I remember learning about how black skin tans from my friends in girl scouts. It really was a revelation to a dumb white kid. They had a good laugh, and we decided to wear hats and sunscreen (i'm fair to the point of transparency) on our Disney trip.

Allow me to speak for all white people (e.g. my parents) who didn't realize Black people tan.

I think the mentality is that everyone simply has a maximum amount they can tan. For example, my pink skin can get a certain amount of freckles and a certain yellowish cast, but beyond that it won't tan. I think what people who don't realize Black people can tan think is that Black people are already at "maximum tan", so they can't tan any more.

As to the "you two are both Black, why don't you go out" phenomenon (and it occurs with all minorities) -- I really don't get it ... just because I'm X, I'll be romantically inclined to all other X's?

Actually, this happened to my fiancee (before we were dating) -- there were, like, two Black people attending her synagogue at the time (her and this, well, creep) ... and some guy decided "well you're both Black, why don't you go out?" ... of course he went for it (my fiancee's quite the catch -- I'm amazed she went for me), but she didn't resulting in quite a bit of tsuris.

So where's the part when she gets disgusted by the fact that Janjay doesn't need/have to wash her hair every day? Or when she asks if dreadlocks are made with mud. Reminds me of www.blackpeopleloveus.com

I'm sorry. I've just had so many of these moments and it's so draining. They can be painfull and so isolating. For a while I was very, no, extremely resentful.

Now I just take a deep breathe and try be calm and laugh about it, b/c (most of the time) the person asking doesn't mean any harm.

DAS, another black Jew on Feministing and you speak Yiddish to boot?

Honestly, I've heard so many rants from black people about white people's ignorance that I'm totally afraid to talk to black people now for fear of doing something horrible. I have a neighbor who is black, we chat in the evenings, and I'm CONSTANTLY monitoring everything I say to make sure I don't mention her skin color or her clothing or her music or her hair. So we talk about the weather and about other trivial stuff. I really wish I could get to know her, but I'm just too afraid of something ignorant slipping out of my mouth. And, YES, I'm aware that I'm being ignorant right now.

Sorry to disappoint. I'm about as white as they come (well, actually I'm not ... my skin color is rather more pink than white).

My fiancee is a black Jew, however. I speak a bissl Yiddish. She doesn't really speak much Yiddish.

yeah, I'm a brown lady and all of this is really not surprising though it's incredibly entertaining/embarrassing to watch. On one hand, I'd rather have someone ask the dumb question than have them walking around with a lot of misconceptions. But on the other hand, I can't believe how clueless some people are. Jezebel captured another "quaint" racial moment from the show previously:
http://jezebel.com/gossip/top/the-fashionista-diaries-ebony-and-ivory-295272.php

I'd also just like to point out that Janjay's comment about not wanting to get any darker (gasp! oh the horror!) is just as offensive, if not more so, than the other girl's ignorance.

Been there done that so many times. "Black people tan? Wow! Learn something new every day."

Even in college (COLLEGE! LIBERAL COLLEGE!) I had white people always asking me stupid questions, and there's the key word haydin, STUPID, there are ways to approach asking someone not of your ethnicity about their culture/physical features without making them uncomfortable or making them seem like an alien from outer space. One of my mentors in Hollywood is an older Jewish woman who was talking to me and another woman of color about dreadlocks, though neither of us had them, and she brought up that she'd heard black women don't wash their hair every day. We told her no, that depending on the hair texture it was better for black women to wash their hair less as the hair needs the oils and what not. I mentioned that I wash my hair twice a week because my texture is different than most so gunk builds up on it faster. She nodded and we continued to talk about something else.

I grew up in the mid-west where we had a total of one Jewish family in our town and I hadn't known that at all. So when I came to California I met a lot of Jewish people and I admitted my ignorance and we talked about Jewish culture and faith.

Not all black women/people will like to talk about it at all and you've just got to understand that. If you ask something and they get offended shake it off and move on. But like I said, there's a way to approach it. If you consider your neighbor a good friend then just say, "excuse my ignorance but before I do anything to offend you may I ask about X Y or Z". that might help to buffer it a bit. If a random white person just came up to me and starting asking me a bunch of questions about black people I surely would be offended as all hell, but if it's someone I know or have been talking to I don't mind clarifying stereotypes and discussing the different aspects of the culture.

One of the worst things I've had a white person do is walk up to me and ask to touch my hair because it looked "soft" (mind you it is but that's beside the point). I am not a zoo animal and I do not want to be "petted". She might have had the most innocent of intentions in her mind but I felt like a freak she was fixated on.

It's just all in how you do it.

I don't tan. I burn. About 15 minutes in the sun, and I can feel my skin getting hot, at 20 I'm pink, and it's just downhill from there. Then, it blisters, and underneath is more shiney white skin. It's freaky as hell.

Anyway, as a kid, I was always fascinated by other kids who had, you know, melanin. (I don't actually have albinism, but the only person I've ever met who was actually lighter than me did, just for reference) I remember discussing with all the other kids about tanning/burning, and how much they tanned, and what color they turned and all that crap. I remember someone telling me that people with darker skin tones don't get sunburnt. Yeah, I it's stupid now, but that was elementary school.

Upon further contemplation, I guess I do tan (my arms are darker than my tummy, for example) but I have to be very careful so that I don't go lobster.

I'm in a wedding this fall between a white woman and black man. They had a huge fight over the summer due to sunscreen. She wanted to put it on his daughter - he opposed as "blacks don't tan" and it would be a waste of money...has anyone else heard of the misconception in the black community?

eep! sorry for the double post!

UltraMagnus suggestions are fantastic.

VicSin, I know I've never heard of it. If anything I've heard talking about not wanting to go outside for fear of getting darker. Very sad.

I actually like getting tanned..probably b/c I like being outside, anyway..i digress.

As a typical suburban white kid, I blame my parents and school for giving a lot of lip-service to diversity without actually exposing me to very much, for my (former) ignorance about black people. The first time I was regularly exposed to black people was when two black girls lived across the hall from me in my dormitory my freshman year of college, and I'm pretty sure they thought I was a complete moron for some of the questions I asked. :/ But, since I asked them respectfully and also started attending several on-campus lectures about diversity, racism, etc., I was able to overcome (most of) my really inexcusable ignorance. Just my personal experience, make of it what you will.

Haydin, I'm not trying to pick on you, but I think your comment is very interesting. When you say that you're afraid to talk to black people, what is it you fear? Are there things you want to say that you think will cause offense?

I mean, the tone of your comment was a little upsetting to me, but after I got over that, I felt like I wanted to actually talk about this with you, because it sounds paralyzing. And I do hear where you're coming from.
You should try to remember that any question you ask has probably been asked before. And probably not as nicely as you're trying to put it. I hear a lot of people (not you) saying things like "well, I asked a question kindly, and the black person got upset, which isn't fair because that's not how I meant it." If that's true, then they're not upset with you. They're upset with the other asshole who was mean or rude. Let it go. But a measured tone, with some consideration will go a long way. Treating someone with respect will most often get you the same consideration.

I have a very good friend, Sunshine. She has a lot of the same fears you do, and we've talked about them. And we talk about race, and sometimes it's awkward. Especially after a lto fo margaritas. And sometimes she doesn't want to continue because she's afraid to upset me. But the fact is, she's my friend. And knowing the way she was raised, she's already come a very long way. And because I care about her, I'm happy to help her come further. That's the point. It's something worth doing for me. As UltraMagnus says, it's all in the approach. You should be sensitive to other people's feelings when you talk to them, regadless of their race. But, if you want to learn, and you want to have a real conversation about this stuff, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable. And the best way to do that is to talk to someone you trust, and who trusts you. So when it's hard, you have a foundation there.

I'm sure the OP has been driven crazy by questions she feels should be obvious, but just because I don't know something about how melanin works, does that make me a racist, or prejudiced? No. I just didn't know. Now I do. End of story.

UltraMagnus suggestions are fantastic.

Thanks Roxie,

On that note something just occured to me, if you are going to ask questions of someone outside your own ethnicity then, probably the one of the worst things you can do is to preface the question with "You don't seem like the other X people."

I was driving a male friend (upper middle class, white) to campus one day when he sprung the "You aren't like all the other black girls" on me, when in fact he hadn't actually KNOWN any other young black women, just what he'd seen on TV, *sigh*. After I picked my jaw from the car seat I *kindly* explained to him that not every black person is a stereotype and he'd do better to get out and know actual black people before making snap judgments on the whole community.

I'm mixed, and even though I don't deliberately lay out to tan, I love the way I look when I'm darker. I remember at one point, a friend of mine had complemented my tan and someone else chimed in, "She's not tan, she's just mixed." As if being tanned and mixed are somehow mutually exclusive?

I think the "blacks don't tan" misconception is pretty widespread,... But what's even more unfortunate is the number of black women I know who don't WANT to tan because it will make them look less, um, white. I'm glad that I can at least be proud of my more African features--it's difficult, because the reputation that biracial women have for being beautiful is almost entirely dependent on them looking like slightly exotic white people.

I'm with you Jen. It just seems logical. Especially if you're white and your skin gets darker (or burns as is the case with some people) then wouldn't you assume that all skin, regardless of color, would do the same?

MD: It's not racist to not know how melanin works, but it is racist to assume/presume that only white/light skin tans.

I'm with you Jen. It just seems logical. Especially if you're white and your skin gets darker (or burns as is the case with some people) then wouldn't you assume that all skin, regardless of color, would do the same?

I don't get the "what? black people don't wash their hair everyday?" surprise ... many white women don't wash their hair everyday -- in fact, in my experience, those with the money and time to frequent beauty shops (*) will only have their hair washed when they get it restyled professionally, which can be as often as twice a week, but certainly not every day.

So why the shock on the part of some people about Black women doing what many white women do without anyone remarking about it?

*as was, AFAIK, the main locus of social interaction for women in most of the country at one time in our history ... so, in the days when a woman's activities were severly limitted by sexism, going to the beauty shop was really important in terms of keeping one's sanity and social connectivity

I've never heard "blacks don't tan," but I have heard "blacks don't get sunburn." And my wife and I always have disagreements on this, cause she uses sunscreen and thinks I should, but I've been going to the beach and down south in the hot blazing sun for years without sunscreen, and I've never been burned.

Our compromise is that if I ever burn, I'll start using sunscreen after that.

Oops, sorry for the weird double post!

I also want to clarify the bit about assuming/presuming certain things regarding skin color. I'm talking on a scientific level with regards to melanin levels in skin. In some cases it would be racist to assume every experience/physical thing is like someone else's on a systematic level. I guess it's strange that some white people will assume a PoC experience will be just like their own, but when it comes to skin and tanning they think there is a big difference.

Am I making sense? Ugh, need more coffee.

On the tanning thing: I was out bathing suit shopping with a friend who's black, and she tried on a really cute bikini. I commented that it would be great for suntanning, if she liked that sort of thing. She looked at me like I was crazy, and informed me that she was black, so she doesn't tan. I assumed, at the time, that she meant that black people can't tan, but maybe, judging by what people here have said, she meant that black people didn't like to tan, because they didn't want to be darker.

How is it racist to not be aware that darker skinned people tan?

JPlum,

Not necessarily. She may have meant she doesn't lay in the sun in order to tan. Neither do I. Not because I mind getting darker, but it's not a specific goal. I lay on the beach to relax and hang out. Tanning just happens to occur.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that anyone is saying that it is racist if you don't know that black people tan. I think that one of Jen's points is that once you think about it, doesn't it make sense? No matter what color your skin is, it is going to change when you get in the sun. I admit that I probably did not know that black people were able to tan, but once I learned that and thought about it, it makes perfect sense.

MD: It's not racist to not know how melanin works, but it is racist to assume/presume that only white/light skin tans.

Are you serious???

Xana said exactly that: "but it is racist to assume/presume that only white/light skin tans."

Like a lot of white people, I'm sure, it never occurred to me to even wonder if black people tan. Just like it never occurred to me to wonder if black people wash their hair every day. When it comes up for the first time (like the bikini conversation with my friend) THEN I think about it. But I'm honestly not spending a lot of time just randomly thinking about the ways in which blacks and whites are different from/the same as each other.

I uh, actually didn't know about the tanning thing. But in my defense, that's because some girls in my math class were discussing going to the beach (one was black and one was white) with a black guy and the two black kids were joking about how they couldn't tan (in hindsight, I seem to remember that the guy was very dark). I DID know about the hair washing thing in advance though.

I have to agree about how sad it is that she didn't want to get darker, but I have noticed that some guys do have a preference for lighter skin. The handful of times my lily white ass (seriously -- my friend who works at Disney swears I'd make a perfect Snow White if I had a black wig) has ever been hit on, it's been by black guys. I think that's kind of sad, I mean, I get shit for being a white person who is TOO white. Must suck pretty bad being a black person who's "too dark." It seems more like you should just rock your healthy, natural skin tone and be done with it. Why all the stigma? To me, the extremes in skin tone are the most striking and lovely to me. That's why I intentionally stay this particular shade of bleach (that, and shockingly with skin this light I can wear whites, black, and bright colors without worrying about being washed out like everyone else I know). I find incredibly dark skin with maroon or gold undertones to be absolutely lovely. Those ladies can rock so many colors that make lighter skinned black people/darker skinned white people look washed out or sickly. I envy how pretty white and gold look against super dark skin. Plus their teeth look so much brighter and prettier than mine unless they have very stained teeth. I have to bleach into oblivion or my teeth are the exact same shade as my skin (yes, I am THAT pale).

Not that I ever asked anyone or cared, but I took it for granted that people always got darker in the sun. Although, now that I think about it, there was this one woman who was a friend of my family when I was a kid. She had darker skin, but she still went to the pool with us to get a tan. I remember my mom expressing deep envy of her naturally bronze skin.

One of the functions of melanin in the skin is to prevent sunburn; that's why people get darker when exposed to strong sunlight. People with darker skin don't get sunburned as easily as people with lighter skin. On the other hand, melanin's sunlight-blocking effect reduces Vitamin D production. (The human body can't manufacture its own Vitamin D without sunlight.) Differences in human skin color are an adaptation to the differing levels of sunlight as one gets closer to and further from the equator; your skin tone reflects the latitude at which your ancestors lived.

I also don't understand the surprise that Black women don't necessarily wash their hair every day. I'm white-ish (Italian, so I have more of an olive complexion) and I wash every other day or every three days because A)My hair takes about four hours to dry! and B)It just doesn't get greasy that quickly. I have an Asian friend with inch-long hair that showers at least once, often twice a day who is just *horrified* by my supposed lack of personal hygiene. I don't even want to ask him what he thinks of Black women!

I remember very clearly the day I learned that Black women and white women have different hair. My best friend growing up gave me some of her hair product to use on my hair, and my mom FREAKED. In retrospect it was probably because she knew what a pain in the ass it would be to wash it out of my hair (of similar difficulty as the time I used oil-based green dye for St. Patrick's day in 4th grade and had green hair for a week despite four or five washings a day).

"I'm in a wedding this fall between a white woman and black man. They had a huge fight over the summer due to sunscreen. She wanted to put it on his daughter - he opposed as "blacks don't tan" and it would be a waste of money...has anyone else heard of the misconception in the black community?"

I really hope he starts putting sunscreen on his daughter!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5219752.stm
Worse than the misconception that black people can't tan or burn is the one that they can't get skin cancer. Consequently, dark skinned cancer patients on usually diagnosed at much later, more dangerous stages.

I can understand why people might feel offended about Janjay's comment about not wanting to get darker, but at the same time she might genuinely like her skin color and think her shade of black is attractive. She didn't explicitly say she wanted to look whiter or lighter. It's healthier for people to keep their skin "light" (as in "light" for that person, not "light" on the huge spectrum of skin colors) anyway.
I'm a white girl who prefers not to get dark despite being pressured to tan, and people act like not wanting to get as tan as possible is bizarre. Interesting how both black and white women are pressured to be the same light, golden brown shade.

Worse than the misconception that black people can't tan or burn is the one that they can't get skin cancer. Consequently, dark skinned cancer patients on usually diagnosed at much later, more dangerous stages. - Katxyz

Oddly, my mom who was surprised to find out that Black people tan, always knew that the risk for skin cancer (while highest for melanically challenged folks like myself) transcends race -- indeed, she somehow knew that Black people could get a sunburn but it never occured to her that they could tan as well ...

As a black woman, I don't think it's racist to not know that black people tan, just a little clueless. And, right or wrong, being confronted with constant cluelessness about your skin, hair, culture, etc., can be alienating. I went to college in Iowa and spent four years with people tugging my hair, asking odd personal questions and requesting that I be the sole voice of the black race. It can make you feel like an oddity or that even your closest friends can't be bothered to understand basic things about your everyday life. All that said, I would rather be asked a respectful question than have someone remain scared and silent. How are we to learn if we are afraid to communicate?

david, you should wear the sunscreen. Just b/c you haven't sunburned doesn't mean you can't. And just b/c you haven't doesn't mean you can get skin cancer. Melanin's not a free pass.

Actually, something that made big news here in Canada a while back regarding new research on other cancers and the skin's (especially darker, note that in the article) need for un-sunscreened exposure to generate vitamin D:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070428.wxvitamin28/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home

UltraMagnus: thank you for your suggestions. I don't consider her a close friend, just a good neighbor. I wish we could become friends, but I have to stop being afraid of my ignorance for that to happen. Thank you for your suggestions.

Jen: I don't think any of my opinions would cause offence, I think my ignorance might cause offence. Examples: when I was a little girl I saw a black lady with a really pretty afro. I complimented her on it, she took it well, but in retrospect I sometimes cringe: how often does she get white people mentioning her hair because it is "unique"? Does that make sense?

I think it's an issue of exposure. I work with Indians, Persians, and Chinese people a lot, so I'm totally down with them. The cool thing about them is that they know as little about white american culture as I know about their culture, so we can ask each other mutual questions. The difference with black americans is that they already know and partake in white american culture, because it's the dominant culture. I just don't know their culture. I hope this makes some sense!

"I really hope he starts putting sunscreen on his daughter!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5219752.stm
Worse than the misconception that black people can't tan or burn is the one that they can't get skin cancer. Consequently, dark skinned cancer patients on usually diagnosed at much later, more dangerous stages."

Has anyone else here had that misconception about her or his own skin?

I have a permanent tan, never sunburn, and for a while I thought it meant I had built-in sunblock. Then I found out that the darkest skin only has an SPF of 12 relative to albino skin.

Especially if you're white and your skin gets darker (or burns as is the case with some people) then wouldn't you assume that all skin, regardless of color, would do the same?

No, because whenever I've been working exclusively indoors for a few months I go pale. Then if I go work in the field, after about an hour or two in the sun unprotected by sunblock, I end up with a pretty nasty sunburn. But then after a few weeks of daily exposure I reacquire a solid Surf City tan, and once my melanin is restored to that certain level,

1.) I go all day outdoors without getting sunburned, and

2.) even with continued exposure, my tan only reaches that shade of darkness and after that doesn't get appreciably darker.

So I always assumed that if I were black, with lots of melanin between me and the awful Florida UV, then I'd have been immune to sunburn from the start and further exposure to sunlight wouldn't make me any darker.

Only recently did I find out I was wrong. A black guy I was working with asked me if I had any sunscreen in the truck. Surprised, I asked "What do you need sunscreen for?" and he told me that black people