When the Ghanaian government recently announced it would, in August, ban all cosmetic agents used in skin bleaching, they were leading the way in restoring confidence in the dignity of the diamond dark or brown skin. The government has announced that it would ban all products containing hydroquinone- a cancer-causing chemical found in most bleaching creams. So, if you are Ghanaian and wants to whiten up, you have the option of smuggling in a contraband or relocating to countries where bleaching is encouraged from the top. Yes, from the top because some African leaders take their bleaching cream to Addis Ababa or elsewhere for their African Union meetings! Ghana new policy move is thus a revolutionary one, as it seeks to deal a low blow to the imperialist mentality which continues to elevate the white skin over the durable skin of black Africa. Ghana, once again, like in the days of Kwame Nkruma, is leading the way where the giant of Africa, is hopelessly clueless.
It is even more jolting to find out that Nigerian men now lead in the use of soap and cream aimed at turning them to instant oyibos! Okay one can understand African women fighting to free themselves from the perceived curse of dark colour as Dencia once put it. Women continue to claim men pushed them to seeking a lighter coloration of their body. From what I hear from many of the ladies, men now prefer light skinned women, either as spouses or staff, sometimes even rejecting dark ladies. Hope you know that for many African men, the text book definition of beauty is “tall, slim and fair”. So, African sisters have to vigorously struggle to fit that mould first by hitting the gym to get the looks and then spending a fortune to get the colour.
Unfortunately for us dark complexioned people, everything, it seems, is arrayed against us. There is no celebration to honour the dark skin. The normal description for those who have fallen on bad times is that the person is suffering and has “become very dark”. “Emma, why are you so dark” is what I get to hear a lot these days, with a friend of mine even suggesting I “lighten up” a bit! My answer to such posers is that I’m an African. I should be dark skinned. Now, that is not to suggest you can’t be born white skinned on the continent but the fad out there is to create artificial fairness and to make it look like the in-thing. Time after time, black skinned people are made to appear inferior in this land of stunning blackness. What with the amorphous beauty pageants glorifying light skinned women as paragons of comeliness.
How can the “Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria”, for instance, be a semi-white woman? It is incongruous. Nollywood (the Nigerian movie industry) seems to prefer light skinned actors or is it my colour television that makes the ladies fairer than even normal? In the music industry, female artistes compete to out white each other with fake accents and hair. Banks seem to make it a matter of policy to employ only light skinned people in their marketing departments. I can’t remember the last time I saw a dark skinned marketer in Nigerian banks. Okay, there is my friend Nidi from Plateau State who works in one of the banks. Over the years she had maintained her dark complexion and with that has risen up to management levels. But she is an exception to the rule. Even the churches are not spared the malady. On bill boards of Pentecostal pastors and their spouses, the picture one sees is that of light complexioned people.
The message they are unintentionally passing is that their members must look like them: White with curly hair. Parishioners like to resemble their parsons, you know. When I went to one of the churches brandishing a very light complexioned couple on the poster, I discovered that it was just photo tricks. They are actually dark people struggling hard to be light. So what the chemicals they are using can’t accomplish, photographers achieve with a lot brushing and light work. We all are now caught up in the web: our pictures show we are lighter than we actually are. Portraits of our leaders go through a lot of air brushing, making them look robust and lighter than they really are. May be this is a way their publicists humour them by presenting them as fair-skinned people. I think we need to have a conversation about this, considering the level of self-esteem issue involved in the subject. Is the dark skin now an anathema? Do dark skinned people now feel alienated? Mrs Onome, who deals in cosmetics in Abuja and is thus very familiar with the topic, tells me the phenomenon has reached some epidemic proportion. Girls now spend a fortune to achieve their ambition- getting fairer than fair. Brides getting ready for a wedding ensure they are white enough for the white wedding. “It is a whole industry,”Onome tells me, noting further that “the multi-billion naira industry is constantly finding new ways to make people achieve their dreams of becoming whiter. The truth is that many dark skinned ladies don’t take any pride in their natural complexion. The men have made it also abundantly clear that they prefer lighter skinned ladies. So it is about survival of the fittest in the game of being attractive. Many light skinned people you see on the streets today were originally darker than me (she points to her skin).”
The cosmetologist is also miffed at the level of patronage for these products and the extent clients will go. On the psychological level, Onome believes that although it is the right of every woman to look beautiful, they have to have a measure of decorum in their quest. She says while light complexioned ladies get their way in the short term, naturally brown coloured ladies are built to last longer. In her words: “these cream contain chemical whose corrosive after effect would show later to the detriment of the user. The ladies who stay the way they were created would gain the future because even in old age they would still appear radiant.”
So I can understand the plight of women. Why are men also toning up and trying to look whiter? Again, Onome, said it might still be for psychological reason, stressing that some men might not be comfortable with their dark complexion. “it is almost abnormal for men to bleach but unfortunately, they now form a huge percentage of patrons of these creams. It is possible that the fad could be pushing them or even the inferiority complex some dark people suffer when they are among whiter people.”
Here is my conclusion: Africans, take pride in the dark skin. There is nothing to be ashamed of in being black. First, the later result of lightening up is adverse. And, as the cosmetologist told me, it is an expensive venture too. What is more, it smacks of ridiculing oneself not to accept the natural endowment one came here with. Besides, who lied to black people that they are more attractive draped in artificially acquired light skin? I’m not against white-ness in its natural form but to descend so low as to seek to buy a complexion is, to my mind, the height of suffering from a deep delusion. You can’t be black on the inside and be white on the outside. How would you even identify yourself in the mirror? In the long run, the attempt to bleach becomes a rigorous exercise in schizophrenia. Hope the legendary late Fela Anikulapo Kuti is reading this and concurring with me?
Holy Moses! Men now lead in skin bleaching!
