The Women’s Center and Multicultural Center will screen Dark Girls to discuss importance of acknowledging colorism.
In hopes of addressing the problem of colorism, the Women’s Center and the Multicultural Center will co-sponsor the start of the “Race, Gender and Culture Film Series.”
The first in the series is a documentary Dark Girls which will screen Thursday.
Directed by Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry, the documentary discusses the various experiences of dark-skinned women from all walks of life and their struggles to overcome the societal barriers around them because of their skin color.
M. Geneva Murray, the director of the Women’s Center, said the center chose to show the film because they felt there needed to be a discussion on the ways in which race and gender intersect to shape a woman’s experiences in life.
“Dark Girls addresses colorism not just within the white culture but also within the African-American culture as well,” Murray said.
Colorism, according to Sarah Jenkins, the program director of the Women’s Center, is the difference in how black people are perceived in society based on the tones and darkness of their skin.
“We may talk about race or racism,” Jenkins said. “But we don’t necessarily talk about the treatment of black women based on the darkness of their skin.”
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Often, lighter-skin black women are better represented in the media and darker-skin black women are stereotypically considered “less desirable,” Jenkins said.
“(The film) really addresses the personal impacts for the women,” Murray said.
Robin D. Muhammad, the department chair of the African-American Studies department, will lead the post-film discussion.
“(Dark Girls) is a really good film for people to go to and think about not just about what racism means in the context of police brutality,” Murray said. “But then in other areas of women’s lives, as well.”
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