This is a promo video for a longer documentary about colorism.  Although I did not watch it, I think this video gives a good idea of what exactly colorism is and how far and deep it runs.  I did not know that it went back to slave days.  The slave owners would favor lighter slaves and give them more privileges than darker slaves.  They thought they were more white, so close enough to be nicer to them.  This ridiculous idea has lasted all these years into today.  I suppose if you backtrack to the slave days, directly after they were liberated, people still judged them and thought that the lighter newly non-slave people looked more like them, the might have figured they had more of a chance becoming more like regular white citizens versus the really dark people.  This theory had then been passed down generation to generation all the way into today.  Dark people are more easily associated with gangs and general criminals, while lighter people, even like Soledad O'Brien in this video, are more easily recognized as close-to-white-non-gang-like people.  Hopefully someday this can change, but for now, lighter is still better.