not only was race a factor, but skin tone became one. Churches, schools and various organizations utilized the paper bag test for social verification. There were also multitudes of brown bag parties, clubs, and social circles."

Bill Maxwell, a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times decries the problem of the Brown Paper Bag Test as 'colorism', writing:

"Elite blacks of the early 20th century were fair-skinned almost to the person. Even today, most blacks in high positions have fair skin tones, and most blacks who do menial jobs or are in prison are dark. Believe it or not, popular black magazines, such as Ebony as Essence, prefer light-skinned models in their beauty product ads."

Black people are rightly appalled by this historical blip in their clean record of racial bias or hatred, but the record clearly indicated that Black people discriminate against each other, based on the lighter skin pigmentation of some Blacks compared to the higher level of melanin in others.



Henry Louis Gates, a Black professor, tells a story of the Brown Paper Bag Test:

"Some of the brothers who came from New Orleans held a "bag party.' As a classmate explained it to me, a bag party was a New Orleans custom wherein a brown paper bag was stuck on the door. Anyone darker than the bag was denied entrance
The Brown Paper Bag Test is included in Stuff Black People Don't Like for reasons that should now be fairly obvious: Black people are immune from the charge of racism or holding negative view of other races. The Brown Paper Bag Test would prove otherwise.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought that light skin models were preferred in Afro-American magazines because darker Afro-Americans images printed as featureless black blobs. That's how they always looked in the pictures on the crime blotter page in the newspaper.

Anonymous said...

If my children 'want' to respect their father's heritage?
WTF????
How about, "my kids WILL respect their father's heritage - as they will respect mine." This is precisely what is wrong with today's society. The minute these kids fail, these parent's will blame society, other people, their teacher's - anybody but themselves.
Geezz!! My dad is half polish and half italian and my mom is half irish and half german. I don't know what that makes me but if someone called me a nazi or pollock or a guinea, I would merely shrug and laugh it off. Who cares!!! What is important in life is how I behave and what I add to society. Not what other's say about me.

Christ - this world is going to hell in a handbasket.

Anonymous said...

The young lady seems quite intelligent, but she rambles a lot, and makes a monstrous biological solecism, namely believing that the difference between races resides in a single gene, and that one allele is therefore recessive to the other: "The white gene is recessive to the black gene." What nonsense. Actually, the longer she talks, the less intelligent she sounds.

Anonymous said...

Honestly, the woman is well meaning, but she did not come across as intelligent. Biracial people of other mixes feel the same social stigmas, they just don't talk about it as much. Tiger Woods is part Thai, btw; if she was going to address culture, maybe she should have enough respect to research the culture of others before making a video that mentions them. RESPECT ME! But you... eh whatever.

Anonymous said...

Blacks only believed that garbage because white people brainwashed them to believe the lighter you where the better.

AllPeople (AP) Gifts said...

.

It is often a surprise for people to learn that,
in reality, there is actually No Such Thing
As a "Light Skinned Black" person.

The term "Light Skinned Black" is really nothing more
than a racist oxymoron that was created by racial
Supremacists in an effort to forcibly deny those
Mixed-Race individuals, who are of what is referred
to as being a Multi-Generational Multiracially-Mixed
(MGM-Mixed) Lineage, the right to fully embrace and
to also receive public support in choosing to acknowledge
the truth regarding their complete ancestral heritage.

The people who have been slapped with the false label and
oxymoronic misnomer of "Light Skinned Black" person are
simply Mixed-Race individuals -- who are from families
which have became and have remained continually
Mixed-Race throughout their multiple generations.

It should also be noted that no one is saying that having
a light skin complexion is the 'only' or even a 'required'
proof of being of a continuously Mixed-Race lineage.

What is simply being said here is that it is just one
of the clearly-visible and openly undeniable forms
of proof that a person is of a Mixed-Race lineage.

Also -- the legend of the existence of so-called 'Brown Paper Bag'
Tests; 'Blue Vein' Societies; 'Fine-Toothed Comb' Tests; etc.--
have been PROVEN by multiple historians to have been (very much
like the infamous so-called 'Willie Lynch Letter / Speech' HOAX and the
myth of a Light-Skin 'House' / Dark-Skin 'Field' chattel=slave "heirarchy)
nothing more than a series of 'Urban Myths' and 'Urban Legends' created
in order to incite unmeried hostility toward people of Multiracial Lineage.


For more information on MGM-Mixed lineage, feel free to view
the information at the found at the links listed below (and / or
can contact me directly via email at soaptalk@hotmail.com).


-- AllPeople (AP) Gifts
soaptalk@hotmail.com


LINKS:


http://boards.mulatto.org/post/show_single_post?pid=35284580&postcount=4  


http://boards.mulatto.org/post/show_single_post?pid=34070161&postcount;=13  

http://mgmix.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=879:light-skin-curse-a-different-point-of-view&catid=36:biracial#comment-1271
 
http://newsblaze.com/story/20090621155502zzzz.nb/topstory.html 
 
http://boards.mulatto.org/post/show_single_post?pid=34070414&postcount;=14 


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Generation-Mixed   
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MGM-Mixed     
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FGM-Mixed   

.

Anonymous said...

Why are Black people so intent on bringing up biracial people heritage? I am biracial black/white, and grew up in a black community where most of my friends were racially mixed black/white.
I find it odd that most blacks are always ready to take on other issues, but NOT the "One Drop Rule". Why do blacks acquiescence to such foolishness? I know during my childhood, I was treated rather horrible with nicknames I was given,"white nigger, yellow boy,half whitey", and yet no one came to my aid. The result was that I married another biracial woman who became my wife. She,(as I did), also went through very much of the same things I went through.

The result? Most of our friends are biracial and white, and our children were taught to stick with someone of their own color.

After the traumatic experience I had with blacks growing up, I vowed that I would rather be around biracials than any other group.

Blacks are always attempting to pull biracials into their crab basket, but the minute they are angry with you, they will not hesitate to mention your racial background, and make racial slurs!

I've always been between two races, and I always will, because it's not easy to listen to someone that hates either group that you're a part of.

Up until the 1930's, the racial term "Mulatto" was used on the Census, and I think it's time for it to return. I would have no problem with it. I will be checking the square where "Bi-Racial", or "Other" on this years Census.

I will NOT allow white or black to tell me what I am.

Anonymous said...

.

Web Sites on the topic of Mixed-Race:

http://generation-mixed.ning.com

http://mgm-mixed.ning.com

http://fgm-mixed.ning.com

http://generation-mixed.ning.com/forum

.

Charles E. Winchester, III said...


Anonymous (June 22, 2009 at 8:19 AM):

My dad is half polish and half italian and my mom is half irish and half german. I don't know what that makes me"

How about "valuable"?