Within racialized groups, the shade of skin has often been weaponized as a secondary hierarchy — a colonial logic installed so successfully that communities enforced it against themselves. Colorism is not a footnote to racism but a distinct injury, one that operates in intimate spaces — family, marriage markets, workplace — with particular intimacy and particular pain. To examine it honestly is to follow the logic of colonial power into the rooms where it hides.
Each step builds on the last.