I didn’t know what skin bleaching was until I was eleven and I asked my mom why one of my aunties was much lighter than her sister. My mother explained that she lightened her skin using creams and that you can tell by looking at her knuckles. I didn’t quite understand but I surmised that it was the reason why my auntie’s skin looked blemished and uneven and I wondered why someone would choose that over the smooth and even beauty of her sister’s skin and my mother’s skin and all the other women I admired in life.
I’ve always known black to be beautiful and I’ve never despised my lighter brown tones, but there has always been something about the deepness of my mother’s black skin that I find irresistible. Maybe it’s the way the light reflects or the way brightly coloured lace and gele look next to it, I don’t know but I’ve always thought it to be perfection of some sort.
Skin bleaching is reaching a terrifying popularity within the African continent. As nations look to build their economies based on a capitalistic model, it seems the people are chasing beauty based on a European model and the only solution is from a bottle. Young women have begun to use skin bleaching to achieve the fair skin of our western cousins instead of the rich tones of our ancestors.
At the core of this practice is a narrative on the meaning of beauty, worth, and identity. When a woman buys a potion hoping to change her skin tone because she equates fair skin to beauty, it also means that she believes dark skin is less beautiful or cannot be beautiful at all. If she believed otherwise, there would no reason to alter her appearance. It also tells us that having fairer skin is a more beautiful feature, that thought alone elevates an individual with dark skin from invisible to visible after bleaching. In that one act she communicates to others that she does not think she is beautiful, but she also says that her mother is not beautiful, her sister is not beautiful, and all other women of dark complexion are not beautiful by this standard she has accepted. By extension her ancestry cannot be beautiful unless they somehow also have this desired, fair skin.
“We’ve all heard of black on black crime, but there’s more. We hate each other because of our complexions. This is colorism, the form of discrimination that involves favoring lighter skin over darker skin.” –Yasmine Saibou
With Black History Month concluding just last month, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss colorism and the effects of the Willie Lynch syndrome on our people, in America and abroad. For starters, Willie Lynch was a British slave owner who delivered an infamous speech on the bank of the James River colony of Virginia in 1712. The speech titled “The Making of A Slave,” was intended to teach his fellow owners how to remedy the problems that were occurring on their plantations; problems of disobedience and fear of rebellion. On the topic of colorism he states, “You must use the DARK skin slaves vs. the LIGHT skin slaves, and the LIGHT skin slaves vs. the DARK skin slaves.” As we know, this is still a phenomenon seen in cultures around the world. Although we are no longer in bondage, we still see the separation due to complexion. The issue is seemingly more pronounced in those of African descent, we’ve all probably observed and witnessed accounts of those amongst us who are of a lighter shade being deemed more beautiful or being welcomed more graciously by White people.
Colorism, Racism’s evil cousin that lurks around in the shadows and causes havoc subconsciously in the black community. Colorism has caused an interesting social division especially in the African American community whereby lighter skinned Black people tend to be seen as relatively superior to their darker skinned brothers and sisters. Unlike her cousin racism that attacks from the outside, colorism has found a way to work her way into our communities and eat at us from the inside. In America the divide began during slavery whereby the Lighter house negro who often tended to be mixed children of their master, were treated better than the darker field negroes.
Scholars even argue that catastrophic events like the Rwandan genocide was caused by colorism whereby the more negroid looking darker hutus were taking revenge on the Tutsis who had been favored and been in control for the longest time during colonial rule simply because they were lighter and more Caucasian looking.
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder they say, and logically there should be different ways of seeing beauty. In Mauritania for example thicker women are considered more beautiful, which goes contrary to the mainstream western convention that the skinnier you are, the more pretty. However unfortunately some 500 years ago a group of people decided that anything that doesn’t look like them is inferior and must be oppressed and this has carried on though not as blatant today. In the mainstream media light -skinned is celebrated as the ideal black person or at least inferred as so. Rarely do you find Dark skin being glorified as something of beauty in the mainstream media. For example recently Zoe Saldana a light-skinned black woman was cast to play Nina Simone, a Dark skinned black woman in a Biographical film about her. Zoe had to wear blackface makeup and an Afro wig in order to look like Nina. Why didn’t they just simply cast a dark skinned woman to play the role? I will let you decide.
“If you’re black, stay back; if you’re brown, stick around; if you’re yellow, you’re mellow; if you’re white, you’re all right.”
55 H+, Fair & White, MAXI Light, African Venus, Ami White Skin, Bio Claire, HQ Gel. If any of the brands listed are familiar to you, then you have probably either seen or dealt with an aspect of the effects of colorism. The idea of colorism was never spoken of in my African house but I saw it early on with my aunt. The funny thing is I never realized it until much later in my life how insecure she was and maybe still is with her skin color. She used skin lightening crèmes–probably tried all of those I listed and more. I remember even using it myself, not really realizing what it was that I was doing, just knowing that it was lotion. She told me it would “even out” my skin. There was even a time she got to light that we used to laugh and call her the Michael Jackson of the family. Her face and neck were light, but I guess the secret to knowing someone is using skin lightening crèmes is their hands. Watching Congolese comedies, it was often pointed out to me who seemed to have been using skin-lightening crèmes because of the discoloration of their overall skin. It was often also stated that when people got money they often got “fancy” and started using skin-lightening crèmes to seem better than others. Besides the physical damages of using products with hydroquinone the psychological effects are harsher in my opinion. At some point, my aunt felt like this needed to spend lot so money to purchase these crèmes to be lighter therefore thinking she was going to feel better about herself. And the crèmes were never enough because she always had to use them—the perceived “issue” with her brown skin never had a permanent solution. At some point, her skin just ended up looking pasty with blotches everywhere. She stopped using them for a while until her skin seemed to go back to normal, but went right back to using them again.
Thank you to all who participated in November’s theme “Shades of Black.” Below are the links to the three most popular posts for last month. If you missed any of these, check them out!
An address to light skinned people about where we stand in the discussion of colorism, hear me out.
This might be unbeknownst to a majority of the white population, but I’m sure there’s a shared understanding amongst people of color that our representation is limited and sparse. Whether it be in politics, in academic settings, on the television, or in any other mainstream aspect of living, we don’t often see individuals who look like us. And speaking specifically about media, when we do see people who look like us they tend to be minor characters; the best friend whose life is always the B story, the comical relief, the (insert any other insignificant role that gets a few lines but no depth or well-thought characterization). And particularly speaking about black people, when we finally receive positive representation on the television or movie screen, it’s usually a black person of lighter complexion, especially when it comes to women. And this lack of diversity amongst black people to the public eye is why so many people have taken offense to Zoe Saldana portraying Nina Simone in her upcoming biopic. We won’t get into that whole mess but this leads me to my next thought…
I went through three stages the first time I ever heard about the concept of “European Standard of Beauty.” Ignorance. Denial. and Enlightenment. As a child I didn’t really understand why my relatives back in Nigeria were so fixated on my fair skin. I always just assumed it was something they liked to tease me about when they would repeatedly call me “Nnwanyi bekee” (white woman in Igbo). Or I just thought they were extremely astounded by the resemblance I had to my also fair skinned grandmother. I never realized that they saw my light skin as a beautiful feature. I didn’t realize this until I heard the phrase “European Standard of Beauty,” and someone explained it to me simply: the whiter you look, the more beautiful society sees you; ranging from the straightness of your hair to the width of your nose to the pigmentation of your skin. As a self-proclaimed “thorough observer” who took great pride in being conscious of the world around her, I didn’t understand how I was so completely ignorant to this newfound “European Standard of Beauty” concept, so I went through a phase of denial. I told myself it wasn’t true that I enjoyed certain passes in the world that black people of darker hues were not exposed to, I didn’t believe in light skinned privilege. After all, “We’re all black.”
But when I truly opened my eyes and looked at the world around me, when I listened to rap songs and heard well-received artists brag about acquiring a bunch of “red-bones,” when I noticed certain celebrities getting lighter and lighter, hair blonder and blonder, when I caught on to subliminal messages that lighter skinned black people are just “friendlier,” “more trustworthy,” “nicer,” “more professional,” when I repeatedly heard “innocent preferences” of people admitting time and time again that they desired to date lighter skinned people for “no particular reason,” I could no longer deny the subtle but inconspicuous truths that were all around me. I realized that light skinned privilege was a real thing, and all my life I’d been a benefactor, completely oblivious to the plight of black people who were just a little bit “too black.”
This month in Rise Africa we’ve explored the Africa of the future and shared our vision as well as our concerns on the growth of our continent. Rise Africa Wednesday has displayed the work of those that have contributed to the future of Africa with innovative thinking and fearless ambition. We continue this trend with this week’s feature, Funfere Koroye. Most people know Funfere Koroye as the fashion wonder who took social media by storm with his personal style. What most people don’t know is that there is much more to Koroye than an impeccable fashion sense. He is the quintessence of the new designer emerging in Africa.
A product engineer with an eye for futuristic innovation, Koroye is fast on his way to remodeling the Africa of the future. His work on projects like the M6 Wind Powered Car and Kidetic Playground (which would allow children to explore the idea of energy consumption) illustrate Koroye’s dedication to creating green solutions for Africa through his vast knowledge of product design and marketing. Koroye is currently working on a shoe line that will cater to needs of Africans by incorporating the elements of functionality and aesthetics of various types of shoes. Rise Africa had the privilege of catching up with Funfere. Here’s what he had to say…
Name: Ludwick Marishane Age: 19 Country of Origin: South Africa
The lack of access to clean water kills children around the world at a rate equal to a jumbo jet crashing every 4 hours. Approximately 1 in 9 people lack access to a reliable water source. More people have access to a mobile phone than to clean water. This is a sad truth we live with in an age of mind-boggling scientific and technological advancement. This may have been the thought process that led our R.A.W. feature of the week to break boundaries and revolutionize hygiene. It was during a conversation with a friend on a hot day in his native Limpopo that the concept of a waterless bath emerged. After 6 moths of research, Ludwick Marishane was able to turn an idea between friends into the formula for a tangible, possibly life-changing product.
Media is a language we’ve developed to communicate on a wide scale. From hieroglyphics to books to television to this sentence you’re reading right now, it’s all a process based on combining our linguistic resources -patterns of movement, symbols, and sounds- to connect to each other. Sometimes this communication is direct, like a live viewing or a VoIP (voice-over internet protocol - think Facetime) conversation. Sometimes it’s passive, like reading an ancient text, swimming in the knowledge of our ancestors. We’re going to use this understanding of media as a language to explore how its misuse can maintain ideological divisions. We’re gonna get down with messaging techniques using the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It gave me life. Maybe I can give it back.
Racism exists as an ideological system of power in Western society. We classify individuals and their communities based on impressions of a global minority - in our reality, it’s various groups of Europeans insisting on an imperial legacy based on their claim to the fabricated concept of “whiteness.” If this system is negative, then it must have a counter, a positive system in which these individuals are exempt from these racial classifications. Unfortunately, no such system exists. If you don’t fit the social perception ascribed to your visual appearance, you’re considered an anomaly. Many of us have lived this, and it doesn’t feel good. This ‘racism, or lack thereof’ approach that we in creative media embrace is a result of exceptionalism (also called Chauvinism for hilarious French reasons). Exceptionalism is the social agreement that the ideology of the dominant group is exceptional, and therefore anything that does not coincide with this ideology is an unwelcome departure. The first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender uses exceptionalism in a reverse binary as a code to both enable and challenge the dominant social ideology. Flameo, hotman!
