Talk:Brown paper bag test/Archive 1

[untitled section]
excerpt from 'The paper bag principle : Of the myth and the motion of colorism:'
 * One of the first contemporary legends I collected was from a young lawyer who attended Howard University Law School in the mid 1980s. She recalled that classmates (mostly native Washingtonians) called "the beautiful people" had organized an on-campus invitation-only graduation party that they named a "paper bag party," a term indicating that the affair was limited to their circle of friends (most of whom were fair in complexion).

JayW 23:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Needs more substance
This overlooks so much about education and economics, as well as the more complex history of different parts of the US, such as the French, Spanish and African development of multi-layered Creole society in LA before the Americans. All those contributed to the association of lighter skin with privilege, as did the fact that often the lighter skinned slaves were children of the master or his son. That was sometimes the beginning of privilege and some education or apprenticeship. But there is much more than color behind this.--Parkwells (talk) 14:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Ches. Bay Colony
I think you are referring to the Province of Maryland and the colony of Virginia. There never was, to my knowledge, a "Chesapeake Bay Colony." 99.173.128.16 (talk) 21:50, 12 July 2009 (UTC)SJH

Picture of the paper bag
Maybe the article needs a picture of bag in question? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vi2 (talk • contribs) 18:43, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

General Comments
I think "discrimination actions" in your lead should be changed to discriminating acts; Discrimination actions sounds odd? Also, a more in depth discussion/information on colorism and its roots would provide a better understanding of the paper brown bag test. Also, inclusion of its affects in the 21st century and its affects on blacks esteem and how it still affects how society looks at certain blacks would be great information to provide to give the article more substance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Taqiyyah14 (talk • contribs) 05:19, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Book cover images
I am concerned that these do not appear to meet the fair use criteria. There are references to the books in the text, but the images of the covers do not contribute to the discussion. Fair use applies only to the extent that the images are necessary or significantly beneficial to the discussion. The article would not suffer at all if they were removed, so this appears to be an inappropriate claim of fair use. GaryColemanFan (talk) 18:00, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Urban Myth
This tale has all the hallmarks of a classic urban myth. Therefore may I suggest a link to urban myths. Cassandra.


 * Agreed. Instead of citing statistics or even verifiable anecdotes, the article presents weasel words language like "was believed by many to be used" and "are said to have taken place".
 * And most of the body of the article is off-topic anyway, talking about racial discrimination in general (which is already covered better in other articles) rather than about the Paper Bag Test.
 * --2A02:8071:3190:7D00:79E7:E8B9:520D:6E99 (talk) 16:57, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Contradictions
''The Brown Paper Bag Test in African-American oral history was a form of racial discrimination practiced by white America in the 20th century. Whites compared an African-American's skin tone to the color of a brown paper bag.''

The start of the articles describes the test as a discriminatory practice by white against black people. The rest of the article says it's black on black discrimination. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.24.238.121 (talk) 10:51, 25 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree. I was going to fix the introduction... but I was actually afraid of being accused of racism.  Nevertheless... the intro does obviously need to be fixed to reflect the actual substance of the article.  I'm just hesitant to be the one to do it. --Bzzzing (talk) 20:06, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

makes no sense
Why would 'African American Societies' exclude anyone darker than the brown paper bag? That's what the first section says. Gomez2002 (talk) 16:34, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
 * that's exactly what it means. light-skinned african americans wanted to hang out with other light-skinned african americans and sought to exclude DARKER african americans.  there is a long history of such attitudes, but whether or not the paper bag test was every really used (or just urban legend) is a bit iffy.  and NO (to the poster below), whites weren't involved in this.  "paper bag test" is re: black-on-black discrimination.  66.30.47.138 (talk) 09:53, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

"Within" the African-American Community?
I (white) had always heard of this test as being used during the segregation era by whites as a means to exclude African-Americans from areas of public life (churches, voting, etc). So I was quite surprised to find this page has no mention of that, and instead concerns only a single instance in the 1960s of intra-racial exclusion at an isolated private function.

I imagine that most are much more familiar with the former usage, and I think this article should be updated to cater towards those readers too... If it is really an urban legend, then some discussion of that in the header should be done. Where did the idea originate, and why, and is it really fictional? And if it's true, then THAT should be the focus of the article instead, as it would be far more egregious than the incident documented here.

Unfortunately I don't have the time to do this myself today but I think it would be a valuable direction to take the article, esp. considering some of the other entries on the Talk page as well as the page edit history: I'm clearly not the only one with the same confusion.

Hornpipe2 (talk) 19:21, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
 * see above. whites are not involved in this.  66.30.47.138 (talk) 09:55, 23 January 2021 (UTC)