The women in this group had varied experiences, but their overall experience
included three themes. The first is that their achievements had been reduced or denigrated due to their complexion or perceived level of attractiveness. As a group, they felt that 41 people made assumptions about their character, based solely on their complexion. They also reported feeling animosity from their darker skinned counterparts, which has influenced the way they relate to both dark and light skinned African Americans and people of other races. The women in this group also desired to be seen as individuals and not as a stereotype. They wanted the group to understand that although some women born with similar phenotypic traits utilize them as a form of social capital, not all women with lighter skin act that way. There was a point for the members of this group where they began to resent their “socially desirable” features, as the perception of those features had an impact on their relationships with significant other (friends, romantic partners, family members). Women in this group also reported that they have been racially misclassified Bi-racial, Hispanic, Caucasian) at some point, or had their racial identification questioned based on skin tone.