Raven-Symone leads a pretty low-key existence in Hollywood for a former child star. She mostly does voice work, playing the fairy Iridessa in the Pixie Hollow movies. That seems like a sweet, low-pressure gig. Last time we talked about Raven, she discussed her rejection of labels. She told an open-mouthed Oprah, “I’m tired of being labeled. I’m an American. I’m not an African American; I’m an American.” Raven stressed how being an American made her “colorless.” She later clarified, “I never said I wasn’t black.”
Raven is back with a new set of admissions in an OWN documentary called Light Girls. The show interviews black actresses who tan their skin to look darker. Oprah is zeroing in on Hollywood’s casting process and focus on colorism in the entertainment industry. The prevailing view is how lighter-skinned actresses fare better than those with darker skin. This doc reveals an unexpected twist. What I find most interesting are the words from producer Ralph Farguhar, who speaks after Raven:
Raven on tanning: “When I had my own show, I used to tan 3 or 4 times a week. In a tanning bed. To get darker. I did. And it’s funny, one of the lighting guys came up, I love him to death. I love him, oh my goodness. He goes, ‘Raven, I need you to stop tanning. You’re getting too dark, and we have to re-light the whole entire show.’ I was like, ‘Sorry, I was just trying to be pretty.'”
Ralph Farguhar on casting: “In television, a lot of times we might be in a situation where we have to cast a dark-skinned girl, so we’re passing up the light-skinned sisters because we don’t want to be accused of doing that. So her we might have a really talented actress who’s being overlooked because of her complexion.”
[From OWN on YouTube]
What I’m hearing from this discussion is that black actresses face discrimination no matter what. Kaiser has already touched upon this issue in connection with Lupita N’yongo, who is incredibly talented but still faces bias. The situation is maddening. Black actresses already do not receive consideration for roles that go to white actresses by default. They also have to worry about whether they’ll get roles due to being light- or dark-skinned. The bias hits all of them. Not cool, Hollywood.
Here are some photos of Raven-Symone at a FOX TV event on 1/7.
Photos courtesy of WENN
Colorism is such an ugly byproduct of white supremacy that affects all minority groups, especially black women.
I can’t speak further on that as I’m Latina but lord the number of ignorant comments I’ve received from family AND strangers is maddening–I distinctly remember being forbidden to go outside one summer, according to my grandmother, I’d gotten too dark 😤.
This documentary will be interesting to watch, I really want to see how they address the issue; I’ve no doubt that light skinned women have their own ordeals to go through and would never minimize the experiences of another, I just hope it’s acknowledged that light skin IS a privilege when it comes to the entertainment industry (NOTE: whether light or dark, on a societal level, black is still black–there’s no privilege in that whatsoever).
Dark skinned women rarely get major roles and if media representation was the sole depiction of black women in America, most folks would assume a “butterscotch” complexion was the norm (which as we all know is far from the truth).
It’s frustrating to read stories like this–the amount of pressure placed on women is cumbersome, now factor in being a WoC, and those pressures are amplified exponentially.
Urggh, I hear you. Am Indian descent, don’t get me started on colourism and even worse the justifications for it. But I always thought, nearly everyone is born with the skin tone that best suits their features. God, nature, whoever, did actually get it right, so stop messing with it.
This is the perfect first comment.
Colourism is a horrible thing that affects anyone, especially women, who does not fall in the category of ‘medium tanned butterscotch’ skin.
Darker women receive negativity, as do white women who’s skin is ‘too pale/ghostly’.
There’s this whole ideal of a tanned/light brown woman with green or blue eyes and light brown hair. Guess what: women with very light eyes usually have very light skin naturally, and women with darker skin usually have darker eyes too. We are all beautiful.
I am very fair and want to stay that way as my dad has had about 12 skin cancers cut off in recent years due to sun over-exposure. I frequently am told I look sick, unhealthy, pasty etc and am given bizarre amounts of attention if I ever put on some fake tan (for an event) – you look SO much better! I can’t believe how glowing you look etc etc
Don’t get me wrong – I completely understand that my ‘suffering’ is absolutely zero on the scale of racist skin related remarks but it is still interesting to see – it seems no one can ever be *just* the right colour. People just love to criticise and skin colour is an easy target. The culprits are of all skin colours too – fair, tan, dark skinned ladies all think they have authority to tell someone what colour their skin ‘should’ be.
I agree Dana.
I am very fair too and growing up people would push me to go tanning outside or in booths and use fake tanners. It was hell, unhealthy and a lot of work, and I was constantly ashamed of myself.
Recently, with the increasing popularity of fair skinned actresses like Emma Stone, Scarlett and of course Twilight I feel my hair/eyes/skin combo has become some sort of a fetish – except when it’s high summer of course, then people wonder “why I am not getting darker, it’s summer isn’t it”? *facepalm* at ignorance.
I was at a wedding once and my creepy uncle came to tell me “You’re such a pretty girl… If you’d only were a little tanner!”
@You should have shown him a picture of “Tan Mom.”
http://meganandtimmy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/crazy-tanning-mom.jpg
She seems like a really interesting young woman. Bet she’d be fun to hang out with. I hope she gets to stay in the showbiz game if that is indeed her dream.
Yes, i thought the same thing when i read this.
This is so sad to me, and, looked at from a distance, so insane. Your skin color doesn’t make you pretty or not pretty. There’s something much uglier lurking beneath that judgment.
It sounds even more insane when you’re from a completely different part of the world and you get a very sugarcoated version of America. These things sound so sad and so disturbing.
I don’t think this is at all exclusive to the US, and definitely not exclusive to the black community.
At Original Tessa, I totally agree. Shadeism is a form of classism and it’s quite multi-cultural.
My older family members, we’re mostly Irish and German, prefer blue or green eyes. If one of our babies is born with brown, they’re automatically like “sigh, brown eyes” like it’s something to be upset about! People are assholes in general. That’s all I can come up with. Deep in our DNA is the urge to pick on things that are different than what we’re used to.
Funny, same heritage and I ended up with brown eyes (same reaction too ha). And yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head: Homo sapiens are one f-cked up species imo.
I’m from a very small country with very few people of other races or even ethnicities, and while some people prefer lighter or darker skin ( my mum hated the fact that she was fair and ginger growing up) it doesn’t have the same social connotations as in other societies.
Colorism doesn’t just happen in America. It happens all over the world. It’s the result of white people colonizing other areas, like India and Africa. It was mainly the Brits that did the colonizing, so this is definitely not just an American thing.
Lmao can we please not compare colorism to people not having blue or green eyes?!?!?! It’s not the same at all. I get that you’re trying to relate but it’s honestly just insulting that someone would think to compare the two situations as if they’re similar
What gets me about colorism is that it is one of those things that becomes damned if you do, damned if you don’t. My lily white ass has been told several time that I’m too pale, ghostly, and need a tan; in other places (outside and inside the US), people go to crazy lengths to get paler skin. It is one of the many toxic cycles in the beauty scene. Ugh.
Sadly, this is just not a problem exclusive to Hollywood. I am originally from Mexico, and Mexicans range from very dark skinned to completely Caucasian. I am light skinned, and my aunts/grandma would tell me to not go outside at certain hours as I would either sunburn or God forbid – tan! My husband now is marveled if we watch any Mexican shows or soap operas, because all he sees are blue eyed blondes and Caucasian types. In Mexican shows!! They will throw a token dark-skinned person every once in a while but still! Makes NO sense.
Same thing in the Indian culture. Check out Bollywood actresses…they are all mostly light skinned. There is a popular cream in India called “Fair and Lovely” to make your skin lighter as well. Same with Indian soap operas, all light skinned women with the exception of one or two (who will always get the role of the evil or bad one). This is something that goes on in many cultures, not just African American.
And it isn’t just related to ‘western influence’… In India it stems back a long time and is tied directly to the caste system.
Same as in parts of Asia – having paler skin has nothing to do with wanting to be ‘white’ but used to relate to wealth and social standing. If you were rich you could work indoors and if you were poor you worked the fields, thus getting darker skin.
It is widespread in Asian countries as well. Lighter is better there. My son married a Vietnamese gal and we went there for the wedding. It was plus 40 Celsius and incredibly high humidity but locals (including her family) were wearing long sleeved turtlenecks, long jeans! I nearly croaked, I was having trouble dealing and was wearing shorts/tank tops. They’ll go to great lengths to stay as fair as possible. Very sad, they were shocked when I told them in North America people pay for spray tans or tanning bed tans. As an uber pale person I would love to be at least golden.
I’m really playing (not necessarily) devil’s advocate here… Why was she tanning to make herself darker, hence prettier? Who told her that darker was prettier? Obviously she’s getting pressure from somewhere, and it obviously wasn’t the show, since they complained about her complexion changing.
Now there’s backlash for producers /directors who hire lighter skinned women, because we’re all told that lighter is better because it’s closer to white and that only light skinned people get hired because of racism. So they feel they have to cast darker skinned women, regardless of talent.
It seems like they can’t win no matter who they hire. What are they supposed to do when it seems like no matter what choice they make they will get backlash or be called racist or complexionist?
It could have been peer pressure from darker-skinned girls. My best friend is white and her husband is black. They have a daughter who is now 30 and gorgeous, and she has that “café au lait” colour skin. She was bullied when she was in her teens by her black girlfriends that she wasn’t “black” enough and did the tanning thing as well.
She probably got pressure from her black peers.Being light skinned and “talking white” can be an issue with some people.I have a cousin who is lighter than Raven who had similar issues.Also Raven was famous so people already thought she had an “attitude” , coupled with her skin tone .Raven was a insecure teenager when she started doing this.
The backlash against casting lighter skin women is used as an excuse to not cast women of colour at all. The roles go to white women by default which is why the vast majority of successful Holllywood actress are white- they are the ones who are cast in films and are given the exposure needed to build a successful acting career.
Using the ‘backlash’ as a justification for casting choices is just a lazy way to get out of examining the wider context of racism and how it impacts women of colour and why it’s upsetting that women with dark complexions aren’t casted in films (mainstream & indie).
Those tanning beds are horrible, they are setting up young people like this to get cancer. Where I live by order of the Cancer Foundation and the Health Dept, tanning bed have been completely banned. Took effect from January 1 this year.
Do people think that these are safe because they aren’t laying in the sun? I’m ghost white and had skin cancer when I was 34. I never layed in the sun or a tanning bed. Was always covered in sunscreen. Glad they are being banned for people who don’t think about it
This is a very deep-seated issue in the black community and many others, I’m sure. Growing up, I do remember lighter skinned girls getting picked on because of being too light and darker skinned girls being picked on for being dark. It’s so sad. This was on necole bitchie a few days ago, and there are many first hand accounts that shed light on this issue that many people aren’t even aware of.
Just wanted to point out that the FOX TV event Raven was pictured at was the premiere of Empire, which is an amazing show! Her girlfriend Azmarie is in it as well as her best friend, Jussie Smollet. Check it out if you havent seen it already!
As a darker skinned woman, this issue really hits home. Growing up, I always received subliminal messages that lighter was better, which was really damaging and took many years for me to recover from before learning that all skin shades are equally beautiful. Unfortunately that sentiment is still hardly reflected in the media and entertainment industry.
As another poster mentioned above, I just hope that the film acknowledges that being lighter skinned woman IS a privilege. Also, this issue is not just exclusive to black communities – European beauty standards are promoted worldwide which is why some brown women in other countries tend to bleach their skin to avoid being father – Asians, Latinos, Indians, etc. This is a worldwide phenomenon which is very telling and sad.
Finally, just wanted to add that Empire is such an awesome show! Taraji P. Henson performance alone made me a huge fan! It was also great seeing Raven’s girlfriend on there, hope to see her on there more often!
Danskins: My mom is a beautiful dark-skinned woman like yourself. She also was told that light skinned people are prettier and was made to feel inferior. Your experience breaks my heart, but I am SO happy you realized you realized your beauty.
As a lighter skinned woman, I wouldn’t say that being light is a privilege. I work at a prediminately white school, as far as teachers go, and you would be shocked at some of the things that are said and done. My light-skinned family members and friends still deal with discrimination and racial profiling. I DO believe, though, that the treatment lighter skinned women/men receive in the blsck community is considerably better that how dark skinned people are treated. Again, thus is a terrible and loaded issue. I believe it goes way back to slavery days, with the “house” and “field” situation. It’s just so awful.
Lastly, Taraji is amazing!! I love her. Probably even more so because she looks just like ny sister, lol.
Thanks @Almond Joy, I appreciate your message. I absolutely agree that intraracism is a serious problem in the black community and that skin tone, whether lighter or darker, doesn’t protect from discrimination. Also, I can only imagine some of the things you must’ve heard at your school from other teachers.
Happy it hear that Empire got picked up for another season – yay, more Cookie all around! 🙂 👏
And thank YOU for sharing your experience ❤ Hopefully, as more light is shed on the issue and there’s more discussion, things will get better. If I ever have children, my goal is to make sure they see the beauty in themselves and all others, regardless of skin color, tone, shade.
Did you watch Inside Empire last night?It was a round table discussion with Terrence,Taraji, Lee Daniels,Producers Danny Strong, Brian Glazer and a moderator discussing the show.They also mentioned some of the musical guests who will be on upcoming shows like Mary J, Naomi Campbell,etc.
Also it was announced Empire has been picked up for second season.
MORE COOKIE😊
Kim1: I missed that! I caught Thursday’s episode On Demand. I had no idea there was a round table discussion! Thank goodness for the second season coming, I’m addicted already! We need to have a discussion after each episode lol. Gonna hijack one of the threads!
She and Nicole Richie could be sisters.
How so?
They look strikingly similar to me.
Weird! I never noticed that they favor until now.
Yes, they do, except Raven looks like a healthier version ( not so thin) .
You know, I’ve always thought that too! In some photos, she’s a dead ringer for Nicole (or vice versa, I guess). Both of them are very pretty, but Raven is a much healthier weight IMO.
A while ago- probably about a year ago- I heard a rumor from someone on jezebel that during the Destiny’s Child era Beyonce used to tan her skin too for similar reasons. I always knew about societies favoring lighter-skinned women over darker-skinned women, and I had heard about light-skinned black women sometimes feeling that they weren’t black enough, but I didn’t know about lighter-skinned black women sometimes being passed up for roles or tanning so they could be ‘the right’ color.
I can kind of see Raven’s point about the American label too. White people are just labelled American by default without extra qualifiers- how often do you see the term European-American used.
I think all skin, no matter the shade, gets that special glow and sheen when it’s been tanned. My boyfriend has dark olive skin, but in these winter months it can get a bit ruddy and lifeless even though it’s still rather dark. A tan brings his skin to life, just like it does to lighter skin.
That’s a very old rumor – and it was that Mathew Knowles used to make other members of Destiny’s Child tan so that Beyonce’s light skin (and blonde hair) would stand out more. If it was true (which I wouldn’t put past Mathew Knowles) it was about him trying to make his daughter THE star, not a social pressure for someone to make their skin appear darker.
I read that another member of Destiny’s Child was forced to tan by Matthew Knowles so Beyonce would be the only light o e and stand out more.
I remember Naturi Naughton being pushed out of the Cheetah Girls because she was too dark.
I am glad that she is still working as an actress, and she has an amazing singing voice.
As a white girl I actually got to see a little side of this when I dated an Indian guy for a while; it was beyond strange to have his family commenting that it was wonderful how pale I am. How beautiful it was. If we had children they’d be lighter skinned which his mother thought was fab. Kind of creeped me out. And that was one experience. I times that by 1000x to keep my empathy up. Listening to darker skinned clients when I did their makeup just made me more aware of this whole thing.
I’ve lived in Asia for a few years, and you can’t escape the assault of advertising for skin bleaching – cremes, powders, “retreats”, chemical processes, etc. It’s insane. Prior to that, I had moved there from the upper midwest, where all the white women I worked with spent their winters in tanning beds, only to become a shade of orange not found anywhere in nature. I told my friends in Asia about this and they were astounded that white women would make an effort to become darker while they were spending thousands to become lighter. I find it incredibly sad that these women on both continents placed such importance on this marketing-fueled “issue”, and couldn’t devote those efforts to something more meaningful or important in their lives.
Exactly. I was in Thailand a couple of years ago and I wanted sun cream. I am black maybe a shade darker than Raven and I loved being in the sun, all the creams had skin lightener in them. Why does one buy sun tan cream and add that. V odd here in the UK all the Sally type stores have an entire row of skin lightening products.
I’ve been called light bright (and I’m not even the lightest person in my family). I’ve been told by my white friends that I wasn’t black because I didn’t talk or act like a black person. Articulating and having good grammar are apparently white people things. In my mother’s time, she lived with the paper bag test. If you were darker than that bag, you didn’t get the same advantages. In my grandmother’s time, her family discriminated against darker skin blacks and didn’t want them messing up their family. Hence picking dudes that were light, damn near white, but sorry as hell.
I feel for Raven. I’m glad she’s not self-hating anymore.
As a white person, this is difficult for me to understand because all my friends tanned growing up. But the stuff I see on Twitter is insane. Black people actually talking about a girl being a “dark-skin” as an insult! And commenting on “light-skin” or “yellow-bone” being better. They will even brag about being lighter skinned than other black people. It’s such internalized racism it really makes me sad. How can people claim to be proud of their race when a girl who has a “white” looking face (and curled hair extensions died golden brown) but brown skin is ADORED by the black community but women who have darker skin and more African features are not recognized as beautiful?
My (white) cousin is dating a mixed man. She told me light-heartedly that if any of his friends tease him he doesn’t care because his comeback is that he “lighter” than them. It’s just a joke but I think its a little sad.
As a light skinned black woman, all I can say is, yep been there.
This is so sad. I can’t even imagine the pressure. The last actress who was discussing auditioning to be the daughter and sister and was checking the complexion of the other actresses-that’s just crazy-making behavior. Poor girl! I’m as white as they get and when I see shows of black actresses playing related characters and the actresses have different skin tone, I just assume that you can have multiple shades within one family. I mean I see it in my two kids. Maybe not as noticeable being white, but it is still there. I sure hope we can get past this as a society.
Lucinda you can absolutely have different complexions in one family. We have four boys and all four are different shades from the lightest light skin to a beautiful medium brown. I used to laugh growing up watching The Cosby Show because I had never seen any of my friends families display the diaspora of the Huxtible family but now I know without a doubt that genetics does what it wishes 😃.
I’m an extremely fair person of mixed race – my mother, aunts and uncles on my Black side range in from dark to very light skinned.
My family never put any emphasis on race or the color of my skin. It wasn’t until college (in an Intro to Black Studies class, no less) that I was bullied and told I wasn’t “really black” because I spoke without an Ebonics accent and was “high yellow.” My college professor, a dark skinned Indian woman, actively encouraged this kind of bullying in her class. I was appalled, and wrote a letter to the Department Chair about the incredibly ironic racism in that class.
My brother, several shades darker than me, struggled far more with his identity because it was obvious he was mixed, and he got a lot more “you don’t fit in anywhere” crap than I did.
It is just so stupid – why can’t people just live their lives and leave others alone?
You’d think in a generation or two as more and more people are born mixed race this will start to peter out but then it makes me think it’ll become even more segregated
“I am African-Mexican and you are Mexican-Colombian so I am better than you!”
I think all in all everyone is just insanely insecure and loves to make themselves feel better in any way possible… very sad indeed
What does “high yellow” mean?
This is the first time I’ve heard this term, ‘colourist’ and how interesting (and disheartening) to read all of your experiences across cultures and ethnicities. What horrible value we as a society put on skin colour and how very very sad that this imposed value has now become so entrenched. I grew up and still live in London where so many of my friends, and our children are mixed race that it just hadn’t occurred to me that this would be an issue. I mean, I see and understand of course that racism is still alive and kicking in some idiotic parts but this sub-set of racism, of judging someone as better or worse by the lightness or darkness of their skin?
I’m sorry but I don’t expect Hollywood to fix that problem…I think that the Black community needs to fix it themselves. It’s much easier to point blame at Hollywood because their not something you can touch and have a dialogue. It’s harder to point the finger at your own community. Both skin tones have been discriminated…by their own community.
I can’t take the complaint seriously if a community won’t heal themselves.
Qtip: I didn’t read that Hollywood was supposed to to fix that problem. Not sure if I missed something.
“I can’t take the complaint seriously if a community won’t heal themselves.” Have you ever stopped to think what the source of this problem is? This is not something that the black community created. Feelings of low self worth due to skin complexion go waaay back to slavery. We have been told for years that being black is not beautiful or acceptable. You might want to be a little more sensitive when it comes to this topic.
She is so cute!
I am so tired of and so ashamed of benefitting from white supremacy. I took the implicit bias test on Harvard’s website and scored as biased AGAINST white people, which makes more sense to me than being biased against brown people but I digress. It’s just so insane to me. How can people see skin tone any differently than hair color? Why are most white people so shamefully in denial about this issue? Why should black people have to live everyday with the subtle but constant message that their skin tone is a sin, an inherent handicap, a thing of inferiority? Black people are beautiful and strong and inspiring, if they are anything as a whole. I cry everytime I think about this, crying now. Ever since I can remember the end to racism has been my one wish. We are better than this, aren’t we?
I need to let you know that is far from just white people who benefit from this. I’m a Japanese-American born and raised in the Midwest and when I moved to Tokyo just last year I was shocked by the overt promotion of white skin by the people of Japan and East Asia in general. Girls here and even some men will go great lengths to avoid getting a tan and even at the 100 Yen Shop (Dollar store) there is a wide variety of skin whitening soaps and creams available, not to mention every convenience and drug store.
When I don’t have any tan my skin tone could pass for a white person’s if you only saw me from the neck down and sometimes when I lived in America I would wear a hat and sunglasses so people would just assume I was white. However in a country with barely any white people, it definitely opened my eyes to the fact that white people are NOT the only people or culture of the world to think that lighter skin is better. Is has been engrained in Japanese culture since LONG before Europeans ever arrived on our shores, just luck much of the rest of Asia.
I guess in this part of the world, European people (ie Whites) just lucked out to fall into a “less weird looking” and “nicer complexion” category than black people or others, but there is a major misconception that Japanese culture was made that way by white surpremacy or us “trying to be white” and it’s not. Its been that way for centuries before Japan was ever exposed to the existence of White people. I wish people blaming it on white supremacy alone would look at it from a more worldwide perspective.
But then again, for all of her inclination towards tanning, she was still hired as light-skinned woman. Yes there’s privilege, I see that every time people see my very light-skinned mother and I, with my very brown skin together for the first time and people ask what happened to me. No one is treated particularly well, but there is still light skin privilege and anyone who contests that might want to take another look at the Straight Outta Compton casting call. That’s not anecdotal, that’s worldwide perception.