Colorism in the Caribbean
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Colorism in the Caribbean describes discrimination based on skin tone, or colorism, in the Caribbean.
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Colorism is defined as "Prejudice or discrimination against individuals based on the shade of brown skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group. This discrimination can be towards both light and dark shades of brown. "[1] The coining of the term "colorism" is commonly attributed to American Alice Walker in her 1983 book In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose.[2][3] Colorism is a global phenomenon, which affects communities of color all over the world. However, histories of slavery and colonialism have resulted in the prominence of colorism within diasporic black communities,[4] including the Caribbean, where millions of African individuals were shipped during the Atlantic slave trade.[5]