Same Family Different Colors

Weaving together personal stories history and analysis Same Family Different Colors explores the myriad ways skin-color politics affect family dynamics in the United States.Colorism and color biasthe preference for or presumed superiority of people based on the color of their skinis a pervasive and damaging but rarely openly discussed phenomenon. In this unprecedented book Lori L. Tharps explores the issue in African American Latino Asian American and mixed-race families and communities by weaving together personal stories history and analysis. The result is a compelling portrait of the myriad ways skin-color politics affect family dynamics in the United States.Tharps the mother of three mixed-race children with three distinct skin colors uses her own family as a starting point to investigate how skin-color difference is dealt with. Her journey takes her across the country and into the lives of dozens of diverse individuals all of whom have grappled with skin-color politics and speak candidly about experiences that sometimes scarred them. From a Latina woman who was told she couldnt be in her best friends wedding photos because her dark skin would spoil the pictures to a light-skinned African American man who spent his entire childhood trying to be Black Tharps illuminates the complex and multifaceted ways that colorism affects our self-esteem and shapes our lives and relationships. Along with intimate and revealing stories Tharps adds a historical overview and a contemporary cultural critique to contextualize how various communities and individuals navigate skin-color politics.Groundbreaking and urgent Same Family Different Colors is a solution-seeking journey to the heart of identity politics so that this more subtle cousin to racism in the authors words will be exposed and confronted.