1,064-word article discussing colorism. Cites reason why the Willie Lynch syndrome used to create division within the African American Community is still in effect. Written by Valerie D. Lockhart, publisher and executive editor of the Detroit Native Sun. She has over 20 years’ experience as a newspaper editor and was the former Associate Editor of the Michigan Chronicle, the state’s oldest African American owned newspaper. She has won several awards in journalism that includes the Lincoln University Unity Awards in Media.
 
PREVIEW:
     The rotting corpse of a black man hung from a tree amongst a mid-summer breeze, as townsmen walked by ignoring its sight and odor. 
    Visiting from a plantation in the British West Indies, a stranger met up with a group of men gathered nearby along the bank of the James River.
    “I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree a couple of miles back,” he said. “You are not only losing a valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit, you suffer occasional fires, (and) your animals are killed.”
     The man then went on to offer a solution for retaining their “valuable” property that would reap profits for at least 300 years.
    “I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves, and I will take these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust and envy for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies, and it will work throughout the South,” the stranger explained.  “You must use the dark skin slaves versus the light skin slaves and the light skin slaves versus the dark skin slaves. You must use the female versus the male, and the male versus the female. You must also have your white servants and overseers distrust all blacks, but it is necessary that your slaves trust and depend on us. They must love, respect and trust only us.”
      William Lynch delivered that speech in 1712, over 300 years ago.
      But, did his formula work, and is it still in effect in today?
     Using colorism, dark vs. light skin, Lynch maintained division among his slaves. Colorism is still a hot topic today.