Don't Play in the Sun: One Woman's Journey Through the Color Complex“Don’t play in the sun. You’re going to have to get a light-skinned husband for the sake of your children as it is.” In these words from her mother, novelist and memoirist Marita Golden learned as a girl that she was the wrong color. Her mother had absorbed “colorism” without thinking about it. But, as Golden shows in this provocative book, biases based on skin color persist–and so do their long-lasting repercussions. Golden recalls deciding against a distinguished black university because she didn’t want to worry about whether she was light enough to be homecoming queen. A male friend bitterly remembers that he was teased about his girlfriend because she was too dark for him. Even now, when she attends a party full of accomplished black men and their wives, Golden wonders why those wives are all nearly white. From Halle Berry to Michael Jackson, from Nigeria to Cuba, from what she sees in the mirror to what she notices about the Grammys, Golden exposes the many facets of "colorism" and their effect on American culture. Part memoir, part cultural history, and part analysis, Don't Play in the Sun also dramatizes one accomplished black woman's inner journey from self-loathing to self-acceptance and pride. |
Other editions - View all
Don't Play in the Sun: One Woman's Journey Through the Color Complex Marita Golden Limited preview - 2005 |
Don't Play in the Sun: One Woman's Journey Through the Color Complex Marita Golden No preview available - 2004 |
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African American Afro anger attitudes Beulah Black community Black Cubans Black female Black girls Black is beautiful Black Power Black women boys braids Brazilians brothers brown to black brown-skinned cast child Cicely Tyson color complex colorist conversation creams Cuba culture dark dark-skinned Blacks darker darker-skinned daughter dinner Ebony emotional eyes face father feel felt Femi friends gaze Halle Berry high yellow Hurston husband India.Arie Janet knew Lena Horne light light-skinned girls light-skinned women lighter lips lives look Manuel Marc Michael mirror mother mulatto never Nigeria parents play pretty pride race racial racism Santiago de Cuba Sapphire says sense Serena Williams sexual sisters skin social sororities stereotype straight hair symbol talk television tell tennis thing tion told Venus and Serena videos woman words write Yinka young Zeta Phi Beta Zora Zora Neale Hurston
Popular passages
Page 9 - Whites had cteated another ongoing, invasive, and seductive and powerful conversation about beauty and color through movies and television and magazines and books and the collective imagination. And the language of that conversation was not only an echo of the self-hating dialogue among Blacks about skin color but also its progenitor.