I have both dark-skinned and light-skinned Black children, and although we at home were sensitive to the issues of colourism, it did not stop the wider society from viewing and treating them differently.

For example, in my earlier years when we used to house street children, all of my direct biological children liked playing with them; they became close friends, but that did not stop the street-children from taking a special liking to my lighter-skinned children.

Another example: Some street-children would go to 'my' children's school at lunch time to chat or play like children do, but the principal called us in one day to lodge a complaint that they saw our fairer-skinned daughter chatting with a dirty Black boy at lunch time. They thought nothing of it when the blacker ones did that all the time, but because of conditioning it rubbed them wrong when the fairer one did it. Well I did go to the school and set them straight on their poor awareness.

Colourism is usually first played out in the homes of families, and as much as parents do about it, the children still have to face a wider society who relate to them differently.

Having said all of this, I am very much aware that the lighter children do not get the depth of the issues as the darker ones, who because of direct wider social experiences can easily empathize with other darker-skinned ones, and can explain many of these things quite easily. Anyhow, they are all young adults now.

Of course, the lighter ones do not look forward to leading any Black Movement, and I doubt the darker ones feel that way either, as they were conditioned by how we did things here, and they know that we did not take leadership roles ourselves when helping others. They are used to how we valued service, and the promotion of affected victims to lead and directly benefit from their struggles. It is for that reason many people will not know of the projects that we helped develop. Unless people directly know the key people who lead the certain organizations, they will not know that we supported them to reach where they are. I am suggesting that this is a better way of conduct.

If everyone considers supporting people whom they perceive as being more affected by the ills in a system, and helping them forward to lead the struggle for reform, then that is revolutionary. This way the worst victims of the system get the support needed to build confidence, and to articulate their own issues, and of course, the material rewards and recognition for so doing.

In my view, this method works well with justice.