From
1900 until about
1950 in the larger
black neighborhoods of major
American cities paper bag parties were common. The idea was that if your
skin was not lighter than a brown paper bag you could not get in. This is one of the ways that
light skinned black people (
high yellow Negroes in
the north or
creoles in
the south) attempted to
isolate and
distinguish themselves from their darker cousins. It was a kind of
racism within racism only, in some ways more
ugly because it pitted one people against itself.
Now thankfully the paper bag parties are gone though
animosity still exists between light skinned and darker skinned
black people in America. Much of this is due to the
civil rights movement in the
60s and the
Black is Beautiful movement in the
70s.