Color: Hating the Skin You're In

I recently lost my paternal grandmother. She was the last of my living grandparents. As I think back over her life and reflect on a card given to me by one of my co-workers; it's makes me sad. The card wanted me to remember all the wonderful, happy times I'd spent with my grandmother enjoying only the splendor of what great grandmothers bring to their grandchildren.

I wish I could be happy about the relationship that I had with my grandmother. We had a ten year estrangement, until last August 2007, and the years prior to that were not a bed of roses. I really took the time last year to try and understand the essence of my grandmother and her life. She was a hard woman to love and definitely hard to like sometimes.

Grandmothers are supposed to love their grandchildren unconditionally, but my grandmother loved us by degrees: skin color degrees. As I've gotten to know my half-brothers and sisters over the past year, I realize that she inflicted the same color bias on them as well.

There was always a noticeable difference in who her "favorites" were. The lighter and brighter, the better. If you were a fairer complexion, you held her heart; if not, you felt her wrath.

My three sisters and I are perfectly matched: two fair to medium and two medium complexion. My half-brothers and sisters are all medium to dark and as I listened to my younger sister, Omega, recount the way grandma treated them versus how she treated our cousins who are very fair skinned, it brought back all the bad memories.

I use to wonder why grandma disliked darker skin people so much? In so many words, last year, she expressed her disdain for my grandmother who was a dark complexion man. She despised him, so anyone that favored him got the brunt of her abuse.

I forgave my grandmother for all the "water under the bridge last year and her issue made me take a hard look at my life. There are times when we internalize prejudice without even knowing it.

Are you hue prejudiced? Have you unknowingly adopted prejudice ways against your own race or maybe even another race?

I love all shades of people but who am I most attracted to: fairer skin men. Does this mean that my grandmother's sickness has rubbed off on me? NO! I've dated many spectrum of the rainbow, without and within my nationality, and find that each person has special qualities that I like.

Think about your prejudices and work hard to remove them, if they exist.