Racial discrimination in the employment sector is illegal. Businesses generally cannot consider a worker’s race or national origin when deciding whom to hire or promote.
Employees faced with overt racism from individuals of differing backgrounds may recognize the misconduct they experienced as inappropriate and actionable. However, other, more subtle forms of racism can be harder for workers to address.
Colorism is a unique form of racial bias that can affect employees from a variety of different backgrounds. Understanding what constitutes colorism can help people fight back against this frustrating form of racial discrimination.
Colorism often comes from people of the same race
Many times, employment racism involves people in positions of decision-making authority who come from a different background than a particular employee. They let stereotypes and innate personal biases affect the decisions they make.
Colorism, on the other hand, tends to affect people from within the same racial and cultural groups. For example, in the traditional caste system in India, lighter skin tones were associated with higher castes, leading to egregious racism among Indians on the basis of skin color, hair texture and other racial features.
Workers from a variety of different backgrounds may have internalized messages regarding darker skin and other racial features that then influence how they treat people of the same race. Colorism, like racism, can contribute to a hostile work environment. It can also lead to an unfair loss of opportunities.
Workers experiencing any unlawful form of racial discrimination may have grounds to take legal action. Documenting examples of colorism in the workplace can potentially help frustrated employees to hold companies accountable for considering their skin tone and other racial features when making employment decisions.