Author’s Note
Introduction
ONE
The Darker the Berry: African Americans and Color
TWO
Mejorando la Raza: Latinos and Color
THREE
Fair Enough: Asian Americans and Color
FOUR
Beige Is the New Black: Mixed-Race Americans and Color
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Sources
Index
Lori L. Tharps is an associate professor of journalism at Temple University and the coauthor of Hair Story- Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America and Kinky Gazpacho- Life, Love & Spain. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Glamour and Essence magazines. She lives in Philadelphia with her family.
“With great sensitivity and unapologetic boldness, Tharps
skillfully weaves the rich historical context of the United States,
the Americas and Asia with wrenching contemporary first-person
accounts to investigate how color operates in the most intimate
spaces of American families...This thoughtful, honest, historically
textured and valuable book offers a detailed and current syllabus
of work on the social and cultural meanings of colorism around the
world and brings colorism ‘out of the closet.’”
—Allyson Hobbs, New York Times Book Review
“Same Family, Different Colors is the first book on colorism to
take us inside African American, Latino, Asian, and interracial
families as they speak candidly about how the politics of skin
color shape their family dynamics and lives. Lori Tharps explores
this taboo and urgent subject with courage, vision, and great
sensitivity.”
—Michael Eric Dyson
“A nuanced, forthright, emotionally compelling take on a painful
subject.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“The proximity of my skin to whiteness will probably protect me
from having my face blown off by a stranger behind a locked door in
the middle of the night, but what of my daughter? She, like
Renishia McBride, is ‘black from a distance’ and a threat in many
places. Colorism in society is dangerously complicated. Colorism in
the family is painful. Tharps’s provocative book has the potential
to be powerfully healing, but it won’t be a pretty process.”
—Michaela Angela Davis, image activist/cultural critic/light,
blonde, and black
“A compassionate exploration of colorism in the most private realms
of our lives—with our familias—Same Family, Different Colors is a
much-needed book for a country (and a world) that grows more
multi-hued with every passing year. Tharps combines journalism with
history, memoir, and good old-fashioned storytelling to weave a
powerful thread across communities and to suggest new ways of
embracing our collective futures.”
—Daisy Hernández, author of A Cup of Water Under My Bed
“Colorism is a topic people of color are reluctant to talk about,
but Lori Tharps investigates this difficult subject with grace,
humility, and inclusiveness. Through historical context and frank
personal stories, Same Family, Different Colors creates a powerful
mediation on what so often goes unsaid even in the closest of
families. With its fascinating multicultural focus, there’s
something here for everyone to learn about themselves, and
others.”
—Mat Johnson, author of Loving Day
Ask a Question About this Product More... |