Same Family, Different Colors

Confronting Colorism in America's Diverse Families

Author  Lori L. Tharps
Same Family, Different Colors

Weaving together personal stories, history, and analysis, Same Family, Different Colors explores the myriad ways skin-color politics affect family dynamics in the United States.

Colorism and color bias—the preference for or presumed superiority of people based on the color of their skin—is a pervasive and damaging but rarely openly discussed phenomenon. In this unprecedented book, Lori L. Tharps explores the issue in African American, Latino, Asian American, and mixed-race families and communities by weaving together personal stories, history, and analysis. The result is a compelling portrait of the myriad ways skin-color politics affect family dynamics in the United States.

Tharps, the mother of three mixed-race children with three distinct skin colors, uses her own family as a starting point to investigate how…