Paper Bag Party

Paper bag parties are African-American social events at which only individuals with complexions at least as light as the color of a brown paper bag were admitted. The term also refers to larger issues of class and caste within the African-American population.

From 1900 until about 1950 in the larger black neighborhoods of major American cities, "paper bag parties" are said to have taken place. Some organizations used the "brown paper bag" principle as a test for entrance. People at many churches, fraternities and nightclubs would take a brown paper bag and hold it against a person's skin. If a person was lighter or the same color as the bag, he or she was admitted. People whose skin was not lighter than a brown paper bag were denied entry.

There is, too, a curious color dynamic that sadly persists in our culture. In fact, New Orleans invented the brown paper bag party — usually at a gathering in a home — where anyone darker than the bag attached to the door was denied entrance. The brown bag criterion survives as a metaphor for how the black cultural elite quite literally establishes caste along color lines within black life.

This is one of the ways that blacks with European ancestry (so called 'High-Yellow Negroes' or Creoles in Louisiana) attempted to isolate and distinguish themselves from those who were mostly African.

Even in contemporary American society, psychological studies have shown African-American and white participants both demonstrate colorism, in which they perceive light-skinned blacks to be smarter, wealthier, and happier than those of darker skin.

 Started up a blog on these topics a few years ago. It's a shame. Believe a lot of non-sense started like that because of mulattoes or light skin women being excluded or treated as outsiders for the longest within their community. Am not saying that it was right, but I believe that is why it happened. We have always had a wall between the dark and light in our community. We did not put it there, but we must tear it down.