DECOLONIZING OUR MINDS: The Preferential Valuation To Lighter Skin.
The social narrative that dark skin is undesirable and something to be ashamed of has been reinforced so many years.
Skin lightening, also know as skin whitening, skin brightening or skin bleaching is a process where products are applied topically on the surface of the skin to lighten the skin tone, thereby inhibiting the production of melanin, the pigment responsible for giving skin its pigment. This is often considered to be a ‘beauty enhancing process’ promising to ensure even skin tone. Although, professionally, it is used by dermatologist to correct certain skin conditions such melasma, post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation etc under strict conditions and controlled application.
Light skin has long become synonymous with economic advantage and higher social status. The lighter the skin, the more well-off you were likely to be because historically farm work was reserved for those of lower social standing. Consequently, dark skin was associated with poverty and lack of intelligence, while light skin was seen as good, clean and civilized and therefore superior. The inclination and practice of ingesting and/or applying products containing harmful substances to achieve the so called ‘ideal skin tone’ has become a dangerous trend amongst Nigerians and Africans at large.
Colourism, shadism, skin tone bias, pigmentocracy and the colour complex, are just a few of the terms used to describe the system of privilege and discrimination based on the degree of lightness in the colour of a person’s skin. But whatever label is used, it remains a pernicious, internalised form of racism which involves prejudice, stereotyping and perceptions of beauty among members of the same racial group, whereby light skin is more highly valued than dark skin. It is safe to say, colonialism greatly propagated the white supremacy ideology to the extent where it became an internalized belief.
The fashion and beauty industries predominantly advertised Caucasian models with bright eyes, white skin and straight hair as an ideal to strive for and skin-whitening beauty products became a pathway to the commodification of whiteness. So potent was this that a Pears’ soap advertisement circulated in 1875 depicted a young Black boy sitting in a bathtub being presented with soap by a White male and another image showing the same Black boy seemingly gleeful when he is shown a mirror image of himself with a white body. The advertisement was based on the allegory “Washing the Blackamoor White”, also known as “Washing the Ethiopian White”, by Aesop. The allegory tells the story of a slave who tries to wash away his black skin but is unable to, the moral of the story being that we cannot wash away our culture and heritage. While the moral of the allegory promotes a sense of acceptance, there is an insidious subtext that blackness could not be erased, therefore reinforcing perceptions that those with dark skin were inferior to those with white skin, and always would be. The idea that a bar of soap, a product used to clean dirt, could be advertised using images of Black children to sell their product is explicitly racist, and this messaging further embedded the notion that dark skin was not natural and something to be ashamed of.
The question always remains, why is white beauty not judged in isolation but in relation to blackness? We see a trend of skincare brands, magazines, schools and the mainstream media, are particularly culpable in perpetuating colourism by using predominantly light skinned models.
There is widespread belief that skin colour represents not the diversity of humans, but confirmation that humankind is comprised of different races which are separate but certainly not equal. Much that has been written about blackness has been written by Europeans to denigrate, rather than to celebrate it. This has contributed to the internalisation of these negative associations with blackness by people of African descent.
There is no greater sin of slavery than the systematic brain washing that occurred for over 300 years that instilled a belief in the second class character of the people of African decent. This distorted image received by people of African descent continues to haunt their psyche until today as an enduring sin of slavery.
As globalisation continuously dominate the social, cultural, economic and political landscape, there is an urgent need for Africans to draw up a common ancestry as a collective to overcome the inequalities that permeate the lives of Africans on a global level. We need to look beyond our respective nationalities of our geographical locations and seek solutions as global African citizens.
