Please enjoy this week's post by our Social Media and Marketing Director, Asia Lindsay-Sheanshang
"Paper Bag Test, City College”, an interactive work by IlaSahai Prouty of North Carolina"
My first introduction to the brown paper bag test didn’t come from a textbook. It came from a film. As a teenager, I watched Skin (2008), based on the true story of Sandra Laing — a South African girl born to white parents who was classified as Black because of her skin color and hair texture. DNA didn’t matter. Biology didn’t matter. What mattered was how society read her body.
I remember talking to my mother about it afterward. My grandparents were no longer alive to share their own stories about color and classification, but that conversation opened something in me. It was my first realization that beauty, belonging, and acceptance have historically been filtered through complexion. That skin could override lineage. That perception could override truth.
“What mattered was how society read her body.”
That realization led me to learn about the brown paper bag test in the United States.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as Black communities navigated the violent constraints of Jim Crow America, complexion sometimes operated as a quiet social threshold. Oral histories and cultural scholarship recount instances in which certain Black social clubs, sororities, fraternities, and community organizations informally privileged lighter skin tones. The brown paper bag became a symbol of this practice: if one’s skin was lighter than the bag, admission was possible; if darker, exclusion followed.
aSahai Prouty: A Social Construction, Paper Bag Test – Raleigh)
While documentation varies and not every institution practiced this formally, the cultural reality of color hierarchy within Black communities is well established. Post-Reconstruction groups sometimes referred to as “Blue Vein Societies” favored individuals whose veins were visible through lighter skin — an aesthetic marker that functioned as social capital. In churches, social gatherings, and civic spaces — institutions central to Black advancement and protection — complexion could influence leadership roles, marriage networks, and perceptions of refinement.
“This was not born of vanity alone. It was shaped by proximity to power.”
Thinking about my own family makes the history feel immediate. My husband and children carry multiracial and multicultural identities — layers of ancestry that are celebrated, not hidden. And yet, imagining a world where a social club, a church, or a neighborhood institution might have denied me entry while allowing my husband or children in because of their lighter skin or different features feels both surreal and infuriating.
It underscores how arbitrary these hierarchies were — and how destructive. The brown paper bag test was never just about “beauty” or “preference.” It was about assigning value and access based on skin tone. And yet, today, my family embodies the exact complexity these rules could not contain. Their presence reminds me that identity is living, fluid, and cannot — and should not — be constrained by a piece of paper or a societal measuring stick.
“The absurdity is clear: proximity to whiteness could decide who belonged — even within a family.”
https://www.watchtheyard.com/
Black Film and Pop Culture in the 1900s
Colorism also played out vividly on the screen and in music during the 1990s, a moment many of us remember vividly. Films like House Party, School Daze, Friday, Boomberang showed Black life in all its complexity — humor, ambition, romance, and struggle — but often reflected subtle hierarchies of beauty and desirability based on skin tone and features.
Even as these films celebrated Black joy and creativity, they sometimes reinforced narrow perceptions: lighter-skinned characters were often romantic leads, comedic relief, or socially elevated, while darker-skinned characters were relegated to side roles, antagonists, or stereotypes. In music videos and pop culture, hair texture, complexion, and body type often dictated visibility and marketability.
This mirrored in HBCUs and social life: color could shape access, admiration, and even opportunity. And while audiences cheered these cultural touchstones, the underlying message was quietly persistent — proximity to “lighter” ideals often correlated with privilege and attention.
(https://www.aaihs.org/
Reflecting on this era now, it becomes clear that these representations were not isolated. They were part of a broader cultural landscape where color hierarchies were reinforced subtly — in classrooms, clubs, fraternities and sororities, and even within families.
And when viewed from a distance, the logic collapses under its own system.
Every human being exists somewhere along a gradient of melanin. From the lightest ivory to the deepest umber, we are variations within the same biological spectrum. Yet a paper bag — an object designed to carry goods — became a cultural instrument used to measure human worth. The echoes remain.
Comments about being the “milkman’s baby.” Jokes about “light skin attitude.” Assumptions about desirability, professionalism, or softness attached to shade. Media representations have reinforced these hierarchies — through casting, beauty standards, advertising, and algorithmic preference. These messages trickle down subtly, shaping internal perception before conscious awareness.
“Every human being exists on a gradient of melanin — yet a paper bag became a measuring stick for humanity.”
And yet, art has always resisted reduction.
The work of Mary W.D. Graham operates within this space of restoration. Her compositions resist flattening. They require sustained attention. Rather than allowing the viewer to categorize quickly, her work slows the act of looking.
In Graham’s visual language, presence is intentional. Tonal richness becomes expansive rather than comparative. The subject is not measured — they are encountered. Where colorism historically ranked bodies along a hierarchy of proximity, her work invites a different ethic of seeing.
"Skin is not a test. Identity is not a bag. Humanity is not a hierarchy."
Global Reflections on Color and Identity
"Colorism: The Art of Deflection" by Travion Payne
Colorism is not confined to one country or culture. Recent conversations surrounding Bad Bunny illustrate how complexion continues to shape public perception. Despite openly embracing his Puerto Rican identity — an identity rooted in Indigenous, European, and African heritage — segments of the public have questioned or attempted to separate his connection to African ancestry, largely based on appearance alone.
The debate highlights the enduring tension between visual perception and lived experience. Across Hispanic and Caribbean cultures — in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Colombia, Haiti, and beyond — racial and ethnic identity has historically been layered, reflecting centuries of colonization, migration, and the African diaspora. Terms like mestizo, mulato, trigueño, and moreno emerged as social markers, often privileging lighter skin while marginalizing darker tones.
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Similar dynamics appear globally. In parts of India and China, long-standing associations between lighter skin and status, beauty, or marriageability have perpetuated color hierarchies. Across continents, darkness has often been positioned as deviation from a standard of beauty, while lighter skin signals acceptance or proximity to power.
And yet, identity refuses simplicity.
These histories are foundational, not footnotes. The African diaspora has shaped music, religion, visual art, and social movements across the Americas and the world. Yet perception continues to filter and sometimes erase that complexity.
The shift now is subtle but visible. Pop culture, contemporary music, and visual art increasingly embrace darker skin, multiplicity, and layered identity. Representation is expanding, pushing against inherited hierarchies. Where color once dictated value, it now becomes a site of reclamation and celebration.
ILLUSTRATED BY EUTALIA DE LA PAZ
If history once allowed color to determine access, perhaps the present moment calls us to a higher responsibility: to honor the full spectrum of identity and to ensure its visibility in every space we curate and inhabit.
In closing