Skin Bleaching & Colorism

Skin bleaching… What is it? Skin bleaching or skin whitening or skin lightening is the use of a chemical compound which removes some of the melanin from your skin. Melanin is that which gives you your color. For those with high concentration of melanin tend to have darker skin as those with less have lighter skin.

Society plays a role when it comes who is to blame for this practice. It is believed because of the socially and politically constructed notion that the fairer one’s skin is the more beautiful, intelligent and wealthy one is. Many advertisements show how people with clear skin and long hair are the benchmark when they talk about beauty. While most people believe the idea that only women bleach their skins, they are wrong; Men bleach their skin too.

Controversial Jamaican artist Vybz Kartel produced his own line of skin-bleaching products, saying in 2011: “When black women stop straightening their hair and wearing wigs and weaves when white women stop getting lip and butt injections and implants … then I'll stop using the 'cake soap' and we'll all live naturally ever after.” However in June 2013, he appears to have done an about face by encouraging youngsters to stop bleaching.

Colorism

Last weekend, I had the amazing opportunity to watch the documentary Dark Girls. This documentary sparked today’s topic.  Released in 2011 and directed by Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry, Dark Girls explores the feelings, perceptions, and the reality of women throughout the world, particularly in which women suffer from prejudice due to the color of their skin. The documentary also places an emphasis on the emotional trauma women with darker skin tend to suffer from the colorism they face even within their own racial communities. It features men with pixelated faces trying and failing miserably to justify their own prejudices – "I just prefer light skin women". "Dark skinned women just look wrong next me" –to stories from African American women confessing black men would lust after them in private, but opt for a light skinned trophy to parade in public.

After watching the documentary, I took it upon myself to do some research on social media. I went on twitter and looked up “light skin” and “dark skin”. I was surprised by some of the tweets. Couple tweets stood out to me. One said: “Party on Friday. White Girls free. Light skin girls 5dollars. 50 dollars for dark skin girls.” Another: “I thought cute dark skin girls with long hair was a myth ... I feel like I seen big foot.”

As a woman of color, these tweets made me cringe. But it did not affect me as much as it affected others because over the years I have learned to love myself and the skin that I am in.
When it comes to skin bleaching or skin lightening, I understand why some people do it, but I do not support it. We need to learn to love ourselves just the way that we are. When you learn to love ourselves, we start to understand what makes us unique and different from others. Remove yourself from people that tell you that your skin color or your hair is not good enough. With skin bleaching, comes a lot of danger physically and spiritually. So sacrificing yourself in order to fit in with the norm of society is not worth the risk. Regardless of your skin color, you are beautiful.

Sometimes I wonder if people who bleach their skin ever think about what they will do when they have kids … Are they willing to sacrifice their kids’ skin in order to keep up with society? Just something to think about.