19
More than 60 % of the headlines contained the words“ crisis,”“ conflict,” or“ disaster.” On streaming platforms, the Reuters Institute has shown that content featuring Black protagonists is disproportionately underrepresented for non-Black users, creating racial bubbles in cultural consumption— without any engineer having programmed in bias. The bias perpetuates itself.
“ When a child grows up without ever seeing anyone who looks like them portrayed as a hero or a scientist, something breaks in their relationship with the world.”— Frantz Fanon, * Black Skin, White Masks *, 1952
Colorism— Hierarchy Within the Hierarchy
There is a form of racism that white people did not invent— or rather, that they did invent, and that certain Black communities have, tragically, internalized and perpetuated. Colorism is discrimination based not on race in general, but on skin tone: the lighter your skin, the more you are judged to be beautiful, competent, and credible. The darker your skin, the more you are marginalized, rendered invisible, and criminalized. It is racism applied within racism. And Hollywood is its most visible global laboratory. The American entertainment industry has always had its unwritten rules. Black actresses who have broken through to the top of Hollywood since the 1990s share, with statistically striking regularity, a specific physical profile: light or medium skin tone,“ Europeanized” features, and relaxed or straightened hair. Halle Berry, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Zendaya: all undeniably talented— and all situated in the lighter half of the Black skin spectrum. This is no coincidence: it is a market.
Flashmag! Edition 172 Mai 2026
Researcher Kimberly Norwood( Washington University in St. Louis) has documented what she calls the“ colorist glass ceiling”: in Hollywood casting, actresses with very dark skin are systematically cast in roles as domestic workers, criminals, comic relief, or victims— rarely as romantic leads or leaders. A 2022 UCLA study of 300 films from the past decade confirmed that Black characters with very dark skin accounted for less than 8 % of leading roles
19