By Sage Howard
When news broke earlier this year that the AI-generated robot rapper FN Meka had “signed” with Capitol Records Music Group, social media nearly exploded. With all of the exceptional living and breathing talent in the United States, it defied logic for a major record label to give a sims-like character a chance that human artists would kill for. A quick glance at any content featuring the character revealed that the move was, once again, about the profitability of Black culture, aided by damaging stereotypes about my community.
TK Saccoh, founder of The Darkest Hue, an Instagram account designed to create community and call out colorism, used her social page to start a crucial conversation in the days following the hype, which ended with FN Meka being dropped after a day of social media backlash: “Are Black people just virtual beings?” she asked her followers. Saccoh argues that the perpetuation of light-skin bias is evolving in an insidious way using the examples of FN Meka and other famous avatars such as Shudu.
FN Meka is a rapper created by artificial intelligence
FN Meka’s virtual presence triggered me right away. It reminded me of when a therapist asked me how I would feel if my skin colour was the reason I wasn’t getting the same opportunities as my white and lighter-skinned BIPOC counterparts. I’m still not sure if she was expressing her own discriminatory beliefs or simply being honest about how colorism affects people with skin darker than her own.
Our society appears to thrive on the illusion of equality in 2022. Colorism from within and without one’s community, and recognising it as anti-blackness, feels like a gut punch that leaves me quietly gasping for air. It’s a difficult experience to describe, so most people avoid doing so.
“Colorism is extremely isolating. So many other people are going through it, but there’s a stigma attached to being vulnerable about it. “You just suppress it and keep it to yourself,” Saccoh explained when I asked her why she chose to focus her online presence on combating colorism.
Saccoh created the profile two years ago to provide a safe space for Black and brown dark-skinned women to discuss their experiences, after discovering that they were underrepresented on social media.
“I’d scroll, scroll, scroll, and I’d see one type of Black person or one type of racially ambiguous person,” she explained. “I began curating my feed after discovering dark skin girls, and my feed quickly became filtered to serve me and my needs.”
There is an overabundance of a “certain type of Black girl.” Of course, this was on purpose. Saccoh created her Instagram account to foster community and to call attention to colorism. Saccoh created her Instagram account to foster community and to call attention to colorism.
Saccoh, now 22, immigrated to the United States from Sierra Leone when she was five years old, first to Washington state (where she recalls her first encounter with observable racism) and then to Philadelphia when she was eight years old. She recalls looking forward to being in spaces with people who looked like her before moving, but she soon found herself on the receiving end of dark-skin and xenophobic jokes from other Black people.
“There was no need to read between the lines because I would get very explicit comments from classmates like, ‘oh you’re too Black, you’re ugly,'” said Saccoh. She also became more aware of the widespread use of bleaching cream in her home country of Sierra Leone around this time. “I internalized these things even before I knew what colorism was.”
As an adult, I still struggle to find words to describe colorism when I encounter it, and I frequently wonder if I am overreacting. When discussing colorism, a common misconception is that it is based on “preference,” making it difficult to identify. However, preferring lighter skin is an indelible symptom of a colonized mind in which Eurocentric beauty standards reign supreme and darker-hued skin is regarded as unattractive.
Dr. Seanna Leath, an assistant professor of psychology and brain science at Washington State University in St. Louis, highlights colorism’s origins as a tool used by white supremacists during slavery to sow discord among enslaved people.
“These were activities like only allowing lighter skin people to work inside the house, or giving lighter skin people certain privileges, which then led to a split among Black people,” Leath explained.
The stench of these white-centric practices, however, persists in the content we consume today, from music to beauty tutorials teaching us how to contour our noses to look smaller.
“When you ask how colorism varies from racism, I think you’re trying to tap into the notion that colorism exists within the Black community and other minority groups, where Black people can’t be racist towards other Black people, but we can show prejudicial beliefs or bias towards one another,” Leath said.
This intra-racial prejudice is just one of the pressing issues that Saccoh hopes to address through her platform.
“It started with me just talking about colorism, but I think colorism is a good starting point for us to talk about other intra-racial violence,” Saccoh explained. Sexism, featurism, fatphobia, queerphobia, ableism, and other forms of violence are examples of this. “It’s been really interesting to have this somewhat controversial digital space, but I think that’s why my space is unique because there’s a lot of accountability building.”
Because of the ways colorism affects people in real life, it is critical to foster open dialogues about it. These biases are frequently visible not only on Instagram and TikTok, but also in the lack of access to safety, education, and care for dark-skinned women, the poor, queer, fat, and disabled people. The most recent trending example is the case of Pieper Lewis, a 17-year-old girl who was ordered by Iowa courts to pay $150,000 in restitution for killing her accused rapist.
Saccoh’s platform highlights the toxic complexities that result in such negative outcomes. “I’ve been able to highlight the interpersonal struggles of dark-skinned women and girls, as well as the structural consequences,” she said.
Sage Howard, the author, says she still struggles to find words to describe colorism when she encounters it, and she frequently wonders if she’s overreacting.
Growing up, I first became aware of colorism while sitting in a hair salon and discussing what I saw with my grandmother, an Afro-Latina from Panama. I used to tell her how the women in the salon treated clients with darker skin tones and complexions as if they were a burden, so while women with lighter skin and looser curls were treated tenderly and were prioritized over other clients.
My grandmother would listen and tell similar stories, specifically about catching people in Spanish speaking negatively about her or other people of colour. “Sé leerlo, escribirlo, y hablarlo,” she would say when people were surprised that she understood.
When something as toxic as white and light-skinned supremacy is a part of your childhood, it leaves a suffocating legacy. These feelings are complicated in the digital age by the notion that an algorithm determines everything. How do you fight a monster that is right in front of you? The birth of FN Meka, for Saccoh, was a timely and critical opportunity to call it out.
Factory New, which claimed to be a futuristic music company, created the computer-generated rapper who amassed millions of TikTok followers and views. When the deal was announced, Ryan Ruden, Capitol Music Group’s executive vice president of experiential marketing and business development, told Music Business World that FN Meka is “just a preview of what’s to come.”
“Think about the biggest stars in the world,” former Factory New co-founder Anthony Martini said. “How many of them are merely commercial vehicles?” When you consider FN Meka’s content: video game-like reenactments littered with harsh stereotypes about Black people, the n-word, and disturbing depictions of things like police brutality, these comments are nothing short of shocking.
Saccoh expresses what we were feeling in one post. She emphasises how technology is reducing, and sometimes erasing, the identities of people with brown skin to empty vessels used to produce products that benefit non-Black people. She also discusses how the internet has made surveillance of darker skin communities, the spread of stereotypes, and the exploitation of darker-skinned bodies more common.