Since the success of the #unfairandlovely social media phenomenon in late 2016, colourism has garnered some critical attention.
The #unfairandlovely hashtag, and the photographic project that spawned it, brought awareness to the ways in which darker-skinned women are perceived as less attractive, both within and outside their ethnic communities.
On the other side of the coin, however, are women of colour who are ostracised because they're "not black enough" - and Pearl Thusi, for one, is tired of having to defend her fair skin.
The South African actress recently revealed on a Touch HD appearance that her mother was actually worried when she was born lighter than the rest of the family: "My mother was really stressed, thinking 'Oh my gosh, they're gonna think that I messed up'," Thusi recalled, laughing.
But, even though she is able to make light of the ceaseless speculation around her race, it is clear that this issue has been a source of distress throughout Thusi's life.
In a candid Instagram post she says: "As a child, being teased by other kids, that's how I became aware of the colour of my skin. That it was different. Being taunted with: 'You only seem pretty because you're light. You wouldn't be pretty if you were dark.' I wished and prayed to be darker. To be accepted ... I didn't want to be different. I didn't want to be a target."
The problem of performing "blackness" adequately is by no means exclusive to African women: Rachael Malonson, a US student who won the Miss Black University of Texas pageant in 2017, came under fire on Instagram from commentators insisting that she was "not a black woman ... black people need to stop accepting bi-racials as black because slowly but surely you will all begin to crowd and take over our spaces".
It's little wonder that women like Thusi have had enough. "Your heritage, culture, tribe and any other type of validation isn't determined by the colour of your skin,"
Thusi's post concludes. "I wasn't dark enough, but I grew a proud, black African woman. Because I know who I am, where I am from and where I am."
