In recent days, Cardi B, whose father is Dominican and whose mother is Trinidadian, has received some push-back for describing herself with the term “light skin.” This has led to some debates on X (formerly Twitter).
As Complex notes, one user wrote, “Who tf told Cardi B she’s light skin? That term is used for lighter complexion black folks but y’all got everybody claiming it now.” Cardi replied, “Dominicans are so diverse when it comes to skin color Dark ,brown ,tan,light ,white ….sooo what am I supposed to say when I’m describing my complexion…Im Dominican skin ?”
Somebody else wrote, “idk maybe y’all need to come up with yall own terms.. ‘light skinned’ is used to describe BLACK people. Not whites, Dominicans, Mexicans, Asians… BLACKS!! You can’t just use the word to mean whatever you want it to mean chica.” Cardi responded, “what you saying is automatically invalid.The fact that you use whites … WHITES IS A COLOR AND A RACE ..DOMINICANS ARE A NATIONALITY WITH PEOPLE that are different COLORS AND SHADES ..NOT A RACE … Get your glitter hole out of here wit this fake rule you just came up wit.”
Cardi said in another tweet, “The term light skin is adjective to describe skin complexion …It is not exclusive to a single race …l guess Jamaicans and Haitians and West Indians can’t say they got brown skin ,light skin or dark skin because just like Dominicans they are also a nationality..now move JAWS.”
This comes shortly after Cardi refuted accusations that she had bleached her skin.