Interrogando la gramática racial de la blanquitud: Hacia una analítica del blanqueamiento en el orden racial Colombiano

Abstract

This article studies individuals’ perceptions of their skin color as an ideological dimension of whitening. Using binomial logistic regression models with a representative national sample of the AmericasBarometer in Colombia, we ask whether there is an association between ethnoracial categories, skin color, social status, and individual desire for lighter skin color, and, if so, what explains that desire in the heart of a racialized society. This study, after controlling for skin color, finds that individuals who self-identify as white rather than black are more likely to desire a lighter skin. In addition, those with intermediate skin tone also have a greater desire to be lighter. Results show that for self-identified black people in Colombia, whitening seems not to constitute an escape hatch from historical and structural processes of social marginalization or a strategy of evading practices of racial discrimination.