Colorism is discrimination that favors lighter skin over darker skin, including among people of the same race. Writer Alice Walker is credited with coining the term in a 1982 essay, published in her 1983 collection In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens. She described it as prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color.
Colorism grew out of slavery and white supremacy. Enslavers often assigned lighter-skinned enslaved people, many of them their own children, to work in the house while darker-skinned people worked the fields. After slavery, some Black social clubs, churches and colleges were rumored to use a brown paper bag test, admitting only people whose skin was lighter than the bag.
Colorism has measurable effects today. Research has linked darker skin to lower earnings, harsher criminal sentences and lower odds of being seen as attractive or competent. It shapes casting in film and television and the marketing of skin-lightening products worldwide. Colorism affects Black, Latino, South Asian, East Asian and other communities, and it is often hardest on dark-skinned women. It matters because it shows how white supremacy ranks people even within groups it oppresses.