One of my thoughts: Being dark matters when 'someone' makes it matter.

If someone employs discrimination to rate people negatively, OR uses 'affirmative action' to do positive things for a minority, it matters...to BOTH sides...in fact, it creates 'sides'. Any time a newscaster makes a statement like "Tiger Woods is the 1st Black golfer to ...." he has injected 'mattering' into a situation, whether it should be there or not.

Any time a person who IS dark...or any hue... accentuates notice of themselves AS dark, they make it matter. This can be as simple as wearing some form of 'traditional' clothing associated with their origins, or using vernacular and accents in speech, or participating in a festival celebrating their heritage....etc.
'Mattering' can be positive or negative, depending on how & when it is called up....(by either side[by which I mean by those OF the group, or those outside the group...I don't necessarily mean 'side' as enemies])...obviously, BOTH sides sometimes make color 'matter' at INappropriate times....and won't always agree on when his is.

You see why I hesitated commenting? It requires constant disclaimers and clarifications of terms and context to avoid misunderstandings.

I would love to live in a world where NOTHING mattered except getting along and respecting people according to behavior and shared interests....but people, by their very nature, classify themselves AND others by easily identifiable characteristics, and thus tend to MAKE differences, including being dark, matter even in areas where it should not.

I knew a woman once who worked in Head Start, the program to help pre-kindergarten kids. Someone asked her whether one of her clients was black.....she had to stop for a second and 'think' about it. She genuinely didn't classify her clients that way, and was as 'color-blind' as anyone I even knew....but this is not common.

I mentioned Tiger Woods above. Yes, he was the first 'dark' golfer to do various things, and newscasts often make that 'matter', even though his mother was Asian. You never hear him described as the first half-Asian golfer to do something. Yeah...'dark' matters when it is being constantly referred to. (Tiger hates the reference...)

In many ways, Azizi, YOU are saying being dark matters by noting the many songs and children's games from the African-American tradition...and sometimes just from the African sources. Just as Welsh or Scots or Irish folks note their traditions and language. By doing this you both cherish and celebrate a heritage, and in some ways promote continued differences. It is VERY difficult to say how much of this is positive and beneficial and how much it keeps race & color unnecessarily injected into a world where they are both matters of pride and issues of conflict every day.


(I ought to go back an rewrite all that 3 times before posting...but...my shop calls)