Talk:Brown paper bag test

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Metaphor or actual practice?

The "brown paper bag test", is at least in modern times exclusively used as a metaphor, and it's not clear that it has been anything but. None of the sources currently cited actually describe instances of using an actual paper bag. The closest we get is Gates book which claims that it was described to him by a classmate, which is hardly evidence of it happening. I could ask someone what the Loch Ness monster is, and what they tell me is likely to be a retelling of the urban legend, rather than any instance of it's existence. The next best is the Harlem Renaissance excerpt claiming that night club owners purportedly wouldn't hire performers in if they weren't lighter than a paper bag. This seems dubious to me, performers are probably selected on a lot more than just skin color, if they really needed a bag for comparison did they also use other household items for other physical features, dancing ability? In reality, I suspect that this is simply a metaphor for colorism, and has been interpreted by modern readers as an actual process. JSory (talk) 12:53, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]