Ex-Husband of Tina Knowles-Lawson and father to Beyonce and Solange, Matthew Knowles revealed in an interview that he initially approached Tina because he thought she was white.
The two have since divorced, but speaking in a now deleted interview with Ebony, Matthew said that he had an ingrained perception of colourism.
“When I was growing up, my mother used to say, ‘Don’t ever bring no nappy-head Black girl to my house,'” he said. “In the deep South in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, the shade of your blackness was considered important. So I, unfortunately, grew up hearing that message.”
He also recounted how the issue of colourism was ingrained into society and even schools didn’t take in students that weren’t the right shade of black.
He recounted an experience he faced in Fisk college; “They had a colourism issue there. I was in the last class where they’d take out a brown paper bag, and if you were darker than the bag, you could not get into Fisk.”
On his dating life and how colourism affected it, he said; “One day I had a breakthrough. I used to date mainly white women or very high-complexion black women that looked white… I had been conditioned from childhood. Within eroticized rage, there was actual rage in me as a black man, and I saw the white female as a way, subconsciously, of getting even or getting back.”
He added, “I actually thought when I met Tina, my former wife, that she was white. Later I found out that she wasn’t, and she was actually very much in-tune with her blackness.”
He also pointed out how colourism is still a problem today pointing out that the most popular stars are a lighter shade of black. He said; “I challenge my students at Texas Southern to think about this. When it comes to Black females, who are the people who get their music played on pop radio? Mariah Carey, Rihanna, the female rapper Nicki Minaj, my kids, and what do they all have in common?”
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