The black black versus the high yella black. Writer Alice Walker calls it colorism. She says it's a major problem in the black community--so much so that just as DuBois predicted that color would be America's main problem of the 20th century, Walker believes this insider struggle of different hues would be black folk's chief burden of the 21st century. To give an example of colorism's power, Walker points out that, in matters of what she calls black black women wondering if prominent black men will chose one of them, "it is sometimes everything we think about," she says.