Paper Bag Party

The Brown Paper Bag Test was a type of racial discrimination in the United States. A brown paper bag was used as a way to determine whether or not an individual could have certain privileges; only individuals with a skin color that is the same color or lighter than a brown paper bag were allowed. The test was used in the 20th century within many social institutions such as African-American sororities, fraternities, and churches. In addition, brown paper bags were used in multi-racial social events. The term is also used in reference to larger issues of class and social stratification within the African-American population. The Brown Paper Bag Test arose from the practice of discrimination based on skin color.

Privilege has long been associated with skin tone in the African-American community. This is related to the enslavement of individuals based on race. Mixed-race children of white fathers were sometimes given ranging from more desirable work, apprenticeships or formal education, allocation of property, or even freedom from enslavement. African Americans "contributed to colorism because they have benefited from the privilege of having a skin color closer to that of Whites and have embraced the notion that privilege comes with having light skin in America". Free people of color were accorded certain social and economic advantages over darker-skinned people of color, even while suffering discrimination. According to Gordon, "light-skinned blacks formed exclusive clubs" after slavery was abolished in the United States. Some clubs were called "Blue Vein Societies", suggesting that if an individual's skin was light enough to show the blue cast of veins, they had more European ancestry (and, therefore, higher social standing.) Such discrimination was resented by African Americans with darker complexions. According to Henry Louis Gates Jr., in his book The Future of the Race (1996), the practice of the brown paper bag test may have originated in New Orleans, LA, where there was a substantial third class of free people of color dating from the French colonial era. The test was related to ideas of beauty, in which some people believed that lighter skin and more European features, in general, were more attractive.

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