I'm not racist or anything but I personally think black people mixed with White or Asian are more attractive. Same with Asians and even Mexicans which I am. It's not always true but a lot of the times it is. Some beautiful people can be created that way!

hey i just wanted to say thanks to tryra for opening up this topic i had no idea it even existed and acknowlegment is the first step to heal pain. no hopefully this can bring us closer together instead of apart. if we can share our pain and heal our past's :)

Namaste Tyra,

Regarding today’s episode on light skin versus dark skin in the black community, I would like to stress that these challenges associated with skin tone variations exist in other minority groups as well.
After a recent two month trip to India, I quickly became aware of the attention and importance placed on skin color. The general consensus is that light skin is favored over dark. This is reflected in various aspects of the culture from beauty products to marriage qualifications.
For instance, television commercials feature products such as “Fair and Lovely” for women and “Fair and Handsome” targeting their male counterparts. The advertisements depict individuals receiving positive reinforcement, such as increased attention from the opposite sex, for achieving a lighter skin tone.
On a more serious note, skin color is often brought up when discussing arranged marriages. The lighter the skin tone, the more desirable the candidate.

Are light skin Indians treated better than dark skin Indians?
Like the Tyra Show pointed out, arguments can be made for either side. The same holds true for our race. In my experience, I have found my light skin to be rewarded.
As an Indian male who was born and raised in North America, my light skin was generally judged as a naturally-tanned looking complexion, which is desirable. In India my extended family would immediately comment on my skin as an asset, particularly in the context of making me marketable for marriage.

I did find the differences in ideas of beauty fascinating: In North America I use products to darken my skin to achieve a healthy looking tan, while in India I found myself forbidding myself to use these same products!

In the final analysis, every race varies in skin color, features, and body shapes. Looking deeper, they also vary in language, religion, and culture. We should recognize each other as one race and embrace it. The real beauty IS this diversity.

Namaste,

Sachin
Montreal, Canada

Dear Tyra,
I know their are facts and opinions and the fact is everyone is going to have their own opinion wheather they say it or not. I'm not African American but I grew up around them, I can agree that their is that line, in my case it's like that with almost all races wheather it be the color of your skin to the way you look or so on. I'm Native american and I get treated different because I date black men. Wheather it be good or bad. Black women hate that I date black men because I'm taking one of the men they could be dating or it just is not right in their eyes. Alot of my friends hate when we would go out and I would get all the attention because I'm and indian girl.Understand that all races are the same in ways but native american do the same based on what tribe are you from? OH you must be navajo or your this because of your nose or I can thell your this. Now as far as my family, they love them some mexicans and natives but black people are just not ment to be in my family, at least thats what they say behind my back. I mean I don't understand it. My son is black,native,an mexican, he is light skined and I think its a beautiful thing to be so diffrent. I love black people and I love my history but, I feel like I'm judged by family,friends and even my boy friend; for being and indian or coffee lover or a mexican. In my opinion we judge each other in diffrent ways.

i just wanted 2 say first of all I'm not a black woman. i am a proud Hispanic.and I'm not a woman I'm a girl.even though i don"t look like i am i am i look like I,m white and I'm confronted by race issues all the time in my school and social life.today i was inspired by some of the things i saw and disgusted by others. there are allot of people who think that lighter women or darker women have it easier or harder i think that both have it equally as hard. i have friends of all races. i see how for some of my darker friends are teased for looking a certain way ,or talking a certain way ,or where they shop , who they eat with and all sorts stupid things like that . i see a lot of girls at my school who are darker and get teased because they're not the stereotypical "ghetto" there are people in my school who don't think I'm Hispanic just because of the way i look . my ex-best friend who is also Hispanic let herself be dragged in to the pier pressure of doing a "style 180" she went from JCpennys and macy's and the occasional shirt or cute pair of pants from hollister or aropostal. now ALL she wears is hollister and areopostal and american eagleand pacsun .i dint really care about the outside change but what really hurt was the interior change. she started hagging out with the popular girls and drug addicts (who i know her mom doesn't approve of as friends) she started to completely ignore me and to ditch me for her other new friends but she dint know and still doesn't know that those same girls treat her like a clown they talk about her and all the sorts of the lil' bitchy things girls do sometimes do but these girls will say "oh you're my bff darling! i love you!!! oh you're the best blah blah blah !!" and then they go behind your back and say things like "omigod i hate her she's so..." or "she looks so fat in that shirt" or things like that but my friend is now a part of those girls and she is talking about ME behind my back!!! i know this because of the way that she acts around me and other things she does . the thing she did that just made me furious and was just the drop that tipped the glass was this one time not too long ago at the park i had just gotten a new shirt (and me being me had to go show it off)but i asked her do you like my new shirt and she told me "you know that shirt you look really fat!" not to be mean but she isn't exactly Tyra Banks either but at first i just kinda shook it off like what ever but then she went on to talking to me about my boyfriend at that time (who is now my closest friend who love to death!)she keep telling me "o he don't really love you hes just dating you to get to that other girl" or "you guys cant date cuz hes gay!"(which is completely untrue) but what hurt even more is that she got those popular girls to start saying that stuff (this isn't just at the park this progressed over several months ) and I'm noticing that as time goes buy she becomes less and less proud of her race in German class the teacher asked a question about German that related to Spanish so he asked us to raise our hands if we knew Spanish or were Hispanic i raised my hand high but he raised it up like she was ashamed of her race or something but its just little things like that that made me see just how bad the race issue is. just the fact that some one wants to oppress their race and hide it makes me really think "wow its not JUST blacks but theres internal racism among Hispanics too and as i studied other ethnic groups more closely i saw it in whites Asians and all the other races so i a 13 year old have learned a valuable life lesson and i hope this blog will help people who are having problems similar to mine

Hi Tyra,
When I saw the title of your show today the first thought in my mind was oh no! I am a 52 year old African American female and I thought the light skinned/dark skinned issue was settled in my generation. It was surprising, shocking and embrassing to hear our people sound so ignorant for the world to see. It is obvious that self hate is alive and well within us. My family has different skin tones. Back in my day parents of Black Children would set their kids down and talk to them about being black in the world. My fathers talk went something like this, he lined us up; pointed to each one of us and said, "If the KKK came to this house they would not say their is a dark one, a paper sack brown one, a nutmeg brown one, a yellow one and a red one. They would say their are five ni@@ers in here, string them up. But, what I remember most about that conversation is the last thing that he said, NEVER THINK THAT YOU ARE BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE, BUT REMEMBER THERE IS NOT A DAMN PERSON OUT THERE BETTER THAN YOU!!!!
That is how I live my life and hopefully you will too.
SAY IT LOUD I AM BLACK AND I AM PROUD!!

Tyra,
I am an 18 year old biracial (black and white) girl.
Although I share my black father and grandmothers features, I am strictly of my mothers skin tone.
I am watching your show as we speak and I am upset that there is nobody on there to represent my kind of skintone and ethnicity.
I have always been taught that I am just as black as I am white, but how could I really believe that when nobody represents us on the "white" based shows or the "black" based shows.
For me, being light skinned is the worst thing that could of happened to me. I feel alienated from my white friends because I am the token black girl, and I feel put down by the only five black friends that I have.

Hey Tyra,

My name is Sabrina and I am 21 yrs old . I loved your show today. It was very interesting to see that there is still so much racism even among the same race. I am mixed with black and white. people tell me that " you will never be black" I never understood what that meant. I am just myself and i Am proud of who I am. My mother is white and my dad is black. I have brothers who are white and some who are black( more like your skin tone)I love my family and where I come. I was once called the "N" word. It hurt very much I was a little girl only in the 4th grade. Many people think I am Hispanic because I am so so light. I think we all face problems in this world today. It just depends on how we deal with them. Thanks again for doing that show. People just need to accept others and love them for who they are. Keep up the good work girl!

YOU ARE A RACIST MS BANKS!!! PURE AND SIMPLE!!!
You just called an African American woman a 'slave masters dream'. You objectified her (and listen closely, objectification doesnt apply solely to a sexual nature) by saying that white slave masters separated black people to create her! YOU ARE A RACIST MS BANKS!!! PURE AND SIMPLE!!!

Dear Tyra:

I found this show very interesting, as I have three children who range from light to dark, however we are mexican. In the hispanic culture we have the same problem. My youngest daughter just had a baby about 8 months ago and just today we were looking at the video of her birth and my duaghter said "I was kind of sad because I thought that she was going to be dark like me". My children were the "focus" a genetics when my oldest daughter was in high school because her teacher used them as an example of how people could be from the same parents but get different charatisics from their parents. My husband was dark, but I am not so much, and our children range from light to dark. In Mexico blonde and fair skin people are given prefence.

Hi Tyra,
I am an olive skin woman 1/2 white, 1/2 Hungarian and I am always asked "what are you" geez, I'm of the human race isn't that obvious? I love your show and think that the controversial issues that you address need to be brought to the forefront and bravo to you! You are beautiful and so are all women of color. We should unite in sisterhood and not 'hate' because of the skin tone we wear. There is nothing we can do about it so why not just love ourselves and each other.
God Bless

hi
i'm a fifteen year old canadian and i am white. i really liked the show today. it really opened my eyes to a different kind of racism. i think alot about this issue and i have never thought twice about peoples skin colour until i hear all these comments like "white women steal our men" i just feel like it shouldn't even matter. Although i know it always will to some people. i wish there was no such thing as racism, all i can do is be the best person i know how to be!

TYRA, YOURE A RACIAL INSTIGATOR....SHAME ON YOU,..PLEASE STOP SEPARATING PEOPLE AND PITTING THEM AGAINST EACH OTHER!

HEY TYRA!!!
I watched your show today and i think it was very interesting! I am an olive skinned person myself but my face is lighter for some odd reason! Its not that noticible but it can be embarassing. Sometimes people will come up to me and eather compliment me on how they like it and ask if i go tanning since its still snowing here pretty much. Or they will say how i NEED to go tanning because of it being a little un even!! it makes me sad sometimes how people can be so judgemental on just the colour of your skin! Im not going to pretend im totally innocent because im not. To be honest i think darker skinnedpeople and GORGEOUS TYRA!!! JUST GORGEOUS!! Well i have to go but i will talk to you soon!! Hope you fufill your dream!!!

Love you loads!!!
Chance

hello,my name is destiny I am 13 years old and I am lightskin.I have been talked about before because of this.I really kind of wish I was darkskin.I feel they are more accepted.I feel dark skin people are more beautiful than lightskin people.

hello,my name is destiny I am 13 years old and I am lightskin.I have been talked about before because of this.I really kind of wish I was darkskin.I feel they are more accepted.I feel dark skin people are more beautiful than lightskin people.One time my darkskin best friend called me cracker house.I am used to it.

Tyra,
I watched the show today and it brought back mem-
mories of high school. I am considered brown skin. I
was excluded from clubs and
groups because of the color
of my skin.I would use make
up that was too light and I
tried to bleach my skin.My cousin cmae home for summer
vacation and she took me to
the fashion fair counter and bought me a case full of makeup and that made me feel better.you are who you
are and never feel ashame.
When I started dating for some reason I got attention
from men from other races or lighter complexion men.I
was at the club and this guy asked me what I had against black men and it made me feel awful.i realized skin is just skin and we all are beautiful in our own unique way.

Hi Tyra,
I just wanted to say that this was a good show. And when that light-skinned woman was talking about how she was better than that girl in the audience, I think you handled it calmly and definately the right way. I'm actually a light skinned black girl, but it disgusts me how some light skins think they're better than dark skins. It's just like racism.

Hey Tyra,
My name is Laura iam 18 and as white as they come, freckles and red hair.
and i have always wanted to be black, because the way i see it is they are strong and beautiful i have always been the little white girl with not enough boob or butt and i look like i have a strange disease that is taking over my skin..aka freckles.
so what im saying is the only reason why darker girls should have it harder i cause everyone else is jealous : ) cause i know iam

hi tyra.
i am a 16 year old light skinned girl. I have always been light and i was even asked when i was little if i was mixed when i have two black parents. i saw that you had two guests that were sisters but one was very light skinned and the other was dark. Well i have almost the same situation. I have a brother who is darker than me while of coarse i am light. In the summer, i turn a little darker, but i have this thing where i always wanted to be lighter. i was just talking about this with my mom and she asked me why and i was like i don't know. I have always been to schools where the majority where white and then you would have the darker black girls. I am not racist at all against my own race. I have friends of all races and i appreciate all of them, but when i see the darker skinned girls, they have this nasty attitude against me. I don't know whether or not it is cause i am light skinned. And when the women who where darker skinned say that light skinned girls get all the guys, i would say that it is a mis connotation cause i do not have guys coming after me or wanting to get to know me or what ever. i have friends who are guys, but no guys want to date me. I always see the darker skinned girls getting the guys. so i guess it is the other way around. i guess what i am saying is that we all have our own sayings of how the other race or the other type of skinned person has it better, but we all have problems that affect the other race one time or another.

Thanks tyra for doing this show. You are and will always be fierce! lol

Hi Tyra, I just want to say that I really enjoyed the show today I am a 21 year old black woman and I consider myself to be medium brown skinned. Some people have called me light skinned before, but I dont think I am. I'm a brown skinned girl with longer hair than most of the people I went to high school with and people used to say when they first met me they thought I was stuck up and that I thought I was all that and it was weird to me because I had always heard people say that about light skinned girls which I don't feel that I am. Once they got to know me tho they realized I was far from that. For someone to say that dark skinned people are uglier than light skinned black people are crazy, to me it's not about the color it's more about the features to me cause light skinned, brown skinned, and dark skinned can all have big noses, smal noses, full lips smaller lips, it really doesnt matter everyone is beautiful. We need to stop coming down on each other as black people and just love each other, because we get enough hate towards us from others.

I'am a hispanic and native amarican young woman and I always get hounded on by hispanic woman and men they would say that I was trying to be white not mexican, they would call me whitey (in spanish) and all kind of stuff that hurt me and my family too use to say that I was thinking white even now i would make it seem that it didnt hurt but it did..now that Im engaged they said that I think more white just becuase of my man is half germany and Irish/Canadin Indian... my mom didnt let me date anyone other then white men when I was is school...I had to only bring home blond white skin boy... to make things harder I was the only one in my family that didnt have a problem with skin color...my older brother when to school with me and anytime I was talking to a hispanic or dark skined boys my brother would get mad at me and tell my mom... I had to date a hipanic boy once when I was in school behind my familys back but I felt bad and broke up with him.. he's marryed now and happy...but I felt so bad for not telling that I told them after...Im happy with my man and were going to get marryed...my family is happy but my mom still thinks I act too white and said there different kind of family, they are different then hispanic family because of how they were raise up.. my mom loves to be hispanic..she would do anything to show how hispanic and how much she loves her race but not with me...I didnt like to spoke to much spanish and dress like that nether... I think of my self as different not on sides of hispanic or white but as a native american just becuase my mom makes me mad with me trying to be like her...she pushes race on me and I dont like it but I love her and I learn to deal with it...I am who I am nothing more nothing less just me!!

Hey Tyra! My name is Jasmyne and i'm 14 years old. I was watching the show today about do lighter skin black people have it easier? I think that black people shouldn't compare themselves with different shades of other black people because we are all the same no matter what shade we are. We shouldn't let the differences of shade make us feel less pretty or better than one another because that does not look good for our race. I'm medium tone and I don't think I'm better than someone darker than I am, my mama taught me better. I rrreally enjoy yo show!

Dear Ms. Banks and producers of the show,
I have just watched, with my two adult daughters, this episode. In appreciation of your illustrious career as a model and subsequently as a business woman with two successful shows, I'm suggesting that although you are an advocate for women of all skin tone and size, it is apparent to me, on a personal level, you are wearing blonde hair and have modified your nose. Is that not somewhat hypocritical based on your platform? If you truly believed that black women are all beautiful as you have stated many times on your show, then why have you personally failed to embrace your natural born physical beauty? This is not an attempt to criticize or challenge your choices. It is a legitimate observation and I would appreciate a legitimate response. I wish you continued success on your personal platforms and I will continue to admire your body of work.
Respectfully,
Ricki

Tyra,
Hello. I want to comment on your show about light/dark skinned women. One element I wanted to mention is that I did not know how extreme African Americans separate themselves or relate identity to their skin color among them. With this being said, I do not believe that racism towards women/men in their community relates to the days of slavery. We are living in the twenty-second century, and by adressing the issues such as race, I feel that you constantly bring up being "white" is better which implants a negative message to young girls everywhere.

I also wanted to comment on how you literally called out the woman, Tamara when she said she did not get along with dark skinned women. You then asked her to really dig deep inside on why she feels that way. Now, I ask myself, would you be saying that same comment if the woman did not like light skinned women? No, I think not. I also wanted to say how rude you were to say that she was the white man's blessing because of her comment. Women are women, and there is always going to be jealousy or maybe something you do not like about others. To blame racism within the own black community on the "white man" in the year 2008 is just ridiculous! We are all grown up, and we all understand how having confidence in yourself is the key to happiness. Parental values and experience also relates to how a person might feel about another different than them.

I also wanted to comment on your comment about the white people separating black people accordance to color. In actuality, the Europeans separated Africans in accordance to language/tribe so no men or women would be able to speak and understand the other. Tyra, yes what happened in the 16-early 1800s was horrible, but many people other than Africans were also enslaved. Many tribes also in Africa would catch other tribal members who were weaker and sell them to the Europeans. Also, it was not just America. I feel that the issue of slavery is constantly being thrown back in our faces. Tyra, you are an American! Being an American is what counts. I say, be proud who you are and do not focus so much on color. And most of all, be proud you are an American woman!

Tyra,
I wish you would have shows that emphasize love, happiness, education, and respect. No more sex shows, he-she shows, race shows, etc. Women and men in this country need to view substantial and valid ideas that can HELP an individual in bettering themselves and their community.
Thank you.