Claire thought that “pale” was a color. She described it to me as a “light pink-peach”. I told her “pale” wasn’t an actual color, more of a tone or shade description. She then asked, “Then why do only people who have light pink-peach skin keep saying they wish they weren’t so ‘pale’?”
Good question. I have often wondered this myself.
After she and I clarified the color issue, we talked about this other issue – this very common statement. I too have heard MANY Caucasian people say that about their skin tone. And I don’t know that I completely understand it. I do get the aspect of not wanting to sunburn so easily. That seems really practical. You want to be outside and not have to worry about getting immediately fried. Makes sense.
But somehow I don’t think the reasons for the statement end there.
And yet, I actually can’t think of why else a light-skinned person would say they don’t like being pale. Honestly, it’s weird to me as “a person of color” who grew up seeing the clear advantage of being “pale” in America.
(BTW, the phrase, “a person of color” is VERY odd. I mean how much more UNspecific can a description be?)
Anyway, my main question is this: “Besides obvious dislike of sunburn, why do some Caucasian people wish they weren’t ‘pale’?”
P.S. I also have a punctuation question that has nothing to do w/ today’s blog subject. WHEN do you use single quotation marks? I tend to use them (perhaps incorrectly) within a sentence that is already surrounded by double quotation marks – like the last sentence of my blog post. Did I use those single quote marks correctly?