Harry Reid's comments were crudely put, yet true

By Eugene Robinson
WashPost
Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Skin color among African Americans is not to be discussed in polite company, so Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's newly disclosed remark about President Obama -- that voters are more comfortable with him because he's light-skinned -- offended decorum. But it was surely true.

Color bias has always existed in this country. We don't talk about it because we think of color as subordinate to racial identification. There are African Americans with skin so light-hued that only contextual clues speak to the question of race. I remember once looking up some distant cousins on my father's side. They were so fair of hair and ruddy of cheek that I thought I'd gone to the wrong house, until one of them greeted me in what I guess Reid would call "Negro dialect."

Forgive me if I am neither shocked nor outraged. A few years ago I wrote a book about color and race called "Coal to Cream," and the issue no longer has third-rail status for me. What I would find stunning is evidence that Reid's assessment -- made during the 2008 campaign and reported in a new book by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin -- was anything but accurate.

Advertising is a reliable window into the American psyche, so look at the images we're presented on television and in glossy magazines. The black models tend to be caramel-skinned or lighter, with hair that's not really kinky -- which is how I'd describe mine -- but wavy, even flowing. A few models whose skin is chocolate-hued or darker have reached superstar status, such as Alek Wek and Tyson Beckford, but they are rare exceptions.

(More here.)