Skin tone schism continues to haunt African-American community [Video]

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — As legend has it, if a person’s skin is darker than a brown paper bag, that person was unwanted in certain — to use the term of the era — Negro circles.

Decades after the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the vestiges of slavery have produced an intractable climate where melanin still matters. The people of the African Diaspora, and even people in a single family, have skin tones that resemble the lightest of cafe au lait to a rich espresso. The biracial, including 10 On Your Side’s Aesia Toliver, often experience colorism that cuts both ways.

“So it was hard finding a place where I felt like I fit in having my mother white and my father black,” Toliver said. “It was like when I would hang out with the White kids, I felt like I wasn’t quite White enough. When I would hang out with the Black kids. I wasn’t quite …