We're still enslaved.

The question at hand is, "How are we still I'm not referring to the whipping of colored people, I'm talking about the institutionalized slavery, I'm talking about the brainwashing of young people in history class, I'm talking about how majority of the laws made are for the majority and not for the minority.

Institutionalized means established in practice or custom. Slavery means a person who is a legal property of another and is forced to obey them. So, institutionalized slavery means the practice of making a person legal property and forcing them to obey you.

What I mean by " We're still enslaved" it all comes down to how we want to look on the outside , but it all had to start from inside.

skin color is a complex topic.

Whenever a black celebrity lightens his or her skin – whether it’s pop star Michael Jackson, retired baseball player Sammy Sosa or rapper Nicki Minaj – they’re usually greeted with widespread ridicule. Some accuse them of self-loathing, while many in the African-American community view it as a rejection of black identity.

Increasing numbers of mixed-race births have further complicated matters, with light-skinned blacks occasionally being accused of not being “black enough.”

At the same time, The New York Times recently detailed the growing popularity of glutathione treatments. The antioxidant, which is administered intravenously, can deactivate the enzyme that produces darker skin pigments.

As someone who has studied about the issue of skin color and black identity , I believe the rise of glutathione treatments – in addition to the growing use of various bleaching creams – reveal a taboo that African-Americans are certainly aware of, but loathe to admit.

Though they might criticize lighter-skinned black people, many people of color – deep down – abhor dark skin. This is why I say " we're still enslaved" here we have blacks who wanting to be lighter in complexion why? They were told that they were ugly by the slave master so, from this straightening of hair , wearing of wigs etc.

There are few places in the world where dark skin isn’t stigmatized.

Many Latin American countries have laws and policies in place to prevent discrimination relative to skin color. In many Native American communities, “Red-Black Cherokees” were denied acceptance into the tribe, while those with lighter skin were welcomed.

But it is in Asia where dark skin has seen the longest and most intense level of stigma. In India, dark-skinned Dalits, for thousands of years, were viewed as “untouchables.” Today, they’re still stigmatized. In Japan, long before the first Europeans arrived, dark skin was stigmatized. According to Japanese tradition, a woman with fair skin compensates for “seven blemishes.”

The United States has its own complicated history with skin color, primarily because “mulatto” skin – not quite black, but not quite white – often arose out of mixed-race children conceived between slaves and slave masters.

In America, these variations in complexions produced an unspoken hierarchy: Black people with lighter complexions ended up being granted some of the rights of the master class. By early 19th century, the “mulatto hypothesis” emerged, arguing that the “white blood” of light-skinned slaves made them smarter, more civilized and better looking.

It’s probably no coincidence that light-skinned blacks emerged as leaders in the black community: To white power brokers, they were less threatening. Harvard’s first black graduate was the fair-skinned W.E.B. Du Bois. Some of the most prominent black politicians – from former New Orleans Mayor Ernest Morial, to former Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder, to former President Barack Obama – have lighter skin.

The bleaching syndrome has three components. The first is psychological: This involves self-rejection of dark skin and other native characteristics.

Second, it’s sociological, in that it influences group behavior (hence the phenomenon of black celebrities bleaching their skin).

The final aspect is physiological. The physiological is not limited to just bleaching the skin. It can also mean altering hair texture and eye color to mimic the dominant group. The rapper Lil’ Kim, in addition to lightening her skin, has also changed her eye color and altered her facial features. The fact that so few in mainstream culture can even acknowledge the existence of the bleaching syndrome is a testament to how taboo the topic is.

The solution to the bleaching syndrome is political. The disdain for dark skin today is similar to disdain for kinky hair in the 1960s. African-Americans’ dislike of their natural hair was so ingrained that the first black millionaire, Madam C.J. Walker, was able to accumulate her fortune by selling hair-straightening products to black folks.

“Black is Beautiful” – a slogan popularized at the tail end of the 1960s – was a political statement that sought to upend the negative associations many Americans, including many African-Americans, felt toward all things black. In response, the Afro became a popular hairstyle, and black entertainers, from Sammy Davis Jr. to Lou Rawls, proudly grew out their hair, refusing to apply hair straightening products.

“Back to Black” – a nod to the “Black is Beautiful” campaign – is a political statement that could address the impulse many feel to bleach their dark skin. It has the potential to reverse the disdain for such skin and hence those so characterized. Even black celebrities who possess fair skin could help glamorize dark skin by repeating the slogan and paying tribute to the numerous dark-skinned beauties whose attractiveness goes seldom acknowledged: Lupita Nyong’o, Gabrielle Union and Janelle Monae.

These dark-skinned black women would qualify as beautiful by any standards – regardless of skin color.