Most people in the Black community would look at Grace Gealey’s skin tone and immediately categorize her as a light-skinned woman. But according to the “Empire” star, she wasn’t aware of what “light skin” was until she moved to this country as an adult.
In a new interview with Details, Gealey shared that she was born and raised in the Cayman islands and didn’t move to the States until she was 18. And when she was asked what she found most surprising about American culture, she revealed that she was shocked to discover the concept of “light skin” and “dark skin” in the Black community.
“For me personally, it’s the whole light-skinned/dark-skinned dynamic [for women of color]. I mean, there’s competition among women everywhere you go. But back home we understand that you can look like a variety of things and still be from the same culture. What I’m saying is that I’ve never felt like I was a light-skinned black woman. Never felt that way because we shared the same culture back home. But when I came to America, that’s when I started to feel that there was a lot of push-back from women. I was definitely made aware that I am light-skinned. I realized that was a thing here,” Gealey said.
Gealey further explained the difficulties she had dealing with both colorism around her skin tone and racism she experienced because she’s Black.
“It was something that people felt the need to point out. I guess maybe it’s a form of intra racism: I was discriminated against for being light-skinned and there were a lot of labels. Some people assumed that guys might like me more because of my complexion or that I had it easier in general. Which is funny because I’ve been a victim of prejudice as well: There were times when I have walked into a Rite Aid at 12 o’clock at night and had the store manager stand in the corner and stare at me while I was looking at nail polishes,” Gealey said.
Honestly, it was easy for us to to assume, like most in our community likely did, that Gealey was raised in and fully aware of what it means to be Black in America, but it’s interesting to see how different the idea of blackness is or was to her, and how odd our version of it seemed to her. And considering that our concept of light-skinned and dark-skinned seemed strange and painful to her, it seems even more evident that Back people in the States are still operating with mindsets that are clearly detrimental and obviously confusing to both ourselves and other people.
