Antillean folklore and mate-choice rules enforce avoidance of the darkest skin

Evidence

We are thus put on notice that what Mayotte wants is a kind of lactification. For, in a word, the race must be whitened; every woman in Martinique knows this, says it, repeats it. Whiten the race, save the race, but not in the sense that one might think: not “preserve the uniqueness of that part of the world in which they grew up,” but make sure that it will be white. … It is always essential to avoid falling back into the pit of niggerhood, and every woman in the Antilles, whether in a casual flirtation or in a serious affair, is determined to select the least black of the men. — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 171 (#expands, via linked claim)

At the age of twenty–at the time, that is, when the collective unconscious has been more or less lost, or is resistant at least to being raised to the conscious level–the Antillean recognizes that he is living an error. Why is that? Quite simply because–and this is very important–the Antillean has recognized himself as a Negro, but, by virtue of an ethical transit, he also feels (collective unconscious) that one is a Negro to the degree to which one is wicked, sloppy, malicious, instinctual. Everything that is the opposite of these Negro modes of behavior is white. This must be recognized as the source of Negrophobia in the Antillean. — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 671 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Antillean morality requires erasing blackness from consciousness; Martinican folk humor codified the absurdity of dark skin in a white world; Mixed-light complexions gain economic and social status in colonial societies (+4 more)

Related

• Martinican folk humor codified the absurdity of dark skin in a white world (similarity 0.90)
• Antillean morality requires erasing blackness from consciousness (similarity 0.88)
• Antillean women seek whiteness through desiring lighter-skinned partners (similarity 0.86)
• Antillean women pursue lactification to bleach the race itself, not preserve it (similarity 0.85)
• Educated Black men reject darker compatriots by marrying toward whiteness (similarity 0.84)
• The Antillean’s unconscious is populated entirely by white archetypes (similarity 0.82)
• Antillean Negrophobia stems from equating blackness with immorality via ‘ethical transit’ (similarity 0.82)
• The Antillean is made white by unconscious processes while lacking white skin (similarity 0.81)
• In the Antilles, perception of people always occurs in white terms (similarity 0.80)
• Antilleans internalize European archetypes such that their anima and animus are white (similarity 0.80)
• The Martinican compares with peers through the white man as standard (similarity 0.79)
• The Antillean’s Negrophobia springs from an internalized white moral code (similarity 0.79)
• Education and refinement could qualify blackness in Antillean social judgment (similarity 0.79)
• Antilleans going to France to confirm whiteness instead encounter their blackness. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Antillean women seek whiteness through desiring lighter-skinned partners #expands (0.80) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 171
• Mixed-light complexions gain economic and social status in colonial societies #complicates (0.60)
• Antillean Negrophobia stems from equating blackness with immorality via ‘ethical transit’ #expands (0.60) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 671
• Education and refinement could qualify blackness in Antillean social judgment #qualifies (0.55) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 995
• Blackness symbolizes Evil and Ugliness in white thought #corroborates (0.50)