OWN's Black Love receives backlash for the absence of dark-skinned Black women in Season 4 promo

The Grapevine

The OWN relationship docuseries was immediately called out Friday after posting a promo devoid of dark-skinned Black women. "Though previous seasons of the show have featured relationships which include prominent dark-skinned women, like Viola Davis and Ryan Michelle Bathe, the tone-deaf trailer felt like a confirmation of a truth dark-skinned Black women (like myself) know from lived experience: colorism exists, and one of its many functions is to tell us implicitly and often explicitly that we don’t deserve to be loved by men who look like us," says Ishena Robinson. "Another way that colorism functions and is perpetuated in our communities is through the denial that it exists in the first place and is not only about preferences but is also about racism. Ironically, this is similar to the gaslighting that white people like to practice when Black people say that racism is still a thing that impacts our lives (or not so ironically, since colorism is a branch from the racist tree)."