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mmm 8A NEWS/a:(ie Cjiarlotte $oit Thursday, April 22, 2004 me skin we’re in: light- compienen Macks cant auoid prejudice, eiUier CAN’T GET A BANK ACCOUNT!! TELL CHECKSYSTEMS GOODBYE!!! Open a NEW ACCOUNT Tomorrow!! Non-Checksystems Local Bank Listing CALL: 1-800-789-6934 Dickson By Hazel Trice Eidney NATIONAL NEWSPAPER PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION Second (if two parts. WASHINGTON - Akia Dickson, a student at Howard University, was headed home from work on a Washington, D.C. subway last month when a 25-year- old brown- skin black man slid into the seat beside her. “This guy was trying to talk to me. And he was saying, ‘Oh, I bet you have a boyfriend.’ And I was Hke, “Yeah.’And he was like, ‘All the pretty hght- sMimed girls do. All I need in my life is a pretty light skinned girl,’” recounts Dickson, 23. “And I said, ‘Are those your only requirements? You need to look a little deeper than this.’ I was very nice and I explained to him, This just can’t be it.”’ But the interloper was not deterred. “He said, ‘I try to date brown skin girls and it just doesn’t work out. And I brought one home one time and my grandfather said I’d better not do that again.”’ Dickson was drrmbfoimd- ed. “I was hke, ‘Are you seri ous? They still make you?”’ Yes, even in 2004, African- Americans still have a color complex, explains Juba Hare, a psychologist and executive director of the Black Think Tank in San Francisco. “It’s alive and thriving,” says Hare. “Black men, when they went to professional schools like Meharry or Howard, the thing that assured that they would be successful to themselves was a Cadillac and a light- skirmed woman on his arm. She was an ornament on his arm. It was to be sure that his children would be socially acceptable and that his chil dren would not look like him, to suffer the same purrish- ment that his dark-skirmed sisters and his mother srtf- fered.” That suffering has its roots in slavery, when the white slave master showed prefer ence to Hght-skin slaves, giv ing them jobs as “House Negroes” while their dark skin cormterparts labored in the fields. And more often than many people would like to admit, slave owners and their sons would take sexual liberties with defenseless black women, producing near-white offsprings that were neither acknowledged nor accepted by the slave owner’s family. “You would have thought that this thing would have ended after the so-called free movement and slavery sup posedly was over,” Hare explaiirs. “But black people have taken on the same pat terns as the slave master. Wherever you go, I don’t care if it’s in the church, I don’t care if it’s in the bar, I don’t care if it’s in the corporate rooms, I don’t care if it’s on a cruise, color stiU comes up among black people.” Dickson a Chicago native ■with natural blond hair and gray eyes argues that being light-kin does not make her immtme from insults. “In Chicago, they’d say stuff like ‘hght skirmed’, ‘blondie’, ‘goldie locks’ and all that stuff They think it’s like a compliment almost. But it’s not a compliment. It does not flatter me at all. I think it’s so ignorant.” And some members of the unofficial color club bring some things on themselves, according to Dickson. “I know girls who’ve tried to be my fnend because we’re all light-skin. And I’m like, ‘I don’t ■vibe with you like that. I don’t get along with you like that, so that’s not going to be our sole connecting factor.’ I have friends who are like every shade of the rainbow and we ■«!» off of personality and who we are.” Dickson says her complex ion has sometimes caused her to alter her personality. “I would kind of play myself down and be nicer or friend lier or more outgoing than I already was,” she explains. “So, it kind of compromised my self-confidence because I was kind of feeling like there was something wrong with me and I had to change it in order to be Mked by my peers. I guess that was my thing, my little problem.” The problem is no easier for people who identify them selves as bi-racial. According to the 2000 Census, there were 36.4 mil lion black or African people in the U.S. who said they were mixed with another race (13 percent of the total U.S. pop ulation of 281.5 million). Marriages between blacks and whites, contrary to popu lar opinion, totaled only 784,764, less than 1 percent. Tiffany Reynolds, 21, bom to an Afiican-Ameiican mother who reared her and a white father whom she has never met, knows how it feels to be judged for something over which she has no con trol. “Some people question my identity with black. Theyll say, ‘Oh, you’re not really black. You’re this, that or the other.’ But, me. I’m black. If Forecast for Charlotte, NC Local 7-Day Forecast Thursday Partly sunny and warm. 84 Thu. night Partly to mostly cloudy. 56 Friday 1 Partly sunny and warm. 82/56 I Saturday i Partly sunny and warm. 82/56 Sunday T-storms. 80/54 Monday T-storms. 74/48 Tuesday Times of clouds and sun. 69/45 Wednesday Cloudy with steady rain. 68/44 The Week Ahead The Week Ahead Temperatures ■1 Hi cn Above Near Below Normal Normal Normal Precipitation U.S. Traveler's Cities The National Summary Today Friday Saturday Sunday Monday City Hi Lo W Hi Lo W Hi Lo W Hi Lo W Hi Lo W Atlanta 82 58 pc 82 60 pc 80 58 pc 76 56 t 72 48 t Boston 68 46 t 58 42 sh 58 44 pc 58 44 r 55 46 r Chicago 58 40 pc 56 40 sh 58 42 c 60 42 r 64 40 r Cleveland 60 44 pc 58 42 sh 60 44 sh 62 46 r 59 42 pc Denver 52 34 sh 48 34 r 62 36 pc 66 38 pc 68 45 s Des Moines 63 43 t 60 42 c 61 44 r 64 47 c 68 46 pc Detroit 60 40 pc 58 38 sh 60 42 c 60 43 r 60 40 c Houston 84 70 pc 82 68 c 78 66 t 76 64 t 80 62 t Indianapolis 65 46 pc 62 48 sh 63 47 sh 65 44 sh 66 42 r Kansas City 63 47 t 60 44 t 62 43 r 67 48 c 68 48 c Los Angel^ 75 54 $ 80 56 s 77 56 pc 75 56 s 75 58 s Miami 84 74 pc 84 74 pc 84 72 pc 84 75 pc 85 72 t Minn,- St. Paul 60 40 pc 61 41 pc 62 43 pc 58 44 c 63 45 r New Orleans 82 67 pc 83 66 pc 82 65 t 81 64 t 78 58 r New York City 72 52 t 66 49 sh 62 46 pc 57 45 r 61 48 r Omaha 6t 44 r 60 41 c 61 40 r 61 45 r 68 47 pc Phoenix 90 64 s 87 63 s 92 64 s 91 65 s 91 66 s San Francisco 70 50 s 69 51 s 69 51 s 69 51 pc 66 59 s Seattle 64 45 pc 58 43 r 56 44 sh 60 45 c 61 51 c Washington 80 54 t 66 52 sh 64. 50 pc 62 50 r 67 48 sh A storm system will trek through the Southeast and mid-atlantic states, providing plenty of rainfall. Meanwhile, an area of high pressure building over the Rockies will keep much of the region rain-free. Chilly air will spill into the east-central' Plains from Canada, but the rest of the country will be near or slightly above normal. Weather (W): s-sunny. pc-partly cloudy, c-doudy. sh-showers. t-lhunderstorms. r-rain, af-snow flurries, sn-snow, l-lce. World Traveler's Cities Sun & Moon Today Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Sunris^ SunsefA. City Hi Lo W Hi Lo W Hi Lo W Hi Lo W Hi Lo W Thu., Apr. 22 6:42 a.m. 8:02 p.m. Amsterdam 56 48 r 57 49 pc 58 50 pc 54 46 pc 52 42 s Fri., Apr.23 6:41 a.m. 8:03 p.m. Berlin 72 56 c 69 48 sh 59 40 sh 54 37 s 52 34 s Sat., Apr. 24 ....... 6:40 a.m. 8:04 p.m. Buenos Aires 71 54 r 69 49 c 65 47 pc 68 52 pc 63 41 r Sun,, Apr. 25 6:39 a.m. 8:04 p.m. Cairo 80 45 s 79 49 pc 79 48 pc 83 54 pc 85 53 s Mon., Apr. 26 6:37 a.m. 8:05 p.m. Jerusalem 70 41 s 70 41 pc 66 40 pc 66 41 pc 72 46 pc Tue.,Apr. 27 6:36 a.m. 8:06 p.m. Johannesburg 79 57 s 78 57 pc 76 57 pc 76 ,51 pc 72 52 pc Wed., Apr. 28 6:35 a.m. 8:07 p.m. London 59 45 c 61 49 5 64 50 pc 62 46 pc 58 44 s Madrid 63 44 pc 69 48 pc 71 52 pc 74 50 pc 67 43 r Moonrlse Moonset Mexico City 76 52 pc 76 53 pc 79 51 pc 72 45 sh 74 48 sh Thu., Apr. 22 8:22 a.m. 11:19 p.m. Moscow 50 26 r 46 24 r 42 23 pc 42 22 pc 41 25 $ Fri., Apr.23 9:01 a.m. none Pahs 61 41 c 59 41 pc 61 47 c 62 45 pc 59 40 s Sal.. Apr. 24 9:46 a.m. 12:16 a.m. Rio de Janeiro 79 68 pc 79 70 pc 80 66 c 75 63 r 72 62 pc Rome 71 52 pc 65 47 c 63 52 sh 71 53 pc 59 39 sh Moon Phases San Juan 87 75 pc 87 75 pc 86 75 s 87 74 s 86 73 pc First Ful Last New Seoul Sydney Tokyo 70 76 79 44 56 65 c pc s 60 79 74 36 54 51 s pc pc 58 64 54 40 42 44 s c s 63 66 58 44 46 51 pc sh s 64 68 64 46 47 49 c pc pc C 0 3 • Toronto 58 36 pc 52 36 pc 56 40 pc 56 38 r 56 37 sh Apr. May May May Winnipeg 52 35 pc 55 38 pc 58 40 s 56 40 c 55 40 pc 27 4 11 19 Zurich 68 41 t 52 42 68 50 pc 58 42 sh 55 35 pc they question how black I am, I just wonder if they’re comfortable ■with them selves.” Regina Romero, a Washington, D.C. psycholo gist, says the black communi ty has a responsibility to end these kinds of superficial pre judgments and hostility. “It is painful and it is ugly,” she explains. “I don’t think we do enough to protect, in particular, our girls, but also our boys from that kind of hostile assault. And the truth of the matter is that it hurts more when it comes fium your own.” Romero, who is light skin and has green eyes, recalls her college experience at Howard University, arri^ving from the Germantown sec tion of Philadelphia in the early 1970s. She said she was reluctant to teU fellow stu dents that she was from West Mount Any - a section of Germantovm known for its hght-skin, middle class popu lation - for fear of being stereotyped. And even today, she is aware that some peo ple try to judge her by her outward appearance. “I don’t want to be known for green eyes. I’d like to be known for having some brains or for having some thing to contribute to the uni verse or something else,” she says. “I don’t want ‘green eyes’ on my tombstone.” “For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heat thy wounds, saith the Lord.’’ - Jeremiah 30:17 On “The Plaza” • 704-535-0400 1805 Milton Road • Charlotte, NC 28215 • Pediatrics At “The Park” • 704-399-2677 6023 Beatties Ford Road » Charlotte. NC 28216 For All Family Healthcare Needs - Accepting New Patients • “Appointments Not Necessary ” Dr. Fidelis Edosomwan Pediatrics @ The Park -Nc low open - Andrew Ighade, MD Anthonia 0. Emezie, MD Comprehensive Healthcare You Need and Deserve • Urgent Care*Intemal Medicine-Minor Trauma • Industrial Medicine • Diagnostic Center • Primaiy Care Flexible Hours: Mon-Fri, 9am-7pm, Sat. 9am-5pm • Hablamos Espanol Insurance • Medicare • Medicade • Credit Cards \/'V\ A Completely 1 Natural Hair Locing & Grooming System n • Herbal Shampoo and Conditioner which includes Tea Tree Oil - Exhilliaratine! • Steam Treatment promotes natural hair to grow • Palm Roll , V A Personal Touch! •r Have Your Log’s Groomed Every 45 Days For Best Results SHAQUORAS - Loc/Twist/Braid Alternatives 704-281-5423 or 704-556-1348 All maps, forecasts and data provided by Weather Source, Inc. ©2004 AccuWeather.com
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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April 22, 2004, edition 1
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