colorism
noun
col·or·ism ˈkə-lə-ˌri-zəm 
-lər-ˌi-zəm
variants or British colourism
: prejudice or discrimination especially within a racial or ethnic group favoring people with lighter skin over those with darker skin
Under this system of colorism—the system which prevailed in my childhood in Jamaica, and which has carried over to the present—rarely will dark and light people co-mingle. Rarely will they achieve between themselves an intimacy informed with identity.
Michelle Cliff
Michelle CliffWhat writer Alice Walker defined as colorism, the preferential or prejudicial treatment of same-race people based on skin color, continues to this day. And as she once wrote, unless we exorcise it "we cannot as a people progress. For colorism, like colonialism, sexism and racism, impedes us." Itabari Njeri
Itabari Njeri
Word History
Etymology
color entry 1 + -ism, after racism
First Known Use
1964, in the meaning defined above
- for kicks
- for lack of
- for laughs
- for life
- for long
- for love nor money
- for love or money
- for luck
- for much longer
- for no apparent purpose
- for no good reason
- for nothing
- for observation
- for old times' sake
- for one
- for one reason or another
- for one's age
- for one's benefit
- for one's money
- for one's own benefit
- for one's own good
- for one's part
- for one's sins
- for oneself
- for openers