Aubrie Cain Source 1

In what ways does race play a factor in tanning culture and what does it tell us about race relations in the U.S.?

Hunter, Margaret. "The Persistent Problem of Colorism: Sking Tone, Status, and Inequality."(2007). Onlinelibrary.wiley.com. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.


In Margaret Hunter's The Persistent Problem of Colorism: Skin Tone, Status, and Inequality, she explains what colorism is and the many advantages or disadvantage you could have depending on your skin tone. Colorism is the process of discrimination that privileges light-skinned people of color over their dark-skinned counterparts. Hunter explains the advantages of being lighter skinned as earning more money, completing more years, of schooling, living in better neighborhoods, and marry high status people. Hunter also describes the gender and beauty aspect of being light-skinned. She says women are discriminated against their skin tones in many particular ways. Hunter claims that skin tone is a way in defining beauty and the lighter you are the more beautiful you are, and is a form of social capital in women.

This source makes me think about why beauty is consider to have a lighter skin tone. I somewhat disagree with this source because more light skinned people seem to want to be darker, and some do this by tanning. However, I do agree that Colorism is around and that light-skinned people have some advantages. This source changes my thinking since it is saying beauty comes from lighter skin tones which I always thought the opposite. Some new ideas it brings about are searching more about Colorism. This source leads me into a lot of questions like how does colorism play a role in my topic?  I also wonder why do people think having lighter skin is considered beautiful? I would answer this question by searching more into Colorism and into the ideas of lighter skin is more beautiful. Although I think that more people want to have a darker skin tone, I did not think about this subject and will consider looking into it more.

After reading this source I am left wondering questions about colorism. This did not come into mind but after reading this article I felt I needed to know more. Right questions to ask will be how does colorism play a role in my topic? And why are people tanning if beauty comes with a lighter skin tone? My research goes more into depth of colorism and the skin ton beauty. I want to look at multiple articles who either agree or disagree with my first source.