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Can someone explain the term safe brown to me?

MrsTresvant

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Glad I’m on my phone and can see who you are quoting. I put her on ignore a while ago. How is Carmel a darker brown?????? Huh
I don't think she is a multigenerational black American...if she is, she's throwed ALL the way off. I mean bish, I can wear a cognac brown leather shoe and it matches my skin tone...she needs to revisit the Louboutin nude shoe color wheel again.
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GabrieleChristo

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I don't think she is a multigenerational black American...if she is, she's throwed ALL the way off. I mean bish, I can wear a cognac brown leather shoe and it matches my skin tone...she needs to revisit the Louboutin nude shoe color wheel again.
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My ancestors were probably here before any of yours. I have ancestors who were living in this country since the 1600s and my family has been documented.
 

MrsTresvant

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No, I’m being objective and going off of historical context. Medium brown-skinned people have NEVER been seen as separate from the very darkest people in the BC. Our circumstances were the same for the most part while...

"If you're light...you're alright. If you're brown, STICK AROUND, but if you're black get back." I wanna say that was a Maya Angelou or bell hooks poem or Nikki even. Audre?

anyway...you are full on tripping if you really think there was no color line at pecan SHELL colored black people.

I used the nut because I don't have a tangible comparison that is darker than a brown paper bag...that's the line of demarcation for so-called light skinned people. If you're brown and can see the veins in your wrist, odds are you are a SAFE BROWN...and that is the true origin of the term, as it was what slave owners used to determine which blacks had enough admixture to get "special privileges" from the master. Miss me with your nonsense...I know where the term comes from. Have a good one.

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GabrieleChristo

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"If you're light...you're alright. If you're brown, STICK AROUND, but if you're black get back." I wanna say that was a Maya Angelou or bell hooks poem or Nikki even. Audre?

anyway...you are full on tripping if you really think there was no color line at pecan SHELL colored black people.

I used the nut because I don't have a tangible comparison that is darker than a brown paper bag...that's the line of demarcation for so-called light skinned people. If you're brown and can see the veins in your wrist, odds are you are a SAFE BROWN...and that is the true origin of the term, as it was what slave owners used to determine which blacks had enough admixture to get "special privileges" from the master. Miss me with your nonsense...I know where the term comes from. Have a good one.

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Well this so called “safe brown” has not gotten me any special privileges in life like I see others getting so I’m not going to separate myself into some special category away from other dark skinned people. If “safe browns” get special privileges in society, then why do you see so many of us complaining about being discriminated against? The only darker people I see with additional privileges are those with type 1,2, or 3 hair like a Chilli, Justine Skye, or Ananda Lewis type. The regular type 4 Afro textured types are right in the same boat as everyone else. So miss me with this foolishness...
 

June Plum

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I think someone clarified about privileges within the black community.

Well this so called “safe brown” has not gotten me any special privileges in life like I see others getting so I’m not going to separate myself into some special category away from other dark skinned people. If “safe browns” get special privileges in society, then why do you see so many of us complaining about being discriminated against? The only darker people I see with additional privileges are those with type 1,2, or 3 hair like a Chilli, Justine Skye, or Ananda Lewis type. The regular type 4 Afro textured types are right in the same boat as everyone else. So miss me with this foolishness...
 

Deletedandgo

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Then why do dark skinned people complain there’s not a lot of dark skinned women being represented in the media. Megan good,Sanaa and Kerry Washington are all “dark skinned” so why do you lot still complain when you have your representation.
 

brittany sky

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Safe brown is a term some random twitter user, used to describe those of a medium hue (like think meagan good). The issue with that terminology is that what is brown skinned is largely subjective. You have individuals classifying the likes of justine skye and gabrielle union as safe brown. In spite of the fact the two aforementioned women have went on about their struggles of being perceived as dark within America.

Furthermore, colorism (as I'm sure you know) is an extension of racism. So using the word "safe" before brown is just in poor taste. Especially when color is a sliding spectrum where you are seen as darker or lighter than in comparison to _____ which is the true root of colorism.

It was actually made up by that Chrisse. She made it for women like Sanaa and Taraji since there are people out there that call them dark skin. LSA fonts saw it as a escape goat for being classified as dark skin so they ran with it and group every one lighter than Lupita as “safe brown”. There are people here that call Justine Skye, naturi naughton, skai Jackson and Gabrielle Union and jasmine tookes “safe brown” even if they have woes of being dark skin women. It’s pathetic.
 

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In this photo below you can see that Chadwick and Lupita are clearly in two different color categories. Chad is " safe brown" and Lu is in the dark skinned range in the BC.

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Chad is no where near safe brown. Leave what you consider dark skin in Ghana. In America he is dark skin.
 

brittany sky

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I was once confused by her definition of dark skinned as well. I came across one video where she elaborated about her platform’s target audience being specifically darker skinned African American/ Black American women. Hence not darker skinned African, Caribbean or black women outside of America. Also, she mentioned one’s concept of dark and light skin in the BC being a matter of personal perception and influenced by region. Such as West Coast (where she lives).

I get what she is saying overall, but I do not agree with her definition of dark skinned. Lol!

Skin Color Spectrum Breakdown:



I agree with Chrisse here. We have our definitions of dark skin. American dark skin women are the ones that need this video, not any one else. Gabrielle Union, Jhud and Kenya Moore are all the same colour though. But I am happy she made this video.
 
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In this photo below you can see that Chadwick and Lupita are clearly in two different color categories. Chad is " safe brown" and Lu is in the dark skinned range in the BC.

d2dc0c1bd67a8b6fed263762a7d6af51.jpg

Oh fµck off. I am sick of you Africa fonts trying to rearrage what we AAs consider dark skin to fit your view. Both Chad and Lupita are dark skin. Oh and by the way, Chrisse knows what dark skin is since she post people like this on her page:







 
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Janet Jackson is "safe brown", medium brown, or brown skinned.

Basically, if the darkest black women on television are Janet Jackson, Taraji Henson, Kerry Washington, Meagan Goode, etc, there is still an issue with colorist casting.

We all know what dark-skinned women look like until it's time to address how little they appear in advertising, print, and media in the United States.

A black girl who looks like Camille Winbush, being cast on a black family sitcom, shouldn't be as rare as it still is.

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Exactly, if those are dark skin women where does that leave Gabrielle, Tika, Issa, Nautri, Teyonah, Kelly Rowland and Kenya moore? It is erasive to them to consider these women dark skin when they are not. Camille, the little girl on every body hates chris, Issa rae getting her own show, Ryan destiny, the little dark skin girl are considered rarities to every one because these roles usually goes to light/brown skin women. Sad but true.
 

HeadsWillRoll

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Yet another important aspect of "safe brown", is that light skinned black people also contend with a lot of bullying and maltreatment in the BC. I have seen it with my own eyes. From what I have witnessed it is just as bad or even worse than that which is experienced by really dark skinned people in the BC. Their life experiences should be heard as well.
Nonsense. None of the insults hurled at black women with very dark skin, often by their own family, is comparable to the supposed maltreatment of light-skinned females in the black community.
 

Overitall

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People are so deluded, in denial it’s crazzzy
First of all when talking about light and dark, it’s similar to saying day and night , so within that context you are either one or the other,

If one wants to start describing the variations within these spectrums you have coffee, brown, mocha etc, for light you would have tan, yellow, etc

All this trying to insert brown as an escape valve from being considered dark is exhibit A of the pervasity of colorism, the encultured “shame” of being dark and the denial

Safe brown is part of the dark spectrum, but continue to run from the issue and try to insulate yourselves from reality, racism, white supremacy, colorism and the black communities internalization of them.

It’s terrrible what these things have done to the collective and individual psyches of black people

Of course there is sadly a hierarchy with the lightest on top and the darkest at the bottom, but this suggestion that brown is not part of the dark spectrum is another level of denial and it is unnecessarily dividisive and weakens whatever collective energy would have been directed towards changing minds versus changing categories
 

lovefash67

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To be honest I never considered myself to be dark skin until maybe recently because a couple of people said I was dark skin but growing up I was always told I was brown skinned and growing up I didn’t face really face colorism in regards to being called blackie or tarte baby etc. I faced it more when black guys would say oh I don’t date black girls or black guys would choose a racially ambiguous or a white Latina girl instead of me .
 
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You know what it means OP. Think you’re trying to start something.

The color of cappuccino, peanut butter, coffee with milk, caramel, almonds, etc. middle of the road, safe, not light, not dark.

Yara Zahidi, Halle Berry, Thandie Newton, Nia Long, Tyra Bank, Beyoncé, Taraji P. Henson
That's so confusing because I consider all those women light skinned except nia andhalle
 

Ww1993

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NIA LONG called herself “light skinned”?!?

Are we talking about the same Nia Long that was in The Best Man?

THIS chocolate skinned woman?
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She’s darker than me and I call myself dark skinned.

LMBO. I’m done...

Delusion is clearly rampant amongst the BC
I looked it up she's right she was light in 1993 compared to Whoopi goldberg and back then she could pass a paper bag test
 

Ww1993

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I think a lot of people who are called brown are really butterscotch and caramel complected people who tan it happens every year for me but if that person you're calling brown skin is actually light when they're nude they're clearly not brown. They're just a tanned ls person. Brown skinned people are like Denzel Washington he has no light skinned body he's brown sometimes he tans and looks dark but he isn't dark he's just a tanned brown skinned black guy. Etc...
 

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Ww1993

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Did I mention treatment? I'm speaking of perception if skin tone.
Plus, AFRICAN people are the FIRST to consider someone like Sanaa mixed because SHE IS. One drop is American. If someone is obviously not 100% West African they will often be referred to as mixed race. The U.S. does not define " mixed" for the rest of the world. If one takes a dna test and is 30% white, ONE IS MIXED, PERIOD.
Yeah but some of us are 90% African and some Africans are 90% too so Africans aren't all pure just because theyre from Africa I've seen many Kenyans less black than me and I am lighter than Sanaa I'm butterscotch to caramel in the summer.
 

Ww1993

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Right. If the paper bag test was still in existence (and it is still around, just in another format), I for DARN SURE wouldn’t be getting into the club, right along with Lonni, Whoopi and Wesley Snipes. Most of us in the BC wouldn’t. So, why do we need a separate category when our situations are essentially the same? What we so-called “safe browns” need to be doing is fighting for more visibility, creating more self-love campaigns and working along side our darkest brothers and sisters to show that dark skin is beautiful and just as desirable as any other skin color.
I think Nia long long ago would pass the paper bag test though. The paper bag test is easy to past I worked in fast food at Carl's Jr. The shift lead was almost jayzs color he sometimes was tad darker but if he stayed out of the sun he was actually lighter and other days he matched it. I'm not that light skinned and I always pass the paper bag test in a normal winter. And normal weather in the north mostly unless I've seriously tanned. Paper bag test is only impossible for Ds people.
 

diorblades

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You know what it means OP. Think you’re trying to start something.

The color of cappuccino, peanut butter, coffee with milk, caramel, almonds, etc. middle of the road, safe, not light, not dark.

Yara Zahidi, Halle Berry, Thandie Newton, Nia Long, Tyra Bank, Beyoncé, Taraji P. Henson

Yara Shahidi* :cry:

Anyways, what an interesting thread even though it’s quite old. This answer seems to be the most accurate out of the bunch
 

TraderJoann

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There is actually a great post in an Amara thread about Jefferson Davis marrying a biracial/MGM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CIVIL WAR.

View attachment 214557

If this isn’t privilege, I don’t know what is. Your people are essentially being slaughtered, beaten and worked to death all over the place while you sit up in the plantation house married to the PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERACY drinking tea and making small talk with guests. Someone my color would have been lynched and beaten for trying to do the same. I may have been denied entry into an HBCU as well (as many of them used the paper bag test in order to gain admittance). So, no we are not all treated the same. I would have been working in the field just like Khoudia, Lonnie and Wesley Snipes.

Henry Louis Gates is a so-called “safe brown” professor at Harvard with a PhD. Guess what? He STILL got that jigga wake up call when the police arrested him in front of his OWN home. At the end of the day day, you can drive the nicest car and wear as many designer clothes as you want but it will NEVER cancel out that brown skin and those Afrocentric features. You will still be regarded as black and treated accordingly no matter what. Like I noted, the ONLY ones escaping this treatment are the ones that are light enough and ambiguous enough to pass for something other than black.

I've read several articles about Jefferson and Varina. She did not have a happy life being the wife of a Confederate President because of her skin color, plus she did not agree with his views or what he was doing. Women did not have the choices then that they do now.
 

Unique7

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She has always referred to herself as brown, I think she just meant that she’s in the middle and can go with both sides if you get what I’m saying. But imma watch this. The thing I was talking about is from this year and I know Dark Girls was from like 2011. Maybe she’s become more educated since then or something because in Uncensored she explicitly says that she’s brown and is now identifying more with Dark skinned women.
She is not identifying more with dark skin girls, because she is not dark skin. She actually never even said anything about identifying with dark skin girls. She was only discussing how she was brown skin going up against light skinned Jada. That's it.
 

Unique7

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How do you know whether you are dark skinned or brown?
Just compare your skin tone with the true, pure, and real colors of the world, from the lightest to the darkest colors on earth, not with other mixed colors, such as brown, tan, olive, beige, etc., because these are all mixed colors. In order to know what color you are, rather dark, medium brown, or light, you have to compare your color to the true, real colors, from which all colors originated from, which are pitch black (African), Indian (black), white (European), and darker white/yellow (Asian). If you find your complexion right in between either of these darkest and lightest colors, or a little lighter, you are medium brown, fact, because you are right in between the darkest colors and lightest colors of the world, it's simple. Many people compare mixed colors with other mixed colors, that's not how it works, and actually makes no sense. You have to compare colors from where all colors originated from, from the darkest color to the lightest color, it doesn't take rocket science to understand this. The brown paper bag test mess, is a lie, and something made up by light skinned blacks, which is silly, and has no evidence of being true. A brown paper bag is slightly closer to a light color, such as yellow, than it is to pitch black, therefore, a brown paper bag color is not the true medium brown color. A true medium brown color is a color that is exactly "equally" of pitch black/black and white/darker white/yellow colors, that is what you call medium brown, because it consist of both dark and light colors "equally", not closer to light colors or closer to dark colors, this is fact.
 
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Unique7

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Nia Long is one example of what medium brown is, because she's right in between the darkest color of the world, which is pitch black (African), and one of the lightest colors of the world, which is white/yellow (Asian). Lou Jing is the same color as Nia Long or darker, and she's half Asian, who is of the half of the make of a light color: white/yellow (Asian). I notice a lot of Blasian people, who are half Asian and half black, are the color of African Americans, same with people who are half Latino and half black, this is proof that medium brown African Americans, such as Nia Long, and others like her color, isn't dark, because they are the same color as Blasian people who are half the make of a light color (white/yellow), Asian. Fact.

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Lou Jing with her Asian mother.
 

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Bubbly86

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I agree, I go by the African standard and that woukd mean Nia is brown-skinned in my eyes. Would it make sense to go by Euro standards when I am. To go so far as saying "oh she is dark-skinned compared to a white woman, It wouldnt make sense because my beauty standards are of the African Asthetics.
 

Unique7

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I agree, I go by the African standard and that woukd mean Nia is brown-skinned in my eyes. Would it make sense to go by Euro standards when I am. To go so far as saying "oh she is dark-skinned compared to a white woman, It wouldnt make sense because my beauty standards are of the African Asthetics.
Exactly, you have to compare by all the colors of the world, from the darkest color to the lightest color. After all, African Americans are multiracial, who are a mix of African and European ancestry, and some of them are mixed with Native American. You don't judge mixed colors with other mixed colors, such as brown to another brown color, or to tan, olive, beige, etc., you judge colors from which they were made from, that is the only logical way to judge someone's skin tone to, fact. Let me give you an example why white people's logic is not right, first of all they think tan and olive colors are medium, but to black people it's light. They also consider yellow skinned African Americans as dark, when to black people they are light. You see how that works, what whites see as light and dark is not how blacks see it. And to tell you the truth, the way blacks see it, is the correct way, and the way white people see it, is the incorrect way. Why? Because judging from all the colors of the world, from pitch black (African) to the lightest colors of the world, pale white (European), the color tan, olive, and yellow are not medium or dark colors, as whites say they are, they are light colors, because they are way closer to the color white than to the color pitch black, this is why black people's logic is correct, while white people's logic is incorrect. Am I making sense here? I do think some whites try to pretend not to use diversity with black people's skin tones, because of jealousy, thus why they tan to become darker. I'm not saying all whites are this way, but some are. You can't go by what white people say, because a lot of them are jealous of color, so they just try to group all blacks together as "dark skin", regardless of the many colors black people have, while they give multiple labels for their skin, such as tan, medium, olive, white, pale, ivory, etc. Don't go by what whites say, go by what you see with your own eyes, and judge from the darkest color of the world, to the lightest color of the world. That is the best way to judge correctly.
 
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