Different Shades
Colourism and its impact on Jamaican women
I want to start this off by saying that I am, what most would consider, dark-skinned.
I can say this now without that little voice piping up in the back of my head, telling me to shut up because I could be lighter if I wanted to be.
I spent my formative years between the small parish of Hanover in Jamaica and Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom.
I recall being ten and playing a ring game with my friends. It was aptly titled “Brown Girl in the Ring”
I liked the game, not because it was particularly entertaining but because I knew that I would never be called on to participate seeing as I wasn’t ‘brown enough’.
Memories of my childhood are dotted with moments like these.
I remember turning twelve and my cousin presenting me with the face cream, Nadinola, for my birthday. She said it would help me to sweat less but when I asked her how I could buy another by myself she told me to just ask for the ‘bleaching cream’ because it was what the older girls used to make them look pretty.
It didn’t take me long to realize that my friends who were shades lighter than I was, got picked for everything no matter their performance.
