Skin Bleaching: An Epidemic in Black & Brown Communities
The practice of skin bleaching has plagued both the black and brown communities, it is without a doubt, a product of colorism. Colorism, the inter and intra-prejudice on the basis of skin shade is also the result of racism. Throughout this article, I explore the popular discourse that colorism and its sister virus (skin bleaching) have attributes to the legacies of colonialism, slavery and the constructed racial hierarchies that privileged whiteness over all other. Yaba Amgborale Blay and Christopher Charles propound that skin colour communicates one’s position to and within the dominant power structure, especially within the colonial context (Blay and Charles, 2011). Though, colorism is something that has clearly continued to persist long into the post colonial period in some previously colonised countries and islands. This reality leads black and brown subjects to “internalise projected notions that the basis of their inferior condition is their skin colour” (Blay and Charles, 2011).
Professor Carolyn Cooper of University of the West Indies decries the practice of skin bleaching, equating it to a virus. Skin bleaching, otherwise known as skin lightening and skin whitening, is the practice of using chemical substances with the desire to lighten the skin and ultimately reduce (or sometimes destroy) the melanin concentration in one’s skin. While this article focuses greatly on the experiences that Afro-Caribbean individuals face with skin lightening and colorism, I also shed light on how this practice has affected Asian communities, especially since the postcolonial period began (the late 1950s/early 1960s). Cooper and many Jamaicans alike echo that skin bleaching is a manifestation of mental slavery — a diminished sense of racial pride, especially blackness among Jamaicans and black people as a whole.
The first step to combating skin-bleaching is by first, recognising it as a legacy of colonialism that has manifested itself as, what Cooper calls, “an epidemic of colour prejudice in our society”. By introducing the experiences of individuals such as dancehall artist Vybz Kartel, I compare the experiences of dark skin women in their battle against colorism and how the hierarchies of patriarchy means that skin bleaching has been sexualised to meet the agenda that women must adhere to colonial beauty standards.
The past and present both demonstrate how racism and colorism have led to the lightening of many ethnic minorities’ skin. There’s no denying the patriarchal patterns of desire that are conveyed when colorism comes into play; one thing is consistent and this is that women are still judged disproportionately on their looks. I seek to evaluate the strand of argument that colorism seeks to only disempower women of colour, particularly when we consider how Vybz Kartel was called a “sissy” by his male peers for bleaching his skin. The ramifications of colorism for dark skinned women in the Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities has been exhibited through status and capital. I say status because one’s [perceived] feminine beauty can lead to advantages in education, as well as the job and marriage market (Hunter 2007). Capital because society has been designed in a way that dark skin women’s skin shade puts them at a disadvantage. The assessments of beauty are clearly shown here since this is the same society that has been constructed to benefit light skinned and fair skinned women. These women’s skintones allows them to operate as a symbolic capital that has been and continues to be converted into an economic capital while also advantaging in the ‘heterosexual market’ in a way that dark skin women cannot (Glenn, 2008; Jha and Adelman, 2009). This is closely linked to Blay and Charles’ argument that skin colour communicates one’s position to and within the dominant power structure (Blay and Charles, 2011).
Personal and historical examples of the stature and capital consequences of colorism have been evident in countries such as Guyana. The 1970s and 1980s reveal that life in Guyana as a dark skin woman, whether they were black or Asian, was hard. Guyanese women were already treated as second-class citizens, however the dark skinned women had it much worse as colorism came into play in relation to their economic capitals. Colorism in Guyana was hardly subtle; the only jobs available to dark skinned women in the country were domestic roles such as that of a cleaner, meanwhile only light-skinned or fair-skinned women were hired for jobs in stalls, while dark-skinned women were hired for market-stall roles. Thus highlighting how society views our dark-skinned sisters as less than. It’s for these reasons that some women took matters into their own hands by putting down a deposit to open up their own stores. Lastly, the women who obtained jobs in more respected fields (for example, as a nurse) were expected by the Guyanese society to give up these roles once married.
The privileges that comes with being light-skinned or fair-skinned are no secret. Historically, those who are fairer “earn more money, complete more years of schooling, live in better neighbourhoods, and marry higher-status people” than their dark-skin counterparts of the same race or ethnicity. This is a point that I have established using case examples such as Guyana. Akala is only one of many academics who confirms that in Jamaica alone, light-skinned people were automatically treated better than their dark-skinned brothers and sisters regardless of their role in society or their class status. Scholars have debated this idea that the caste system in countries like India and islands like Jamaica promotes colorism. In the former country, it is perceivably common among Brahmins (the highest caste) to be light or fair skinned. Whereas darkskin has been predominantly associated with lower castes (Jha and Adelman, 2009; Bayly, 1990). However, skin shade variation within castes makes it difficult to place too much weight on this theory that light skin also signifies affluence in both India, Jamaica and other countries and islands; this is in contrast to the darker skin of the poor/working class which resulted from labouring outside (Aisha Phoenix). Glenn further counters the idea that colour speaks to one’s position in society by referring to skin colour in Elizabethan England. Women who worked outside were inevitably tanned (white women included), while the aristocracy whitened their skin to symbolise the fact that they had no need to work. This trend of whitening one’s skin to symbolise status (think back to the days of applying white powder to the face) persisted in many other countries and throughout many different colours.
Heterosexual men of colour have been known to perpetuate colorism through their choice of partners, their descriptions of what they consider attractive in a woman and the twitter discussions they engage in — the latter was primarily evident between the years 2012 and 2014, when it was once a ‘trend’ to dogpile and discriminate dark skinned black and brown girls because of their skin tone. The discourse on skin bleaching displays much inconsistencies on colorism. There is a double standard as society conditions us to believe that beauty is synonymous to fairness, an incessant idea that magazines have fed into with how they’ve marketed skin lightening products. Hegemonic beauty standards place a burden of oppressiveness on women of colour because these standards exclude them, despite them being the majority of the world’s population. Again, this is an inconsistency. When the comparison of women of colour that have graced the pages of these magazines come into view, the implicit message throughout is that women of colour are not light enough for mainstream media, regardless of their skin shade. This is simply because they are not white and yet, they are still expected to adhere to eurocentric beauty standards. I come to this conclusion by observing media interactions with Lupita Nyong’O, Rebecca Ferguson, Serena Williams, Beyoncé and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. All of who are women of different shades and ethnic backgrounds and yet they have appeared questionably lighter in some magazine features because of digital skin lightening. What this tells us is that years into the 21st century, despite the truth that beauty is subjective, whiteness is still considered the pinnacle of beauty by society. Alas the legacies of colonialism live on.
From multinational corporations to small businesses on Instagram, the product of colorism has allowed many companies to exploit women of colour by turning their vulnerabilities into financial gain (Glenn, 2018). As we can see, in the last 20 years alone, colorism has evolved in a variety of ways, therefore no singular history of colorism can be pinpointed. The way skin lightening cosmetics and eurocentric surgeries have been marketed for the financial gain of small businesses and multinational companies has evolved rapidly within itself. Examples of these financial gains include skin lightening creams, rhinoplasty, lip reduction surgery and other ethnic cosmetic surgeries. Of course, now that Afro-Caribbean features are widely accepted as the current ‘trend’ these reduction surgeries are not as common.
Nevertheless, those of us who are in our 20s and older will remember how billboards would promote skin lightening creams and normalise them to the point that ‘aunties’ would passionately recommend them to our 10 year old selves whenever they visited. As a marketing strategy, these products manage to thrive in the beauty industry because of these word of mouth recommendations. Today, the age of social media means that companies have easier access to consumers and can therefore send black and brown Instagram users a direct message telling them, unprovoked, that they would benefit from skin lightening products. Please, who asked? There lies a problem within this unwarranted opinion that should be unpacked in more detail another time; this assumption that every dark skinned woman hates their skin shade conveys how society has conditioned us to view dark skin. It is more a matter that dark skin women should hate their skin tone because they are not the epitome of ‘beauty’. It’s almost as if years of hegemonic beauty standards would be in vain if black and brown dark skin women love the skin they were born in.
Throughout researching the topic of this article and writing it, a question that I kept going back to was: does gender have anything to do with it [colorism]? I use dancehall artist, Vybz Kartel as an example as I unpack this question. On March 10th 2011, Kartel held a lecture at the University of the West Indies. Titling his lecture “Pretty Like a Colouring Book: My Life and My Art” (inspired by one of his singles, Colouring Book), Kartel addresses and responds to critics in relation to his decision to bleach his skin. Colouring Book sees Kartel celebrate his tattoos, of which he had over 25 at the time; he insists that his decision to bleach his skin lay purely on the desire to highlight and complement his tattoos. In the same lecture, Mr. Kartel asserted that his tattooed body makes him irresistible to women, but this was further emphasised when he cosmetically lightened his skin. This speaks to the conditioned idea that beauty is synonymous to fairness.
Though he tells us it’s merely to compliment his tattoos, Kartel’s reasonings are an example of the privileges that lighter skinned people have access to. ‘Pretty privilege’ is one of those privileges that Kartel was able to access following his skin bleaching. Kartel’s claims that his body work now made him “pretty” and “irresistible” refers to the fact that, for all the backlash he received, fans and critics finally viewed him as desirable. Yet for Kartel to openly say that both his practice of skin bleaching and the influx of people who now found him appealing has much to do with his tattoos and not the access to privileges that lighter-skinned people have is dishonest. Separately, the sexualisation of skin bleaching saw many critics question Kartel’s sexual orientation and manhood. Being called a “sissy” for bleaching his skin because “no man would ever do that” leads us back to the question of whether this is a gender issue (Brown-Glaude, 2013). Donna Hope concedes that sexuality is important to Jamaican men, especially those from “the lowest ledge of the race/class/gender/nexus” who are denied access to traditional symbols of Jamaican masculinity, such as wealth and power (Hope, 2006). For these men, the domination of women and issues of sex/sexuality attain primacy in laying the foundation for the definition of a man’s identity. This explains why Kartel separates gender identity from the physicality of his bleached body, emphasising instead the performance of said identity through his sexual domination of women.
Furthermore, statements similar to the “sissy” comment speaks to the oppressive nature of colorism against dark skin women and the burden that is placed on them to adhere to and maintain beauty standards. By claiming that Kartel did not need to bleach his skin in a society where beauty excludes dark skin people, tells us that this distaste for dark skin is mainly directed at women. This in turn speaks to the triple oppression that black/brown, dark skin women face. Additionally, when Kartel bleached his skin, it triggered a firestorm of criticism from observers in the Caribbean and the larger diaspora, with these individuals arguing that skin bleaching was synonymous to self-hatred and lack of racial pride. Yet, when a dark skin black or brown woman bleaches her skin it’s deemed feasible because she is merely adhering to beauty standards set by the legacies of colonialism.
Where Kartel was arguing that his decision to cosmetically lighten his skin lay solely on his desire to complement his tattoos, another dancehall artist, Alkaline reveals otherwise. As established the access to privileges that light and fair skinned people have is widely recognised in the black community. Alkaline began bleaching his skin in 2014, around the same time that his career had begun to take off. With that said, Alkaline’s skin bleaching was as temporary as the tattoo on his eyeball, if anything, this speaks to the ‘game’ that dark skinned artists feel they must play in order to be half as successful as their lighter-skinned peers. In the case of this article, I will use Sean Paul as an example, who is another dancehall artist.
There is a common pattern here of some dancehall artists beginning to bleach their skin at the start of their career; skin bleaching is clearly deemed as a ‘career booster’ if you must. Vybz Kartel is no doubt the King of Dancehall. While his career began in the early 1990s and was doing well, he wasn’t receiving the same level of recognition that Sean Paul got to experience from mainstream media. Thus, fans and critics have debated whether Sean Paul’s success influenced Kartel’s decision to start bleaching his skin around 2008. A key example of Kartel’s under-appreciation was displayed in 2016 when Billboard named Sean Paul the ‘King of Dancehall’ because he was the last dancehall artist in 2006 to make the Billboard with his hit single, “Temperature”. In fact, according to Sean Paul’s former manager (Zachary Harding), Kartel himself had previously countered whether Sean Paul’s international success was down to his lighter skin complexion. While this article does not seek to discredit Sean Paul’s discography or his success, to title him the King of Dancehall is an insult if nothing else to Kartel’s hard work. Thus, I contend that the ramifications of colorism saw skin bleaching being used as a career booster. So much so that recent photos of Alkaline and even Vybz Kartel show that they are beginning to return to their natural darker skin tone.
Colorism still plagues the black and brown communities today, though, dark-skin women receive the brunt of it. It is more apparent in the showbiz industry, where brands struggle to truly be diverse and instead opt for a token black or brown dark-skin model. Whilst the ‘trend’ of black and brown men putting down dark-skin women on social media channels such as Twitter has somewhat died out, their opinions on dark-skin women are subtly conveyed in their relationship stances. Make no mistake, there has been a lot of improvement with how black and brown dark skin women are treated by society, meaning that we rarely log on to Twitter to now see other races or even men from our own race talk down on us, but there is still a long way to go in dismantling colorism because there have definitely still been some problematic cases of colorism in the media in 2020 and 2021 alone. Thus, I refuse to applaud fishes for swimming.
Recommended Reading
Akala. Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire (2018)
