defined to fight
There’s a word for that urge to straighten your hair before a job interview. Or the feeling you get when your mom makes a comment about how dark you’ve gotten. You don’t have to learn the word colorism to feel it. But you do in order to fight it.
We worked with a non-profit to help women of color (WOC) at UT to define colorism for themselves, create spaces for them to discover community, and heal.
CW/AD: Ramsay Campbell & Me
Case Study Video
In case you want to watch the campaign instead of reading it
Anthem Video
The first thing you'll see on the site is the anthem video, where many Women of Color face a camera and read their definition of colorism and resolve to fight it. The spot reads as follows:
COLORISM
It’s an idea.
It’s a feeling.
It’s a consequence.
It’s aunts pushing you to get plastic surgery.
It’s relaxing your hair
so your employer can relax.
When a guy calls you pretty for a dark skinned girl.
It’s bleaching your skin and then watching your parents swoon
over your light-skinned sibling.
It’s waking up thinking you’re not good enough.
So it’s about time we call it what it is.
Defining it
in our own terms,
on our own terms.
That way
we know it’s name
when we fight it,
and finally,
when we kill it.
THE COLOR COMPLEX
DEFINED TO FIGHT.
SEM/SEO
White defaultness in media is just one example of how colorism rears its ugly head. Google the phrase “beautiful woman.” I’ll bet you see mostly if not all white women. We’ll use SEM/SEO to place WOC holding their definition of colorism into these google searches to call out the issue and add representation.
Definition GIFs
We also created Gifs of their definitions for Instagram and Pinterest, since colorist ideas are rampant on these sites.
Creating a Hub for Discussion
We rework the site to make it a hub for all things colorism. On the landing page you're greeted by definitions of colorism that were written using the different stories that The Color Complex gathered through their research.
You are also immediately given access to our discord, a place where conversations about colorism are centralized and communities can intersect.
Fighting
The "FIGHT" section of the site will be used to rally the community and make change. Here's one challenge we'd take on.
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Surprise and Fight
We have to acknowledge the people who are already educating others and combating colorism using their social media presence. We’ll send them a megaphone so they can continue amplifying their voice on and off-screen, along with a personalized note, thanking them for their activism.
museum of color
Separate from this campaign, I had the honor of helping with a small activation for The Color Complex on UT campus called The Museum of Color. I was not a copywriter or creative on this project, I helped plan the opening night. I just think it's too cool not to share what others on this team have been working on.
The Museum looks to bring the abstraction of colorism to an arresting physical form, displaying a collection of otherwise mundane objects that each speak to an individual’s history with colorism. The first hair straightener, a sea of unused nail colors, a weathered umbrella: these unassuming pieces unravel in the intimate stories that accompany them, written and contributed by local Austinites.
The exhibit provides patrons with a less academic, more familiar avenue for deeply understanding colorism and identifying its presence in their own lives. In addition to viewing the stories of others, an interactive element welcomes patrons to add their own artifacts to the Museum’s collection in real time.
Team: Kiana Fernandez, Henry Youtt, Rebecca Chen, Christina Cho, Vida Nwadiei, Timia Bethea, Sarang Kim, Madison Cooper, Erika Kim, Kasey Brown, and the other UT faculty and students that had a hand in this project.
If you wanna learn more about the team or the event, check out this article, their IG, and the color complex website.
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