How Colorism affects Unity in Spike Lee’s School Daze
The idea of Colorism refers to the notion that black people with lighter skin-tone are superior to the blacks with darker complexion. The blacks with dark complexion consider the ones with lighter complexion as closer to the White race than them. The consequence of Colorism is that it divides people of the same race (e.g. the Blacks) because they consider each other as racially different. In the film School Daze, Spike Lee shows how Colorism affects the success of the anti-apartheid movement within the college environment.
Dunlap is the epitome of the failed anti-racism struggles of the darker Blacks, and their division is purely because some of the Blacks have a lighter skin complexion than others. Dunlap is the leader of the antiapartheid movement. The movement intends to change the perspective of the college on race and Colorism. An example of the group of blacks that stands against Dunlap’s anti-Colorism struggles is the “Gamma Fraternity”. The group considers its members as people who are racially superior to the Blacks of dark complexion. Julian Eaves is the leader of the group of lighter blacks. The members of the fraternity have the attitude that they are better than Dunlap’s group, and they do not support Dunlap’s thinking on the need for the college to change its apartheid policies. The reality is that the two groups are of the black race. The Gamma Fraternity confront Dunlap’s group because they are of darker skin than theirs, and they do not support Dunlap.
The film’s idea is that Colorism was one of the reasons the Blacks did not succeed in their anti-apartheid struggles. Lee passes the idea that the lighter Blacks are not racially different from the darker ones. The “Gamma Fraternity” has a lighter complexion due to the effect of gamma rays, meaning that they were like Dunlap’s group before the effect of the rays. The disunity between the two groups limits the success of Dunlap’s struggles, meaning that the only way to overcome apartheid is to solve the problem of Colorism.
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