Judgments by Anonymous

“Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearance”, I strongly believe in this because one of the main things that people do in this world is judging one another. Either if it is based on religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, age, etc. People should learn that judging someone else will not make them successful in life. Most likely, the person who judges others might have a negative attitude toward life. The one issue that I definitely do not agree with is when a person discriminates against another person because of their skin color. Generally speaking of colorism, not racism, which occurs throughout the Black community majority of the time.
I started to believe that people should not pass judgment when I was in my African-American history class. That day, the topic was “colorism” throughout the African American community. It shocked me to see how the Black race judged each other because of their skin color. I knew that discrimination occurred, but I did not know how serious an issue it was upon my own race. In the Black community, having lighter skin is preferred over a darker skin tone. Some dark skinned African Americans feel that if they have lighter skin, then they will have an easier life because they will get treated better. Our society has lured Americans to believe that having lighter skin is better and dark skin puts you lower in society; this is what society portrays as being “beautiful”. This statement is true because what do you see majority of when watching television: light-skinned Americans.
In my Afro-American history class, we read numerous articles that described people’s views on being Black in America. It appalled me to see how my own race discriminated against each other, or how they did not appreciate their heritage. The article that stuck out the most was written by a Kenwood student on how she disliked being Black. She stated that majority of young Black men will end up in prison, will not attend school, or graduate from college, and that they are most likely to be bad husbands and fathers. It surprised me to see that a person of my own race did not like being Black because of the stereotypes placed upon the Black community.
The issue is not just societies fault, because in the past the issue of skin complexion was looked at in a negative way. During the times of slavery, light-skinned slaves were treated better than darker-skinned slaves. For example, the lighter-skinned slaves were able to travel along with their masters and work inside the household, while the other slaves were often beaten and worked outside all the time. The issue of skin color is not new; it is an issue that has evolved over the years.
To this day, I believe people are going to judge others no matter what. I judge people, not based on the color of their skin, but more on material things and personalities. People are going to always judge someone else because people are going to think, feel, say, and do what they want. I just believe that if you are judging someone let it not be based on the color of their skin.