Editor’s Note: Ronald E. Hall, Ph.D. is a professor at Michigan
State University and the author of "The Melanin Millennium." He
has lectured on skin color both domestically and
internationally, and testified as an expert witness in skin
color discrimination cases. His forthcoming book is a revised
edition of "The Color Complex." By Ronald E. Hall, Special to
CNN (CNN) - In the early part of this century, there were
separate facilities for blacks and whites, the Ku Klux Klan was
a popular white supremacist organization and racism was easy to
see. In 1964, civil rights legislation outlawed racial
discrimination, and there has been an advance of racial
equality, including the election, and re-election of the first
black president. But while overt acts of racism have declined,
discrimination continues in another form: colorism. Colorism is
a manifestation of how Western imperialism has exported European
ideals, most notably the universal idealization of light skin,
to American shores. Not only have whites discrim