Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 8 hours ago
Get behind the scenes and early access at patreon.com/NYTN (patreon.com/NYTN)
My great gram "never went into the sun." That's what my family told me.
This episode digs into two of the most insidious tools that colorism produced in American history---the paper bag test and the pencil test. One measured your skin. One measured your hair. Both measured your "worth".
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
•
Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson & Ronald Hall — The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color in a New Millennium (foundational text on colorism in Black America)
•
Audrey Elisa Kerr — The Paper Bag Principle: Class, Colorism, and Rumor in the Case of Black Washington, D.C.
•
Marita Golden — Don't Play in the Sun: One Woman's Journey Through the Color Complex
•
For the pencil test in South African apartheid context: Toni Strasburg's documented research on racial classification boards
Get behind the scenes and early access at patreon.com/NYTN (patreon.com/NYTN)
My great gram "never went into the sun." That's what my family told me.
This episode digs into two of the most insidious tools that colorism produced in American history---the paper bag test and the pencil test. One measured your skin. One measured your hair. Both measured your "worth".
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
•
Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson & Ronald Hall — The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color in a New Millennium (foundational text on colorism in Black America)
•
Audrey Elisa Kerr — The Paper Bag Principle: Class, Colorism, and Rumor in the Case of Black Washington, D.C.
•
Marita Golden — Don't Play in the Sun: One Woman's Journey Through the Color Complex
•
For the pencil test in South African apartheid context: Toni Strasburg's documented research on racial classification boards
