A Spin-Off From “I’m Not Denouncing, I’m Announcing”

Let’s have the hard conversation.

Not the Instagram version.

Not the version where somebody reads three sentences, gets offended, and stops thinking.

And not the version where darker-skinned Black women become villains while lighter-skinned Black women pretend colorism never benefited them.

I am a lighter-brown-skinned Black woman from a multigenerationally mixed Afro-descendant family.

My family history contains Black ancestry alongside German and European ancestry and other ancestral lines that have been identified or discussed within my family. I know there are slave owners represented within branches of my family tree. I know there is German ancestry. I know there is Indian ancestry. There are Hispanic connections within my family history as well.

And hell, maybe somebody is going to explain these naturally low eyes one day too.

But none of that changes the simplest answer:

I am a Black woman.

I love being a brown-skinned Black woman.

And I refuse to participate in a version of Blackness where one complexion has to insult another complexion to feel legitimate.

At the same time, I am also no longer going to pretend that complexion, perceived pretty privilege, mixed ancestry, desirability, and old wounds surrounding colorism never enter relationships between Black women.

Sometimes they do.

The mature question is what we do when they appear.

Five Women Made Me Ask a Larger Question

Five relationships in particular made me think harder about this subject:

Jenny Allume. Melanie Mitchell. Jasmine Herbert. Tia Coleman. Amberly Williams.

Let me establish something before anybody intentionally misreads me.

I cannot climb inside these women’s minds and declare that every negative interaction I experienced with them happened because they are darker-skinned or because they were jealous of my complexion.

That would be intellectually dishonest.

What I can say is that I experienced patterns of passive aggression, conflict, social distancing, comparison, shade, or other conduct from these individual women that made me start asking questions about whether colorism, comparison, desirability, social hierarchy, or insecurity sometimes operated underneath our interactions.

That’s my lived question.

Not a diagnosis.

Not a scientific conclusion about darker-skinned women.

And certainly not an indictment of dark skin.

Melanie Mitchell and the “Muggle” Problem

Melanie is one of the clearest reasons I started thinking about this.

The word “muggle” might originate in fiction.

Fine.

But when language like that becomes connected, directly or indirectly, to conversations about lineage, mixture, complexion, belonging, or who is authentically Black enough, it stops feeling harmless to the person receiving it.

That is where I draw the boundary.

I am Afro-descendant.

I am multigenerationally mixed.

I did not select the people who reproduced hundreds of years before I was born.

Neither did Melanie.

None of us filled out a racial order form before entering the world.

So if somebody looks at my complexion, ancestry, sister, family, features, or background and decides that makes me some kind of racial outsider, I’m going to challenge it.

Don’t call me less Black because I’m lighter than you.

And I won’t call you less beautiful, less feminine, less desirable, or less worthy because you’re darker than me.

That’s the deal.

Jenny Allume: Don’t Make Your Relationship With Yourself My Punishment

Jenny brings up another dimension.

What bothered me about that relationship was what I experienced as detachment and a shift in energy after I had genuinely supported her.

If you stop liking me, fine.

If we grow apart, fine.

If another social circle fits you better, fine.

But if somebody once vouched for you and you later treat association with her as though it is embarrassing, inconvenient, or socially costly, that deserves examination.

If comparison was involved, that’s something only Jenny can ultimately answer.

I cannot declare:

“Jenny behaved this way because she hates her dark skin.”

I don’t know that.

But I can say:

If anybody is struggling with complexion, comparison, belonging, or feeling less than another woman, deal with that internally instead of making another woman pay for it.

Call the Reverend.

Call your mama.

Call your therapist.

Call God.

Call somebody.

But don’t make another Black woman’s face, ancestry, beauty, confidence, or success responsible for whatever you’re wrestling with internally.

In My Exact Words—and Why They Needed Clarification

When I was angry and trying to articulate what I believed I was experiencing, these were my words:

“If judging me or feeling less than to me makes you go bad mouth me, girl you really are not a good woman of the Afro-Caribbean descent and you are simply a shirt wearer who wanted to fit in. You’re one of those brown paper bag test that should have happened because of how you use your dark skin.”

Those were my words.

I’m not pretending I didn’t say them.

But leaving them visible also means being willing to examine what they actually imply.

A brown-paper-bag test should not have to happened to Jenny. It should not have happened to anybody.

Those tests represented colorist exclusion.

The anger underneath my statement was about what I experienced as somebody using identity, belonging, comparison, and social acceptance against me from dark skin women as shown in the examples of my real life experiences.

The historical implication of my wording went further than that.

I can own both things.

I can say:

“Yes, those words came out of my mouth.”

And also:

“No, I don’t believe darker-skinned Black women should have been excluded because of their complexion.”

That’s growth.

If I’m asking everybody else to examine themselves, Adrienne has to be willing to examine Adrienne too.

As a Lighter-Skinned Woman, I Understand There Is Another Side to This Conversation

As a lighter-skinned Black woman, I understand that colorism creates frustrations that I will not experience exactly the same way as a darker-skinned Black woman.

I’m not denying history.

But acknowledging that history does not mean I have to accept passive aggression, resentment, projection, or somebody flipping a narrative on me because of what she may personally be wrestling with.

And let me make this clear:

I am not saying darker-skinned women behave negatively because they are darker-skinned.

I’m talking about individual women whose behavior toward me made me question whether complexion and comparison were somewhere underneath the tension.

If complexion insecurity ever is the issue?

Call the Reverend.

Call your mama.

Call your therapist.

Call God.

But don’t get into an organization and turn around and be nasty toward the same woman who vouched for you.

Don’t make your relationship with yourself somebody else’s punishment.

Jasmine Herbert: Struggle Does Not Give Anybody Ownership of Another Woman’s Narrative

My conflict with Jasmine raises a different issue.

I have interpreted aspects of her conduct toward me as hostile, and I strongly disagree with narratives I believe have been circulated about me.

But I’m not going to turn motherhood, struggle, or dark skin into evidence of somebody’s motive.

Those things don’t prove malice.

What I will challenge is any attempt—by Jasmine or anybody else—to use personal struggle as social authority while reducing somebody else’s story to gossip, competition, or a convenient villain narrative.

Being hurt doesn’t automatically make somebody correct.

Being a mother doesn’t automatically make somebody correct.

Being darker-skinned doesn’t automatically make somebody correct.

Being lighter-skinned damn sure doesn’t make me automatically correct either.

Evidence matters.

Conduct matters.

Integrity matters.

Everybody should be accountable to the same standard.

Tia Coleman: Kindness Does Not Require Me to Accept Mistreatment

Tia is another relationship where I remember myself being kind, considerate, helpful, and supportive.

That is why conflict afterward affected me.

When you believe you approached somebody genuinely and later experience hostility from that person, your brain naturally starts asking:

What the hell happened?

But again, I don’t need to answer that question by saying:

“She’s darker than me, therefore jealousy explains everything.”

That’s too easy.

People are more complicated than that.

Maybe there were misunderstandings.

Maybe there were outside conversations.

Maybe personalities clashed.

Maybe there were insecurities unrelated to complexion.

Maybe complexion or comparison did play some role.

I don’t know every answer.

What I know is how the relationship felt to me, what conduct I experienced, and what boundaries I choose now.

Amberly Williams: Passive Aggression Can Hide Behind Niceness

Amberly represents another type of experience.

My perception over the years was that there could be niceness on the surface while something underneath the relationship felt passive-aggressive.

That’s difficult because overt conflict is sometimes easier to understand.

If somebody says:

“Adrienne, I don’t like you.”

Okay.

Now everybody knows where they stand.

But when somebody smiles, remains socially pleasant, and you nevertheless repeatedly experience behavior that feels dismissive, competitive, or undermining, you’re left trying to interpret conflicting signals.

I also observed interpersonal dynamics involving other lighter-skinned women, including someone I understood to have been a high-school rival of hers, that contributed to the questions I had.

Those observations are my interpretation, not proof that complexion motivated Amberly.

These are different women with different personalities and different histories.

Pretty Privilege Doesn’t Require an Audience

Here is another uncomfortable piece.

I understand that people sometimes perceive me as benefiting from pretty privilege.

I don’t need to pretend nobody has ever found me attractive to prove I’m humble.

But whatever natural advantages somebody believes I have don’t require me to apologize for existing.

I didn’t create my face.

I didn’t create my complexion.

I didn’t create my ancestry.

And validation I’ve received over time—from FAMU days through music, business, fitness, Atlanta, artists, producers, professionals, friends, men, women, or anybody else—doesn’t determine whether I’m valuable.

A stamp doesn’t manufacture me.

An audience doesn’t manufacture me.

And Myiah and I don’t have to lean on one another to fight every battle either.

We’re sisters.

We love one another.

But she’s her own woman and I’m my own woman.

Her art belongs to her.

My music belongs to me.

Her beauty doesn’t diminish mine.

Mine doesn’t diminish hers.

That’s how I believe sisters should operate.

Where the Brown-Paper-Bag Test Actually Belongs in This Conversation

Now let’s get to the uncomfortable historical reference.

The so-called brown-paper-bag test has been associated with colorist exclusion—using a paper bag as a supposed complexion threshold for social acceptance.

I do not endorse it.

I don’t think darker-skinned women should have been excluded.

I don’t think somebody’s complexion establishes her character.

And I don’t think historical discrimination becomes justified because I have personally had painful experiences with several darker-skinned women.

That would be taking five individual relationships and using them to convict millions of women.

I’m not doing that.

But those experiences did make me think about the interpersonal side of colorism from another direction:

What happens when the woman perceived as benefiting from colorism becomes the target of somebody else’s resentment?

We should be capable of discussing that too.

Acknowledging that possibility doesn’t erase the much larger historical discrimination against darker-skinned Black people.

Both conversations can exist without pretending they’re historically equivalent.

My Cousin Taught Me Why Projection Is Dangerous

This became personal enough that I had to check myself.

There was a point when anger from other experiences caused me to lash out at a darker-skinned cousin.

That wasn’t fair.

She didn’t create the experiences I was angry about.

She never showed hatred toward me.

She never showed hatred toward my sister.

She hasn’t shown hatred toward her lighter-skinned Afro-Australian nieces.

Neither has her mother, my aunt.

So what happened?

I projected.

And that’s exactly why I’m writing this article carefully now.

If I condemn somebody for projecting insecurity onto me and then I turn around and project my anger onto an innocent darker-skinned woman, I haven’t solved shit.

I’ve reproduced it.

My cousin deserves to remain anonymous here because she isn’t the subject of this criticism.

She’s actually part of the lesson.

Tonnette Graham, Felicia Barnes, Ria Floyd, My Aunt, and My Cousin: Dark Skin Is Not the Problem

And this is where the entire theory collapses if somebody tries to simplify my argument into:

“Adrienne thinks dark-skinned women are mean.”

No.

Because I know darker-skinned women who contradict that idea through their actual character.

Tonnette Graham.

Felicia Barnes.

Ria Floyd.

My aunt.

My cousin.

Women I’ve experienced as gracious, loving, supportive, poised, or simply secure enough in themselves that another woman’s complexion doesn’t become a competition.

They matter to this article just as much as the difficult relationships do.

Because they demonstrate the most important point:

Dark skin does not create malice.

Just like light skin doesn’t create kindness.

A complexion cannot gossip.

A complexion cannot lie.

A complexion cannot betray somebody.

A complexion cannot become jealous.

A complexion cannot love somebody either.

A person does those things.

Black Women Cannot Heal Colorism by Reversing It

A lighter-skinned woman telling a darker-skinned woman she’s undesirable is colorism.

A darker-skinned woman questioning a lighter-skinned woman’s Blackness because she is mixed or lighter is also wrong.

Mocking African features is wrong.

Mocking mixed features is wrong.

Treating European ancestry like a trophy is wrong.

Treating somebody as racially contaminated because European ancestry exists in her family tree is wrong.

Black Americans especially should understand how complicated our genealogies can become once slavery, sexual violence, consensual interracial relationships, migration, immigration, Indigenous ancestry, Caribbean ancestry, European ancestry, and generations of American history enter the family tree.

None of us chose our ancestors.

We choose our character.

To the Girls Reading This: Don’t Let Somebody Else Teach You to Hate

And this section is especially for the girls.

The younger girls.

The college girls.

The girls joining organizations.

The girls walking into rooms where everybody seems prettier, richer, more connected, lighter, darker, taller, thinner, curvier, more popular, or somehow more important than you.

Do not judge people by the color of their skin.

Please don’t.

Don’t look at a light-skinned girl and automatically decide she’s stuck-up, privileged, weak, mixed, spoiled, or thinks she’s better than you.

Don’t look at a darker-skinned girl and automatically decide she’s angry, jealous, aggressive, undesirable, masculine, bitter, or insecure.

Don’t look at somebody’s hair texture, nose, lips, eyes, ancestry, or complexion and create an entire personality for somebody you haven’t even spoken to yet.

Meet people.

Talk to people.

Watch their character.

See how they treat somebody who cannot do anything for them.

See how they treat the girl who isn’t popular.

See how they treat their family.

See how they treat service workers.

See whether they keep confidences.

See whether they apologize.

See whether they celebrate other women when there isn’t anything in it for them.

That’s where you’ll learn who somebody is.

Not from a paper bag.

Not from Instagram.

Not from somebody else’s gossip.

Not from Greek letters.

Not from somebody else’s inherited beef.

And certainly not from somebody’s complexion.

Hug Your Mama

And baby, hug your mama.

If you have a loving mother, hug her.

If your biological mother isn’t that person for you, hug the motherly figure who showed up.

Your grandmother.

Your auntie.

Your big sister.

Your godmother.

Your mentor.

Your teacher.

The woman at church.

The neighbor who checked on you.

The woman who taught you that you were beautiful before the world started giving you categories for your beauty.

Hold onto the people who teach you humanity before hierarchy.

Because one of the greatest protections a girl can have is somebody who reminds her:

You don’t have to destroy another girl to become somebody.

Your beauty doesn’t require another woman to be ugly.

Your intelligence doesn’t require another woman to be stupid.

Your relationship doesn’t require another woman to be lonely.

Your success doesn’t require another woman to fail.

Your dark skin doesn’t require somebody else’s light skin to become an enemy.

Your light skin doesn’t make somebody else’s dark skin inferior.

Everybody can be beautiful at the same damn time.

Don’t Let Somebody’s Insult Recruit You Into Becoming Them

People are going to insult you.

Somebody might call you ugly.

Somebody might make fun of your complexion.

Somebody might talk about your hair.

Somebody might question your Blackness.

Somebody might tell you you’re too dark.

Somebody might tell you you’re not Black enough.

Somebody might deliberately press the exact insecurity they know bothers you.

Don’t let their insult recruit you into becoming them.

That’s the trap.

Somebody hurts you, so you hurt somebody else.

Somebody makes you insecure, so you search for another girl’s insecurity.

Somebody humiliates you, so humiliation becomes your weapon.

Somebody talks about your skin, so now you start talking about somebody else’s skin.

And eventually you become the exact energy that once made you cry.

Don’t do that to yourself.

You can defend yourself.

You can speak.

You can set a boundary.

You can say:

“Don’t ever talk to me like that again.”

You can leave.

You can forgive from a distance.

But you don’t have to become cruel to prove you aren’t weak.

Go Home to Yourself

When the world gets loud, go back to what the people who genuinely loved you taught you.

Go hug your mama.

Go call Grandma.

Go sit with Auntie.

Go talk to your sister.

Go pray.

Go journal.

Go to therapy if you need it.

Go take a walk.

Go remember who you were before somebody else’s opinion entered the room.

Another woman’s beauty isn’t evidence against yours.

Another woman’s complexion isn’t evidence against yours.

Another woman’s success isn’t evidence against yours.

And somebody else’s hatred doesn’t have to become your personality.

You were somebody before somebody compared you to somebody else.

Stay her.

Protect her.

Grow her.

Correct her when she’s wrong.

Love her enough to examine herself.

And when another woman walks into the room looking completely different from you?

Don’t immediately search for the difference.

Search for the human being.

Don’t Make Your Mirror Another Woman’s Punishment

If you are a darker-skinned Black woman carrying wounds from colorism, you deserve space to talk about those wounds.

If you’re a lighter-skinned Black woman who has experienced resentment or assumptions because of your complexion, you’re allowed to talk about that too.

Neither woman gets permission to abuse the other.

Don’t make your mirror another woman’s punishment.

Don’t make your dating experiences another woman’s punishment.

Don’t make somebody else’s perceived pretty privilege your punishment.

Don’t make your ancestry her punishment.

Don’t make her ancestry yours.

And don’t turn sisterhood into a complexion competition and then wonder why Black women don’t trust one another.

Character Is the Test—Not the Paper Bag

And maybe that’s the sentence history should have left us with:

Character is the test. Not the paper bag.

That’s why Black sisterhood across complexions matters to me.

That’s why the darker-skinned women I love matter to this essay.

That’s why I can criticize Jenny, Melanie, Jasmine, Tia, or Amberly without making their complexion the verdict.

And that’s why I can also examine Adrienne.

Because I don’t want pain to turn me into the exact kind of woman I’m criticizing.

I want to be polite because that’s who I am.

Kind because that’s how I was raised.

Pure in intention because that’s what my faith requires of me.

And discerning enough to recognize that kindness does not require blindness.

If somebody treats me badly, I’ll address the behavior.

If colorism appears relevant, I’ll discuss colorism.

If I’m uncertain about the motive, I’ll say I’m uncertain.

And if somebody is a beautiful, gracious, secure darker-skinned Black woman?

I’m going to give her those flowers too.

Because this isn’t light skin versus dark skin.

This is Black women learning how not to make one another bleed from wounds neither one of us originally created.

Teach the next girl differently.

Hug your mama.

Love your sisters.

Learn your history.

Know your ancestry without using it as a weapon.

And when somebody tries to hand you their hatred and convince you to carry it?

Put that shit back in their hands.

You don’t need it.

And when the conversation gets uncomfortable?

Call the Reverend.

Because baby, we’re going to have to talk about it.