Multimedia Collection
A Question of Color: Color Consciousness in Black America
VHS
58 minutes
E185.625 .Q471 1992
A Question of Color is the first documentary to confront "color consciousness" in the black community. It explores the devastating effect of a caste system based on how closely skin color, hair texture and facial features conform to a European ideal. It provides an unique window for examining crosscultural issues of identity and selfimage for anyone who has experienced prejudice.
Director Kathe Sandler asked scores of African Americans of all shades about their experience with the "color question" from New York City to Alabama, from teenagers to a 96 year old great great grandmother. We experience the psychological and emotional turmoil that the issue engenders in a college president, a mayor, a TV anchorwoman, young rappers and others including the filmmaker herself.
A Question of Color is particularly sensitive to the special burden color consciousness imposes on women. Darker skinned women recall how they have felt devalued and desexualized because of the bias in favor of European standards of beauty. Lighter skinned women reveal the pain of exclusion and ridicule because of their presumed sense of superiority.
Evocative footage recalls how the "Black is Beautiful" movement of the 1960s attempted to place a positive value on African physical and cultural characteristics. But comments by young people indicate that the color problem lingers.
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