“Colorism”, the unofficial term for discrimination or preferential treatment not based on the construct of “race”, but based on skin color, is a term created by writer Alice Walker in 1982....Show more“Colorism”, the unofficial term for discrimination or preferential treatment not based on the construct of “race”, but based on skin color, is a term created by writer Alice Walker in 1982. Although the term is reasonably new, the construct it represents is not. At the intersection of race, class and gender there is the construct of “colorism”which has for hundreds of years influenced Blacks in America. It is the construct of “colorism” of African American women within the Black American community in the early twentieth century during the New Negro Movement or Harlem Renaissance which I have examined in this MA thesis. Focusing on the writings, and imagery from the covers and advertisements of the highly influential Crisis Magazine when created and under the leadership of scholar and activist W.E.B Du Bois from 1910 until 1934, and supported by theories on race and whiteness, I have researched the dominant middle class Black beauty ideals of the early twentieth century, through the “passing” narratives and images of "black" women in the magazine.Show less
