I grew up feeling uncomfortable with my skin colour - Lupita Nyong'o speaks on racism and colourism

Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o has opened up on her battle with low self-esteem and colourism while growing up. 

Lupita was raised in Kenya, before moving to the United States. Growing up, she was a victim of colourism and wished to have a different skin tone.

The Oscar-winning actor told BBC Newsnight on Tuesday that colourism is the daughter of racism in a world that rewards lighter skin over darker skin. Colourism, she said, is prejudice against people who have a darker skin tone or the preferential treatment of those who are of the same race but lighter-skinned.

"I grew up feeling uncomfortable with my skin colour because I felt like the world around me awarded lighter skin," she narrated.

Her younger sister, whose skin was lighter, was called "beautiful" and "pretty". "Self-consciously that translates into: 'I'm not worthy'," she said.

The actor said she was once told at an audition that she was too dark for television. But Nyong'o said the relationship to her skin had been separate to the relationship to her race.

"Race is a very social construct, one that I didn't have to ascribe to daily growing up, as much as I was experiencing colourism in Kenya, I wasn't aware that I belonged to a race called black."

That changed when she moved to the US because suddenly the term black was being ascribed to her which meant certain things that she was not accustomed to.