House Slave vs. Field Slave

Having to spend long hours at the hair dresser can occasionally yield dividends (besides a fantastic hairdo).  In my case, I stumbled upon a 2009 Essence Magazine article that examined the difference between the treatment meted out to fair skinned and dark skinned blacks.  On the one hand one writer suggested that life isn't better for them because they have to constantly 'prove' their blackness to the darker skinned black community; while a second writer quoted statistics highlighting the better opportunities for jobs, dates and general social treatment that seem to favour lighter skinned blacks over their ebony toned counterparts. 

I mused over this for quite a while for besides an occasional vacation in places where because of my racial orientation I may have been considered a part of a 'minority', I have spent my entire life in the Caribbean  and have never truly experienced the kind of bias either writer spoke about.  Admittedly, persons within the Jamaican culture into which I was born and bred do sometimes display an aspect of partiality to fairer skinned blacks.  Jamaicans however suffer more so from a desire to be 'classist' i.e favouritism is more likely to be shown to those who form the wealthier sections of society (incidentally many do in fact appear lighter skinned but the dark skinned persons who are also a part of this group enjoy the same preferential treatment).  Nevertheless I would be lying if I did not recognise that there is an obvious feeling of insecurity among some of the dark skinned - indicated through the rapidly increasing phenomenon of skin bleaching.

 All in all however I have come to the conclusion that such partiality does stem from an unawareness of self that seems to have its root in the history of slavery.  Less than 200 years since its abolition in the British Colonies, and with US Civil Rights activists still living and breathing among us, it does not strike me as entirely strange that a race that spent more years being victimised than liberated would seek to validate itself by trying to identify with those whom they had considered superior.  When blacks begin to discriminate against each other however the situation worsens; for how then can we eradicate the misconceptions?  Albeit a house divided against itself cannot stand.