Dark-skinned black girls are all tall, fat and quiet. Oh, and they shouldn't wear red lipstick — it doesn't look good against dark skin.

Light-skinned girls are pretty, full of themselves, and go out of their way to “act black.”

Those statements may sound outlandish, but they're not uncommon preconceptions in certain communities.

A group of 15 high school students in Oshawa is trying to raise awareness about the intraracial, “black-on-black” discrimination they grapple with daily. It has a name: shadeism.

They deal with it at school, on the web, even within their own families. And while some of the media are new, the message is not.

The Star spoke to four students in the group.

All four were black, and they explained that for them, shadeism comes in many forms:

Rap stars who only feature lighter-skinned girls in their music videos. The hashtags #TeamDarkSkin or #TeamLightSkin , which are employed by Twitter users as descriptors. When others try to get their attention by referring to them as “darkie” or “light skin” instead of by their first names. On Instagram, where girls use filters to lighten photos of themselves before sharing them.

Also known as colourism, in the black community the issue is rooted in colonialism: sexual relations between the white slave masters and black slaves would produce children with lighter skin.

They, along with slaves who had naturally lighter skin, received better treatment than their darker counterparts.

The G.L. Roberts Collegiate Vocational Institute students began this project in February, deciding to address shadeism and the elimination of the n-word during a Black History Month presentation for the school's “Week of Acceptance.”

Students and teachers approached them afterward with questions about shadeism. None had ever heard of it before.

Now, they're fleshing out their presentation so they can get board approval to take their message on the road, visiting other schools in Durham Region and possibly in Toronto.

When asked why their peers make those comments, the four students' response was immediate and unanimous: “ignorance.”

“I'm glad we're doing this,” said Jah-One Fari, who is 15 and the only male member. “So we can get it out.”

Shadeism is seen as a gendered problem, affecting girls and women more than men and boys. But Fari said he's had girls tell him they “don't date dark guys.”

What do they say, then, to someone who makes a derogatory remark about their skin colour right to their face?

“You need help,” pipes up Annesha Adams, 16, and shakes her head. They all dissolve into laughter.

They act tough, but admit the name-calling, insults and ignorance make them angry. And sad.

Shannie Felix-Albert admitted to having the #TeamLightSkin hashtag in her Twitter biography before her older sister ordered her to remove it. For the 15-year-old, it wasn't self-segregation — she was just stating a fact. Or so she thought.

“I was so unaware that it's a big problem,” she said.

Infinitee Wellington, 17, said she was surprised to find a poem describing the plight of a light-skinned girl, indicating to her that though they supposedly have it all, they don't always feel that way.

Felix-Albert, who has lighter skin, identified with that, noting that her skin tone is only seen as advantageous within her own community.

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“At the end of the day, I'm black,” she said.

This kind of social hierarchy is known as a pigmentocracy, said Camille Hernandez-Ramdwar, an associate professor at Ryerson University. She said it makes sense that shadeism would become a problem as schools shift from having a few black students who may stick up for each other, to having larger groups with varying skin tones.

Though lighter skin tones tend to be held in higher esteem than darker ones, Hernandez-Ramdwar said the opposite was once true. As the Black Power movement gained momentum in the 1960s and 1970s, it brought with it the “black is beautiful” mentality, favouring dark skin, naturally curly hair and other “black” features. But the pendulum has swung back to the “white is light is right” message.

During his career, Michael Jackson created controversy over his skin colour, eventually claiming he suffered from vitiligo, a disorder that destroys skin's pigmentation. More recently, singer Beyoncé Knowles has been the subject of debate, with some questioning whether her skin was lighter in certain photos.

Both celebrities have been accused of bleaching, a skin-lightening process practised around the globe . The worldwide market for skin lightening products is expected to reach $10 billion (U.S.) by 2015, according to the market research firm Global Industry Analysts.

Shadeism , a 2010 short documentary created by five Ryerson students, examines the issue from a cross-cultural perspective. The film chronicles the experiences of director and narrator Nayani Thiyagarajah, a young Tamil woman, and four of her friends, who are of African, Caribbean, South American and Southeast Asian descent.

In the film, Thiyagarajah describes how having pale skin at birth made her a “light-skinned wonder child” to her family. As her skin darkened, she says she began to question her culture's obsession with light skin. Realizing her 4-year-old niece had already internalized the main tenets of shadeism — dark skin bad, light skin good — prompted her to delve deeper.

“In a lot of communities, this issue of shadeism isn't given a name, but it's something that's become normalized,” Thiyagarajah said.

The team is extending the film into a feature documentary, and recently raised enough money through crowdfunding for post-production on the film.

“There were definitely women in the film who had lighter skin and recognized that it came with certain privileges, both in their ethnic communities but also across cultural and racial boundaries,” Thiyagarajah said, adding some light-skinned women reported feeling singled out for “not being brown enough or black enough or Asian enough.”

Thiyagarajah says initiatives like the one started by the Oshawa students might not single-handedly stamp out the practice, but are important as they inspire dialogue.

All four teenagers plan to continue the mission next year. They're considering naming their endeavour “Black in Canada: The Shadeism Project.” Felix-Albert said she came up with it as a tip of the hat to CNN's “Black In America” series. In fact, she wants the project featured on CNN. Their drive is obvious and their enthusiasm, infectious.

“It's like Bob Marley said, ‘Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, None but ourselves can free our minds,' ” Fari said, quoting the reggae icon's “Redemption Song.”

“We're segregating ourselves,” Adams said.

Correction - May 21, 2013 : This article was edited from a previous version that misstated the name of the Oshawa high school the students attend.

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