tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/colourism-22068/articlesColourism – The Conversation2024-02-21T17:27:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2222942024-02-21T17:27:59Z2024-02-21T17:27:59ZHow colourism affects families in the UK – and how positive parenting can challenge it<p>Actor Lupita Nyong'o <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49976837">describes colourism</a> as “the daughter of racism” in “a world that rewards lighter skin over darker skin”. <a href="https://theconversation.com/colourism-how-skin-shade-prejudice-impacts-black-men-in-the-uk-175786">This form</a> of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00380385211069507">prejudice</a> sees people more penalised the darker their skin is and the further their features are from those associated with whiteness. </p>
<p>In 2021, we developed the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2022.2149275">Everyday Colourism Scale</a> to capture individual people’s perceptions of interpersonal colourism. This tool has allowed us to start to examine associations between experiences of colourism and demographic characteristics and various health and wellbeing outcomes. We found that experiencing colourism is associated with negative <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S174014452300092X">body image</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2024.2311139">Our skin shade study</a> has found that colourism affects both men and women, and can shape how people feel about themselves and how they choose romantic partners. It also shows how often this starts at home. We have found that families in the UK play a significant role in introducing children to colourist views and that these, in turn, can shape and undermine family relations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A mother and child." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577070/original/file-20240221-16-ymuuml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577070/original/file-20240221-16-ymuuml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577070/original/file-20240221-16-ymuuml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577070/original/file-20240221-16-ymuuml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577070/original/file-20240221-16-ymuuml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577070/original/file-20240221-16-ymuuml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577070/original/file-20240221-16-ymuuml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Families can challenge colourism through positive parenting and love.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/mother-son-504833179">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>How colourism can play out in the home</h2>
<p>For our study, we conducted interviews in 2019 with 33 people of colour (24 women and nine men) who were black, South Asian, East Asian or of mixed ethnic backgrounds (predominantly black and white). </p>
<p>We found that women and men’s experiences of familial colourism differed. The women we spoke to were targeted and affected more than men. </p>
<p>In a patriarchal society, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27821646">women</a> are subjected to global appearance ideals that posit light skin as beautiful and feminine. Our previous work on <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00380385211069507">black men’s experiences of colourism</a> found that light skin is seen as desirable in women – it is often a status symbol. </p>
<p>Our new findings show that familial awareness of the social capital inherent in light skin, particularly for women, affects how families treat their children. </p>
<p>Marie, a 50-year-old Chinese woman who participated in our research, described conflicting feelings about going out in the sun due to colourism from women in her family. She said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t like going outside because I’m going to get darker and end up looking like a peasant. My parents were peasants. When they were growing up, they used to work in the countryside. I remember as a kid, mum saying: ‘No, don’t go outside because you’ll get dark, and you’ll end up looking like you work in the paddy fields.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Marie’s story suggests that family colourism may relate to feelings of shame. From her account, her mother seems to associate dark skin with low socioeconomic status and wants to distance her family from it. </p>
<p>Other participants described how dark skin was seen as ugly in ways that suggested that it might also be a source of shame. Portia, a 51-year-old black woman, said that her father told her, at 13, that she was “black and ugly” like her grandmother – his own mother. “It’s something that is etched on my brain,” she said. To her mind, it showed “how deep this self-hatred is”.</p>
<p>Participants also discussed the impact of family colourism on romantic relationships. Chloe, a 33-year-old woman with a black mother and white father, said skin shade influenced her choice of partner. “This is really sad,” she said. “My mum doesn’t like us to date black people … She only wants us to date white people.” </p>
<p>Chloe later said that her mother did not mind a former Chinese boyfriend, but was opposed to her dating south Asian people. Her mother was also uncomfortable with her having a partner from a mixed ethnic background.</p>
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<img alt="A multigenerational family at dinner." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577071/original/file-20240221-20-6sbwbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577071/original/file-20240221-20-6sbwbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577071/original/file-20240221-20-6sbwbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577071/original/file-20240221-20-6sbwbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577071/original/file-20240221-20-6sbwbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577071/original/file-20240221-20-6sbwbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577071/original/file-20240221-20-6sbwbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Skin-shade prejudice can shape familial relations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-asian-extended-family-laughing-mans-2083727323">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>‘Oppositional consciousness’</h2>
<p>Some of our participants described the impact of familial colourism on their sense of self-worth, body image and wellbeing. Divya, a 43-year-old Indian woman, suggested that her mother’s colourist views negatively affected her when she was growing up:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One of the biggest issues I had was with my mum always, always going on about how it’s better to be fairer, that you’ll only find a boy if you’re fairer and you’re only beautiful if you’re fair. And I think that really, really got to me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These findings chime with what scholars have found in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0192513X10390858?journalCode=jfia">the US</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2013.788200">Brazil</a>. Families can actively make children aware of colourism and inflict it too. These same studies, though, have also highlighted how some families speak about colourism as a way of opposing and resisting it. </p>
<p>US sociologists JeffriAnne Wilder and Colleen Cain talk about “oppositional consciousness” to describe the process by which families can challenge colourist views and promote acceptance, celebrating all skin tones. </p>
<p>Our participants, too, described how their families helped them to appreciate people of all skin shades. Some had parents who encouraged them to take pride in their skin shades. Others described trying to raise awareness about colourism among their own children. </p>
<p>Portia told us that she talks with her son about colourism and they do not let it slide when they encounter it. Doing so, to her mind, is about healing, “because otherwise you end up carrying this stuff around, thinking it’s your fault. It is not.” It is also about ensuring her son grows up with confidence: “I don’t want him carrying this baggage around. I want him to go into the world as confident as he can be as a young black man.”</p>
<p>Colourism has a profound impact on people’s wellbeing. Experiencing this at the hands of the people closest to you is detrimental. This is particularly the case since racialised minority families are <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jftr.12262">often seen to be havens</a> from the racialised prejudice and discrimination experienced outside the home. </p>
<p>Figuring out how to challenge it, then, is paramount. By educating the next generation, families have a key role to play in disrupting the transmission of this prejudice. </p>
<p>For one participant, Malakai, it is about teaching love and positive parenting: “You, as a people, need to educate your children and tell them that they are beautiful. Teach the younger ones, educate them. And teach love among our people.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222294/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aisha Phoenix receives funding from the UKRI as a Future Leaders Fellow. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nadia Craddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Families in the UK play a significant role in introducing children to colourist views. They can also be instrumental in challenging them.Aisha Phoenix, Lecturer in Social Justice, King's College LondonNadia Craddock, Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Appearance Research, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1947222022-12-11T22:53:16Z2022-12-11T22:53:16ZA new study shows NZ’s young minorities feel racism differently – wealth or being able to ‘pass’ as white makes a difference<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498588/original/file-20221201-12-l7rcjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=59%2C74%2C9924%2C4909&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Racism in Aotearoa New Zealand has been increasingly under the spotlight in recent years. The <a href="https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/the-report/">2019 Christchurch mosque attacks</a> amplified conversations about racial equality that continued in the wake of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html">Black Lives Matter protests</a>. </p>
<p>But racism is a complicated topic and not all minorities experience it in the same way or to the same extent. As <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673622015379?casa_token=m8lgVbe9aukAAAAA:iAVhfot4ISP2Hj-LQDb8ev-SljH0UpsoX_oqlkT3XXLYV6Ke4DP0VrlAjCL-KxM_0j5ItDifYvM">our recent research</a> found, financial wealth and a person’s ability to “pass” as white can have a significant impact on how they experience racism. This challenges the conventional wisdom that systemic and interpersonal racism affects all minorities equally. </p>
<p>Recently, the government and other agencies have explicitly prioritised efforts to address racism. In 2022, the government launched the <a href="https://www.justice.govt.nz/justice-sector-policy/key-initiatives/national-action-plan-against-racism/">National Action Plan Against Racism</a>, which is committed to progressively eliminating racism in all its forms. </p>
<p>But there is lack of agreement on what racism looks like, and consequently what constitutes <a href="https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/populations/maori-health/ao-mai-te-ra-anti-racism-kaupapa">effective anti-racism action</a>. In part, this is because racism is largely still defined by histories of colonisation, although societies like New Zealand have transformed socially, culturally and demographically. </p>
<p>In the context of our work, racism can be broadly understood as prejudice that racial or ethnic minority groups experience within personal relationships and <a href="https://wero.ac.nz/resources/glossary/">social institutions</a>. </p>
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<h2>A different lived experience</h2>
<p>Our research focused specifically on the experiences of racism among New Zealand’s “ethnic” youth – peoples from Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. </p>
<p>Ethnic youth make up about <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/ethnic-group-summaries-reveal-new-zealands-multicultural-make-up/">17% of New Zealand’s total youth population</a>. Many are either themselves migrants or children of migrants. There are significant disparities in visa, residency and socioeconomic status among them – from permanent, well-settled and affluent, to temporary, precarious and disadvantaged.</p>
<p>We argued against the assumption that all ethnic youth are equally discriminated against based solely on their ethnicity. This oversimplifies the experience of racism. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whiteness-is-an-invented-concept-that-has-been-used-as-a-tool-of-oppression-183387">Whiteness is an invented concept that has been used as a tool of oppression</a>
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<p>Given the diversity of ethnic migrants, we wanted to identify the factors that protected them or, alternatively, made them more vulnerable to racism. </p>
<p>To investigate this, we used the concept of “flexible resources” – assets or attributes that individuals possess (for example, wealth, family name, personal traits and physical features) that could act as buffers against racism. </p>
<p>In our study, we focused specifically on the wealth of minorities, the effect of their skin tone, and their ability to “pass as white”. </p>
<h2>Wealth and whiteness</h2>
<p>We examined if wealth and whiteness could protect against the race-based disadvantages ethnic youth experience. Specifically, we looked at poverty, emotional and mental distress, issues with healthcare access, bullying and <a href="https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0140673622015379-mmc1.pdf">discrimination by teachers, police and health providers</a>.</p>
<p>We used longitudinal data from the <a href="https://www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz/en/faculty/adolescent-health-research-group/youth2000-national-youth-health-survey-series.html">Youth2000</a> survey series of over 20,000 New Zealand secondary school students (aged 13-19), collected between 2000 and 2019. </p>
<p>We found that, compared to their European peers, ethnic minorities experienced higher levels of poverty, overt interpersonal racism and poorer health outcomes. Both wealth and whiteness provided protections against these forms of racism, but in <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bdbb75ccef37259122e59aa/t/633522851495d0017a1ad24a/1664426630603/Graphical+abstract_28.09.2022.pdf">strikingly different ways</a>. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/social-inclusion-is-important-in-aotearoa-new-zealand-but-so-is-speaking-honestly-about-terrorism-167429">Social inclusion is important in Aotearoa New Zealand — but so is speaking honestly about terrorism</a>
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<p>Wealthier ethnic youth were less likely to experience the effects of institutional racism. This means they lived in affluent neighbourhoods, attended better-resourced schools and had fewer worries about meeting daily basic needs. </p>
<p>Ethnic youth from poorer backgrounds struggled on all these counts. This struggle persisted across generations.</p>
<p>Perceived whiteness provided protections against interpersonal racism. Ethnic minority youth who were white-passing were less likely to report being discriminated against by those in authority. </p>
<p>Although our study largely focused on ethnic migrant youth, our analysis also included Māori and Pasifika. The beneficial effects of wealth and whiteness were similarly evident among them. </p>
<h2>Whiteness offers more protection</h2>
<p>We also compared wealth and whiteness to see which of the two was more significant in protecting against racism. Quite strikingly, our results showed that being perceived as white was more protective than having wealth for New Zealand’s ethnic minority youth.</p>
<p>Our study significantly advances research on racism and wellbeing – showing the limitations of a one-size-fits-all approach. We need more nuanced understandings of racism, wealth and whiteness when designing anti-racism interventions. </p>
<p>Based on the evidence, there is a strong case for economic support – through scholarships and free healthcare – to ensure upward social mobility of minorities.</p>
<p>However, funding alone is not enough. </p>
<p>In what may be a first in New Zealand, we provide quantitative evidence for “colourism”, or biases against dark skin tones. Thus, anti-racist interventions should include wider education against the implicit and widespread advantage of whiteness in society. </p>
<p>Racism is an enduring form of oppression of minorities. But in today’s ethnically diverse societies it manifests in a range of ways. Researchers, policymakers and activists interested in eliminating racism must reckon with its historical continuities as much as its contemporary complexities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194722/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sonia Lewycka receives funding from the Medical Research Council, UK, and Wellcome, </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Simon-Kumar receives funding from Royal Society of New Zealand's Marsden Grant; MBIE-Endeavour Fund; Health Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roshini Peiris-John receives funding from Health Research Council of New Zealand. </span></em></p>More nuanced understandings of racism, wealth and ‘whiteness’ are needed when designing anti-racism policy.Sonia Lewycka, Epidemiologist, Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU)Rachel Simon-Kumar, Associate Professor of Social and Community Health, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauRoshini Peiris-John, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1812782022-05-18T14:36:28Z2022-05-18T14:36:28ZBeauty and the Bleach: the colonial history of colourism explored in BBC documentary<p>In a recent BBC documentary, entitled <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0016tzr/tan-france-beauty-and-the-bleach">Beauty and the Bleach</a>, presenter Tan France (of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/15/only-queer-eye-could-make-deconstructing-toxic-masculinity-so-much-fun">Queer Eye</a> fame) tackles the issue of <a href="https://theconversation.com/colourism-how-shade-bias-perpetuates-prejudice-against-people-with-dark-skin-97149">colourism</a>. Also known as pigmentocracy, colourism is defined as discrimination that privileges light-skinned people of colour over their darker-skinned peers. </p>
<p>France was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, to Pakistani immigrant parents. He says he had always assumed that colourism had “something to do with colonialism”. He also illustrates, with harrowing personal stories, how it comes from within one’s own community. “It’s our own people who are saying that we are not worthy,” he says. “We are not worthy unless we are light-skinned.” </p>
<p>As a system, colourism is deeply rooted in the violence of colonial history. The slave-owning colonial societies of the Caribbean and the United States sustained <a href="https://theconversation.com/biracial-britain-why-mixed-race-people-must-be-able-to-decide-their-own-identity-154771">myths</a> of white racial purity. Preferential treatment of lighter-skinned slaves and the “<a href="https://aaregistry.org/story/the-one-drop-rule-a-brief-story/">one drop rule</a>” led to lighter skin shades being associated with status and respectability. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/328777">research</a> shows that colourism was also commodified during the late colonial period, by an imperially supported capitalist economy that racialised Indians. France rightly notes that the south Asian or brown experience cannot be conflated with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/colourism-how-skin-shade-prejudice-impacts-black-men-in-the-uk-175786">Black experience</a>, not least because of the prevalence of <a href="https://theconversation.com/searching-for-anti-racism-agendas-in-south-asian-canadian-communities-142431">anti-blackness</a> within many South Asian communities.</p>
<p>However, both Black and south Asian people continue to grapple with the legacies of their colonial histories. They continue to experience racism too. </p>
<h2>Rooted in colonial narratives</h2>
<p>Historically, Indians and Europeans alike popularised perceptions of south Indians and lower castes as darker skinned. In the late 18th and 19th centuries <a href="https://scroll.in/article/936872/two-new-genetic-studies-upheld-aryan-migration-theory-so-why-did-indian-media-report-the-opposite#:%7E:text=The%20theory%20of%20the%20Aryan,the%20indigenous%20Indus%20Valley%20Civilisation">orientalists held that</a> Aryan peoples had displaced indigenous <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/dravidian_peoples">Dravidians</a> across the Indian subcontinent, from around 2000 to 1600 BC. </p>
<p>Colonial thinkers <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/caste-society-and-politics-in-india-from-the-eighteenth-century-to-the-modern-age/097D56E007498073B691A17EC3441FEB">distinguished</a> between “strong pale Aryans” and small dark-skinned primitive Dravidians. Colonial ethnographer HH Risley further racialised Indians by codifying different castes ranging from <a href="https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=ha012289123">“Dead Black” to “Flushed Ivory”</a>. </p>
<p>These ideas fed into European civilisational ideas of superiority and progress, which were selectively adopted by other groups. Certain north Indian and Bengali muslims, for instance, connected Persian and Afghan heritage to Aryan genealogies. </p>
<p>So although caste and connections to skin colour were not created by European thinkers, they were consolidated by the British colonial state. Groups from the northern regions of India, deemed lighter-skinned and stronger, were classified as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUvyvodMID0">martial races</a> and recruited into the colonial army. Later, through the 1881 and 1901 censuses, racialised caste descriptions became a matter of public record. Across Indian society, fair skin continued to hold currency. </p>
<h2>How skin lightening became a big industry</h2>
<p>Long before Unilever launched its Fair and Lovely cream in 1971, European and US companies commodified <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QAS9HRAUPXSVTM6R48DE/full?target=10.1080/00856401.2021.1968599">skin lightening</a> in colonial India. Early 20th-century marketing for soaps and creams, as well as skin-lighteners, promoted ideals of superior hygiene, femininity and whiteness to Indian consumers. Local Indian entrepreneurs capitalised on their popularity, connecting fairer skin to class mobility. </p>
<p>The idea that “lighter means beautiful” was also reinforced, from the turn of the 20th century, by commercial photography and cinema in both Hollywood and <a href="http://www.burntroti.com/blog/bollywoods-unfair-and-ugly-obsession-with-colour">Bollywood</a>. And when people from south Asia and the Caribbean migrated to the UK, these preferences for lighter skin were <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526159748/">transported to post-war Britain</a>. </p>
<p>This discrimination compounded the racism they experienced at the hands of white British communities. France recounts his childhood trauma of facing racism outside and colourism at home. In the 1970s and 1980s, in Black and south Asian communities in Britain, skin shade remained associated with the very real question of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08912430222104895">social mobility</a>.</p>
<h2>Voices of resistance</h2>
<p>In colonial India, there was some pushback against colourism. Anti-caste thinkers including <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/caste-conflict-and-ideology/7DD3B8B96CB203D70D8E2ADDBBF4F4DC">Jyotirao Phule</a> and <a href="https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/readings/aoc_print_2004.pdf">BR Ambedkar </a> rejected ideas that endorsed Aryan and Brahman superiority. Opposition to colour-based prejudice could also be found in popular poetry as well as in debates in women’s periodicals. </p>
<p>In the US and in Britain, from the 1960s, Black power movements and <a href="https://doinghistoryinpublic.org/2017/12/13/13-feminist-activism-in-the-black-cultural-archives/">anti-racist socialist organising</a> embraced the <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-americas-bleaching-syndrome-82200">Black is beautiful</a> discourse. This idea resurfaced more recently, in 2017, in a campaign launched by the Indian non-governmental organisation, Women of Worth, entitled <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/sep/04/dark-is-beautiful-battle-to-end-worlds-obsession-with-lighter-skin#:%7E:text=The%20Dark%20Is%20Beautiful%20campaign,stories%20of%20skin%20colour%20bias">Dark is Beautiful</a>. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-a-complex-history-of-skin-lighteners-in-africa-and-beyond-132375">post-apartheid South Africa</a> activists inspired by anti-colonial thinking have attempted to ban skin lighteners and their harmful ingredients. However, the use of these products remains complex. </p>
<p>Some people view skin-lighteners as a <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315576190-20/women-want-white-decolonizing-beauty-studies-shirley-anne-tate">modern beauty choice</a>. Along with new lightening technologies, including laser treatments and plastic surgery, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0891243208316089">these products</a> remain hugely popular. Social media filters, meanwhile, continue to <a href="https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/the-new-tiktok-challenge">value lighter skin tones</a>.</p>
<p>In 2020, Unilever <a href="https://www.unilever.com/news/press-and-media/press-releases/2020/unilever-evolves-skin-care-portfolio-to-embrace-a-more-inclusive-vision-of-beauty/">announced</a> it was replacing “fair” in its Fair & Lovely product range with “glow”. My research highlights how the choice of “glow” is reminiscent of early 20th-century advertising – products are simply rebranded to align them with a more contemporary stance. </p>
<p>Much of France’s documentary focuses on his sense of shame at having on two occasions – at 9 and 16 – bleached his skin. But it was a response to racism and seen as a “matter of survival”. Skin-lightening, for many, is still seen as a means of accessing the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08912430222104895">social capital</a> needed to improve prospects, from better career opportunities to romantic relationships. </p>
<p>France dwells on the role community elders play in perpetuating this idea. Many south Asian women continue to share older <a href="https://scroll.in/article/1006392/how-urdu-domestic-manuals-in-the-1900s-taught-indian-women-to-be-fair-and-lovely">advice</a> about foods to eat or <a href="https://recipes.hypotheses.org/17710">concoctions to make</a> to improve skin colour and glow. </p>
<p>If these practices, like the discrimination at their root, have long been what singer Kelly Rowland describes in the documentary as the “said unsaid” within communities of colour, the historic resistance to them is finding new voices.</p>
<p>Across mainstream and social media, British <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00380385211069507">Black</a> and <a href="https://gal-dem.com/colourism-indian-community/">south Asian</a> people are <a href="https://unbound.com/books/the-good-immigrant/">speaking out</a>. As a second-generation British Pakistani woman, this is what I try to do too. France’s documentary stands as a poignant challenge to speak openly about these painful truths.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181278/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mobeen Hussain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tan France, of Queer Eye fame, delves into the skin-shade prejudice he experienced as a child in England and the colonial history at its roots.Mobeen Hussain, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1757862022-03-07T15:19:58Z2022-03-07T15:19:58ZColourism: how skin-shade prejudice impacts black men in the UK<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448094/original/file-20220223-17-1t6z5ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Experiencing skin-shade prejudice can impact on a person's self-confidence and their relationships.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-african-male-friends-talking-together-1616496982">AS photostudio | Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Black Lives Matter movement, and the renewed focus on equality and social justice for black people that has come with it, has brought increasing attention to the issue of <a href="https://theconversation.com/colourism-how-shade-bias-perpetuates-prejudice-against-people-with-dark-skin-97149">colourism</a>. This form of prejudice privileges people of colour with lighter skin and discriminates against those with darker skin. </p>
<p>Prominent black public figures, including the British singers Alexandra Burke and Beverley Knight, have begun to share their experiences. In June 2020, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jun/20/alexandra-burke-says-she-was-told-to-bleach-skin-by-music-industry">Burke</a> spoke of how people in the music industry had told her to bleach her skin in order to succeed. That same year, <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/central/2020-07-22/singer-beverley-knight-on-her-rise-to-fame-when-she-didnt-look-like-everyone-else-in-the-charts">Knight told ITV News</a> that the music industry is keen “to market people who are perhaps a little lighter than I am because it’s seen as being more mass accepted”.</p>
<p>Few black men, however, have spoken out. Little research has been done on men’s experiences of colourism, and none, to our knowledge, in the UK specifically. To address this gap, for a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00380385211069507">recent study</a> we conducted in-depth interviews with nine men (eight of whom identified as black and one as mixed race) from January to July 2019. </p>
<p>We found that despite having been subjected to colourism, some men also perpetuate it. It impacts both their confidence in themselves and their ideas of who is attractive. </p>
<h2>Internalised hurt</h2>
<p>In our study, black and mixed-race men’s experiences of colourism seemed to be most pronounced during childhood and adolescence. It occurred within families at home and among peers at school. As a result, some of the men we spoke to had internalised negative ideas about darker skin shades, with lasting effects on self-confidence. </p>
<p>Terrence, 22, said that his oldest brother was lighter than him and “always used to make jokes” about their other brother’s dark skin. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It would never be directed at me, but I just knew that I was darker than him. You’re left wondering if what you look like is the ideal.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The impact of his brother’s colourism was exacerbated by the jokes he was subjected to at school. Classmates would comment on both his skin shade and that of others with equally dark skin. </p>
<p>“It never really struck me deeply,” he said, “but sometimes you just look in the mirror and you’re like, ‘Wow, I am dark.’” He said that growing up, you just kind of internalise that idea that “lighter is brighter, lighter is better”. </p>
<p>This echoes studies among <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0095798417690054">black Americans</a> and among <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/19485565.2021.1991777?casa_token=AeJWdqa_giMAAAAA:FjNTmpGkKLlZ6DODP9TxsA1qHTalo9ibRD0cpRrtiNGqlMC7Q-M-OancEwfV46kF8px2Kshbe4II">Pakistani women</a> that show a negative correlation between internalised colourism and self-esteem. This underlines the global nature of the prejudice. </p>
<h2>Status symbol</h2>
<p>We found that being subjected to colourism did not necessarily stop men from perpetuating it. One man, Isaiah, said that when he was younger, he treated people who were dark differently. “I treated them less than … I treated them not as nice.” </p>
<p>What Isaiah is describing is internalised colourism, which is akin to <a href="https://theconversation.com/5-ways-to-address-internalized-white-supremacy-and-its-impact-on-health-152667">internalised</a> racism. Due to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/structural-racism-what-it-is-and-how-it-works-158822">structural</a> nature of racism, people of colour can perpetuate the prejudice to which they, themselves, are subjected. As Australian sociologist Adam Seet <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/epdf/10.3316/informit.751970839227968">has put it</a>, they are in effect indoctrinated into holding racist beliefs about themselves and the group to which they belong.</p>
<p>So too with colourism. The men we spoke to said that being seen to have relationships with mixed-race women or black women with light skin conferred status on black men. As another man, Bilal, put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>With a lot of black men, you haven’t really made it or you’re not really successful until you have obtained a light-skinned or fair-complexioned woman … As a young boy growing up in London, if you’re with a pretty light-skin or mixed-race girl, you’ll get a slap on the back from your peers and people will be like, you’ve done well and you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 2017, British journalists Kimberly McIntosh and Sophia Leonie <a href="https://gal-dem.com/yes-black-british-youth-are-obsessed-with-light-skin-and-curly-hair/">responded</a> to a viral video in which young black men had described how they preferred girls with light skin. For McIntosh, these boys were “reciting from the colonial scripture – beauty is measured in its inches from whiteness”.</p>
<p>This has harmful consequences. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26505337">Research</a> in the US has shown how colourism leads to black women feeling less desired. As McIntosh put it, “If young black women internalise racialised beauty standards, it can spawn a debilitating self-hatred. Blocking out the messages of the fashion and cosmetic industries is hard enough. Being spurned by your own race is another burden dark-skinned black women just don’t need.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of women of different races in black sportswear." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448118/original/file-20220223-19-1gf2myn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448118/original/file-20220223-19-1gf2myn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448118/original/file-20220223-19-1gf2myn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448118/original/file-20220223-19-1gf2myn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448118/original/file-20220223-19-1gf2myn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448118/original/file-20220223-19-1gf2myn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448118/original/file-20220223-19-1gf2myn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Men can hold prejudicial opinions about attractiveness in women based on skin shade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-mixed-race-women-standing-together-1332846986">Jacob Lund | Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pride and authenticity</h2>
<p>The men we spoke with highlighted the many privileges associated with light skin and, conversely, the prejudices against dark skin they themselves and others have experienced. Some, however, also argued that dark skin symbolised black authenticity. </p>
<p>For these interviewees, black skin was a source of pride. This fits with <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870601143992">Black antiracist aesthetics</a> that celebrate natural hair, dark skin and African features. One interviewee, Ekow, said that <a href="https://blackvoicenews.com/2015/04/10/black-skin-melanin-imparts-superiority-potential/">in Ghanaian culture</a>, the darker a person is, the more spiritual they are perceived to be. “I like my skin shade,” he said. “I love it.” </p>
<p>Different characteristics including skin shade, ethnicity and gender intersect and collectively affect a person’s experiences. Understanding how people of colour, and black and mixed-race men in particular, experience and perpetuate colourism – in all its complexity – is central to challenging it. </p>
<p>Black Lives Matter activists have been working to disrupt <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/socf.12540?saml_referrer">racist structures</a>. The narratives about the value of dark skin from some of our participants point to efforts to address colourism, which need to go hand in hand with efforts to address racism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Skin-shade prejudice can have a lasting impact both on people’s self-confidence and on who they in turn find attractive. Understanding how it works is key to resisting it.Aisha Phoenix, Lecturer in Social Justice, King's College LondonNadia Craddock, Research fellow, University of the West of EnglandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1460642020-09-21T14:48:23Z2020-09-21T14:48:23ZHas the skin lightener industry learned from Black Lives Matter?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358825/original/file-20200918-24-14ro2hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Black Lives Matter <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com">activism</a> has jolted the skin lightener industry. In June, manufacturers of skin lighteners joined other corporations in voicing support for the racial justice movement. Critics quickly <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/skin-lightening-cream-black-lives-matter-companies">pointed out</a> the hypocrisy of voicing such support in the US while continuing to sell skin whitening products globally. Such products, they say, play off of and promote racism and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/09/colourism-is-finally-being-taken-seriously-thanks-to-celebrities-like-lupita-nyongo">colourism</a> (which is prejudice based on preference for people with lighter skin tones) in Asia and Africa. </p>
<p>Manufacturers’ <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-are-pulling-skin-lightening-items-and-reckoning-with-racism-2020-6?IR=T">responses</a> have <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/26/loreal-unilever-reassess-skin-lightening-products-but-wont-quit-the-multi-billion-dollar-market/#1daf9865223a">varied</a>. Johnson & Johnson agreed to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-johnson-johnson-whitening-idUSKBN23Q2BZ">stop selling</a> Neutrogena Fine Fairness and Clean & Clear Fairness. Bigger players agreed to lesser changes. L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, will <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20200627-l-oreal-to-drop-words-like-whitening-from-its-skin-products">remove references</a> to “white”, “fair” and “light” from marketing its Garnier skin products. </p>
<p>This move acknowledges that such language promotes a narrow and anti-Black vision of beauty by presenting pale complexions as the ideal. Unilever, whose Ponds and Vaseline lines dominate sales in South Asia, will also <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/26/loreal-unilever-reassess-skin-lightening-products-but-wont-quit-the-multi-billion-dollar-market/#70c5fd02223a">alter</a> the name of its top-selling brand: Fair & Lovely will soon become Glow & Lovely.</p>
<p>Are these meaningful changes? Will they put a dent in the global trade in skin lighteners, now estimated to reach <a href="http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/skin-lightening-products-market-is-expected-to-reach-a-valuation-of-over-us-24-bn-by-the-end-of-2027-948760.htm">US$24 billion by 2027</a>?</p>
<p>Never before have activists and consumers in so many different countries simultaneously challenged major cosmetics manufacturers with such persistent criticism. Yet, my <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/beneath-the-surface/">research</a> on the layered <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-a-complex-history-of-skin-lighteners-in-africa-and-beyond-132375">history</a> of skin lightening in the US, South Africa, and East Africa suggests that the companies’ actions are neither new nor sufficient. Ending the most dangerous dimensions of the trade – the promotion of racist beauty ideals and the use of products containing mercury and other toxic ingredients – will require ongoing consciousness-raising and effective government regulation. </p>
<h2>Many names, many uses</h2>
<p>Manufacturers have long used a variety of names and messages to sell skin lighteners. This variety stems partly from the competitive nature of capitalist marketing and partly from the diverse reasons why people buy these products. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358848/original/file-20200918-20-4eujga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An advert with an illustration of a woman with an expensive hair-do reclining and smiling slightly." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358848/original/file-20200918-20-4eujga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358848/original/file-20200918-20-4eujga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358848/original/file-20200918-20-4eujga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358848/original/file-20200918-20-4eujga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358848/original/file-20200918-20-4eujga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358848/original/file-20200918-20-4eujga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358848/original/file-20200918-20-4eujga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1916 US newspaper ad.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the early 1900s, skin lighteners were usually marketed as “freckle waxes” or “skin bleaches”. They ranked among the world’s most popular cosmetics and often contained <a href="http://somatosphere.net/2018/beauty.html/">mercury</a>. Consumers included white, black and brown women.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358850/original/file-20200918-16-1l4543h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An advertorial with a photo of a glamorous woman gazing at he face in a compact mirror." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358850/original/file-20200918-16-1l4543h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358850/original/file-20200918-16-1l4543h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=2024&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358850/original/file-20200918-16-1l4543h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=2024&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358850/original/file-20200918-16-1l4543h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=2024&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358850/original/file-20200918-16-1l4543h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=2543&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358850/original/file-20200918-16-1l4543h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=2543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358850/original/file-20200918-16-1l4543h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=2543&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">By the early 1930s, South Africa manufacturers were marketing skin lighteners to black consumers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some women used waxes and bleaches to fade blemishes and dark spots, including freckles. Others used them to achieve an overall lighter complexion. Racialised <a href="http://138.253.13.50/history/blog/2018/black-beauty/">beauty ideals</a> – rooted in the history of slavery, colonialism, and segregation – shaped these desires.</p>
<p>In the 1920s and 1930s, many white consumers swapped waxes and bleaches for tanning lotions as seasonal tanning came to embody new forms of white privilege. With this shift, skin lighteners became cosmetics primarily associated with people of colour. For black and brown consumers living in places like the US, South Africa or Kenya where racism and colourism flourished, even slight differences in skin colour could carry significant political and social consequences. (Recently, some white women have returned to skin lighteners, now <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-rebranded-skin-whitening-creams-143049">marketed</a> as “anti-aging creams” and “skin brighteners”.)</p>
<p>During the 1950s and 1960s, manufacturers softened their marketing language. Surveys in the US found that many African American consumers took offence at the term “bleaching” – with its connotations of “whitening” – and preferred the language of lightening and toning. Hence, “skin lighteners” and “skin toners” replaced “skin bleaches”. Brands like Bleach ‘N Glow became Ultra Glow.</p>
<p>Unilever’s plan to swap “glow” for “fair” might be new for some Asian markets but the language of glow and brightness has been around in the US and South Africa for some time.</p>
<p>Criticism forced manufacturers to adjust in other ways. In 1971 Kenya’s postcolonial government <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00020184.2018.1540530?src=recsys&journalCode=cast20">banned</a> Ambi skincare ads for abusing “the dignity of Africans” by claiming that “new Africans” were “light skinned Africans who used Ambi”. <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/defining-black-consciousness">Black Consciousness</a> organisers in South Africa denounced the same ads. Ambi responded by adopting a new slogan – “the clear, natural look” – and creating ads with an earthy sensibility.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358843/original/file-20200918-24-p4h0v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An advert showing a doctor and nurse consulting with a darker-skinned male patient, the doctor holding a clipboard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358843/original/file-20200918-24-p4h0v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358843/original/file-20200918-24-p4h0v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358843/original/file-20200918-24-p4h0v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358843/original/file-20200918-24-p4h0v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358843/original/file-20200918-24-p4h0v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358843/original/file-20200918-24-p4h0v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358843/original/file-20200918-24-p4h0v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Ambi ad that equated light-toned skin with success in a 1970 newspaper in South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
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<h2>Lessons from an anti-apartheid victory</h2>
<p>In 1991 South African activists achieved more than marketing concessions from manufacturers. What happened provides important lessons for today.</p>
<p>A coalition of progressive medical professionals and Black Consciousness organisers convinced the apartheid government, in its waning months, to ban all cosmetics containing depigmenting agents including <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-time-all-african-countries-took-a-stand-on-skin-lightening-creams-49780">harmful</a> mercury and hydroquinone, by then the most common active ingredient. They convinced the government to become the first in the world to prohibit cosmetic advertisements from making any claims to “bleach”, “lighten” or “whiten” skin. Like today’s concessions to Black Lives Matter, South Africa’s regulations were the result of broad-based antiracist activism, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/boycotts-rallies-and-free-mandela-uk-anti-apartheid-movement-created-a-blueprint-for-activists-today-134857">anti-apartheid movement</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358846/original/file-20200918-24-1t02k7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An advert in which a couple hold hands in the sunset." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358846/original/file-20200918-24-1t02k7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358846/original/file-20200918-24-1t02k7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358846/original/file-20200918-24-1t02k7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358846/original/file-20200918-24-1t02k7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358846/original/file-20200918-24-1t02k7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358846/original/file-20200918-24-1t02k7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358846/original/file-20200918-24-1t02k7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Following protests in 1971, Ambi changed its message and aesthetic to this.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The South African efforts achieved mixed results. On the one hand, activists effectively raised awareness about the physical and psychological harm of skin lightening. This led to decreased sales during the 1980s. After the 1991 regulations were implemented, in-country manufacture shuttered and supply dried up.</p>
<p>But these gains did not persist. The supply of banned skin lighteners crept back as traders smuggled them in from elsewhere. Soon, domestic manufacture reemerged, this time in secret. On occasion, government officials have raided stashes of skin lighteners. Much more illegal inventory has slipped their notice. Some officials complain that they have insufficient resources to monitor all cosmetics products. Other observers blame government corruption and apathy.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-a-complex-history-of-skin-lighteners-in-africa-and-beyond-132375">There's a complex history of skin lighteners in Africa and beyond</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Demand returned as well. During the 2000s, a <a href="https://joburgcbd.com/johannesburgs-cosmetic-medical-economy/">new generation</a> of users emerged, often unaware of earlier struggles against skin lighteners and the dangers they posed. In post-apartheid South Africa, as elsewhere, deeply embedded forms of racism and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/09/colourism-is-finally-being-taken-seriously-thanks-to-celebrities-like-lupita-nyongo">colourism</a> mean that paler skin tones are often still associated with beauty and <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/columnists/guestcolumn/black-mens-scramble-for-yellow-bones-20170901">success</a>. </p>
<p>Over the past decade, some African women have targeted that association. Kenyan artist Ng’endo Mukii offered a powerful critical reflection on skin lightening in her 2012 short film <a href="http://vimeo.com/ngendo/yellowfever"><em>Yellow Fever</em></a>. South Africa dermatologist Ncoza Dlova holds educational <a href="http://ndaba-online.ukzn.ac.za/UkzndabaStory/157/ukzn-academics-highlight-the-dangers-of-skin-bleaching/#sthash.MyeKDHOh.dpbs">events</a> and <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/national-campaign-launched-against-skin-bleaching-13489911">campaigns</a> to teach about the dangers of skin lighteners and the beauty of natural skin colour.</p>
<p>Somali-American activist Amira Adawe and her organisation <a href="https://thebeautywell.org">Beautywell</a> does similar outreach. They <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/11/22/amazon-pulls-skinlightening-creams-from-site-after-demands-from-minnesota-activists">pressured</a> online retailer Amazon to stop selling products that contain mercury. Most recently, they <a href="https://sahanjournal.com/health/skin-lightening-mccollum-ilhan/">lobbied</a> the US Congress for $2 million in new funding for research and public education on the dangers of skin lighteners.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358603/original/file-20200917-18-od31o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Book cover with words 'Beneath the Surface' and an illustration of a woman with an Afro hairstyle, a shadow across her face dividing it into dark brown skin tone and light brown." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358603/original/file-20200917-18-od31o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358603/original/file-20200917-18-od31o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358603/original/file-20200917-18-od31o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358603/original/file-20200917-18-od31o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358603/original/file-20200917-18-od31o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358603/original/file-20200917-18-od31o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358603/original/file-20200917-18-od31o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span>
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<p>L’Oreal’s and Unilever’s rebranding campaigns are inadequate. Combating the harm of skin lightening in the twenty-first century requires raising consumer awareness and challenging racist beauty ideals. It also requires that governments enforce and strengthen cosmetic regulations.</p>
<p><em>Lynn M. Thomas’s latest book Beneath the Surface: A Transnational History of Skin Lighteners is available from <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/beneath-the-surface/">Wits University Press</a> and from <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/beneath-the-surface">Duke University Press</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynn M. Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cosmetics companies have agreed to remove racially offensive language from their skin products - but history, in Kenya and South Africa, shows they’ve done the same before.Lynn M. Thomas, History Professor, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1407542020-06-22T12:50:56Z2020-06-22T12:50:56ZBlack Lives Matter in Jamaica: debates about colourism follow anger at police brutality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342956/original/file-20200619-43205-eprot3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C1691%2C931&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Black Lives Matter protest in Kingston, Jamaica on June 6. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTVe3j6_SX0">Jamaica Gleaner via YouTube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Across the world, Black Lives Matter protests are continuing in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In the US and many European countries, protests have led to the toppling of colonial and <a href="https://theconversation.com/public-sculpture-expert-why-i-welcome-the-decision-to-throw-bristols-edward-colston-statue-in-the-river-140285">slavery monuments</a> and demands for far-reaching changes to address systemic racism. </p>
<p>But Black Lives Matter protests have also been held in black-majority countries where they have raised some uncomfortable truths. In Jamaica, <a href="http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20200604/protesters-gather-front-us-embassy-demand-change-after-george-floyds">protest and public debate</a> in recent weeks have focused on the island’s high rate of homicides by police and other social injustices. But they have also raised debates about colourism – discrimination against people with a dark skin tone.</p>
<p>On June 6, a small Black Lives Matter protest was held outside the US embassy in Kingston. Protesters focused particularly on extrajudicial killings by police and other security forces. According to <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/AMR3850922016ENGLISH.PDF">Amnesty International</a>, Jamaica has one of the highest rates of lethal police shootings in the world. </p>
<p>Two days after George Floyd was killed in late May, Susan Bogle, a poor woman with an intellectual disability, was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-protests-jamaica-t/son-of-woman-killed-in-security-operation-seeks-attention-for-jamaicas-poorest-suburbs-idUSKBN23C2JY">allegedly shot</a> in her home during a police-military operation in August Town, a neighbourhood of Kingston. Protesters carried placards with her name, as well as those of other victims of police brutality, including <a href="https://liverpooluniversitypress.blog/2019/09/23/skin-colour-discrimination-in-jamaica-during-the-era-of-decolonisation/">Mario Deane</a>, who died in police custody in 2014. </p>
<p>Protesters stressed that these victims of police brutality had one thing in common: they were poor, and because of Jamaica’s complex class and colour relations, mostly dark-skinned. </p>
<p>Several days after Bogle’s killing, Jamaica’s prime minister, Andrew Holness <a href="https://youtu.be/8nbpXJLQ1p8">visited her family</a> and said the incident would be fully investigated. But he <a href="http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/latestnews/PM_receives_social_media_backlash_for_August">faced an online backlash</a> from those who said the visit was an insensitive PR stunt rather than an attempt to <a href="https://buzz-caribbean.com/hot/tone-deaf-ad-highlights-andrew-holness-visit-to-family-of-susan-bogle/">meaningfully address</a> the high rate of police homicides, gang violence or the general <a href="https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/2015209/BTI_2018_Jamaica.pdf">plight of poor Jamaicans</a>.</p>
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</figure>
<h2>Colourism in Jamaica</h2>
<p>But while public debates both in newspapers and on social media largely focused on the extrajudicial killings, questions were also raised, especially by young Jamaicans about the role of colourism in Jamaican society. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bleumag.com/2019/05/30/skin-bleaching-is-a-dangerous-trend-in-jamaica/">prevalence of skin bleaching</a> is only one expression of colourism in Jamaica. Such prejudice has its origins in slavery, when slave children fathered by white planters or overseers – often as a result of sexual violence – were given special privileges. These <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1081602X.2019.1582433">included exemption</a> from working in the fields on account of their closeness to white men and, by definition, whiteness. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/colourism-how-shade-bias-perpetuates-prejudice-against-people-with-dark-skin-97149">Colourism – how shade bias perpetuates prejudice against people with dark skin</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Colourism and white-on-black discrimination in Jamaica, the US and other parts of the Americas, should be seen as two sides of the same coin. Colourism would not exist without European colonialism and the use of enslaved Africans on sugar plantations. In my own <a href="https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/51556/">research</a>, I’ve argued that colourism in Jamaican society has been a public secret – something that is commonly known but rarely openly acknowledged. Those who have dared to expose it have usually been vilified. And today that increasingly means being called names and receiving threats on social media.</p>
<h2>A welcome debate</h2>
<p>The public debate in the wake of George Floyd’s killing suggests that more Jamaicans are willing to openly acknowledge that light skin bestows privilege and that this is a form of racism. And this includes not just those who have been at the receiving end of colourism. One light-skinned man, for instance, <a href="https://twitter.com/tessellated/status/1267501540996194304?s=20">tweeted</a> that he knew he was often treated better because of the colour of his skin. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1267501540996194304"}"></div></p>
<p>But there are also still many who argue that racism is something that happens in the US and that “classism” takes place in Jamaica. In other words, that the fact that some Jamaicans get good jobs or the best seat in a restaurant is simply because of their class privilege and has little or nothing to do with skin colour.</p>
<p>Since Jamaica gained independence in 1962, the country has witnessed various “racial eruptions” – racial incidents that have led to a public debate about race and colour. One <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hR6yDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA147&dq=skyline+incident+jamaica&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj0itO0-ZTqAhVho3EKHbN1CcgQ6AEwAHoECAYQAg#v=onepage&q=skyline%20incident%20jamaica&f=false">infamous case</a> was the so-called Skyline incident in 1972 when dark-skinned housing minister Anthony Spaulding accused the Skyline hotel of racism for having refused to serve him and his friends because one of his friends had refused to remove his cap as was hotel policy. </p>
<p>But none of these incidents have changed the racial status quo: light skin continues to bestow privilege in both the public and private spheres. For instance, <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/jamaica/Jamaica_Country_Report_2012_W.pdf">various studies</a> have shown a close correlation between wealth and skin colour. </p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether this most recent racial eruption will lead to action to address colourism. The fact that it is now being more openly addressed is a positive step forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140754/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henrice Altink receives funding from the British Academy and Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>The killing of George Floyd has sparked debates in Jamaica about police brutality – and class and colour.Henrice Altink, Professor in Modern History, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1323752020-03-05T14:20:42Z2020-03-05T14:20:42ZThere’s a complex history of skin lighteners in Africa and beyond<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317538/original/file-20200227-24680-l3fa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail of book cover</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Somali-American activists recently scored a victory against Amazon and against <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/09/colourism-is-finally-being-taken-seriously-thanks-to-celebrities-like-lupita-nyongo">colourism</a>, which is prejudice based on preference for people with lighter skin tones. Members of the non-profit <a href="http://thebeautywell.org/">The Beautywell Project</a> teamed up with the <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/">Sierra Club</a> to convince the online retail giant to stop selling skin lightening products that contain <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/mercury-element-facts-608433">mercury</a>.</p>
<p>After more than a year of protests, this coalition of antiracist, health, and environmental activists <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/11/22/amazon-pulls-skinlightening-creams-from-site-after-demands-from-minnesota-activists">persuaded Amazon</a> to remove some 15 products containing <a href="https://www.zeromercury.org/">toxic levels of mercury</a>. This puts a small but noteworthy dent in the global trade in skin lighteners, estimated to reach US$31.2 billion by 2024.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318031/original/file-20200302-18283-k3bdh0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318031/original/file-20200302-18283-k3bdh0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318031/original/file-20200302-18283-k3bdh0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318031/original/file-20200302-18283-k3bdh0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318031/original/file-20200302-18283-k3bdh0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318031/original/file-20200302-18283-k3bdh0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318031/original/file-20200302-18283-k3bdh0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amira Adawe, an activist with The Beautywell Project pickets outside Amazon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amira Adawe</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What are the roots of this sizeable trade? And how might its most toxic elements be curtailed?</p>
<p>The online sale of skin lighteners is relatively new, but the in-person traffic is very old. My new <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/beneath-the-surface">book</a> explores this layered history from the vantage point of South Africa.</p>
<p>As in other parts of the world colonised by European powers, the politics of skin colour in South Africa have been importantly shaped by the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">history</a> of white supremacy and institutions of racial slavery, colonialism, and segregation. My book examines that history.</p>
<p>Yet, racism alone cannot explain skin lightening practices. My book also attends to intersecting dynamics of class and gender, changing beauty ideals and the expansion of consumer capitalism.</p>
<h2>A deep history of skin whitening and lightening</h2>
<p>For centuries and even millennia, elites used paints and powders to create smoother, paler appearances, unblemished by illness and the sun’s darkening and roughening effects.</p>
<p>Cosmetic users in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome created dramatic appearances by pairing skin whiteners containing lead or chalk with black eye makeup and red lip colourants. In China and Japan too, elite women and some men used white lead preparations and rice powder to achieve complexions resembling white jade or fresh lychee.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318048/original/file-20200302-18308-t3ibht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318048/original/file-20200302-18308-t3ibht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1079&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318048/original/file-20200302-18308-t3ibht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1079&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318048/original/file-20200302-18308-t3ibht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1079&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318048/original/file-20200302-18308-t3ibht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1356&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318048/original/file-20200302-18308-t3ibht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318048/original/file-20200302-18308-t3ibht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1356&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 1623 portrait by Anthony van Dyck, Elena Grimaldi’s regal whiteness is underscored by a dark-toned servant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Skin lighteners generate a less painted look than skin whiteners by removing rather than concealing blemished or melanin-rich skin. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/melanin">Melanin</a> is the biochemical compound that makes skin colourful.</p>
<p>Active ingredients in skin lighteners have ranged from acidic compounds like lemon juice and milk to harsher chemicals like sulfur, arsenic, and mercury. In parts of precolonial Southern Africa, some people used mineral and botanical preparations to brighten – rather than whiten or lighten – their skin and hair.</p>
<p>During the era of the <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/slave-route/transatlantic-slave-trade/">trans-Atlantic slave trade</a>, skin colour and associated physical difference were used to distinguish enslaved people from free, and to justify the former’s oppression. Colonisers cast melanin-rich hues as the embodiment of ugliness and inferiority. Within this racist political order, some sought to whiten and lighten their complexions.</p>
<p>By the twentieth century, mass-produced skin lightening creams ranked among the world’s most popular cosmetics. Consumers included white, black, and brown women.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317436/original/file-20200226-24690-8e4tu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317436/original/file-20200226-24690-8e4tu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317436/original/file-20200226-24690-8e4tu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317436/original/file-20200226-24690-8e4tu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317436/original/file-20200226-24690-8e4tu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317436/original/file-20200226-24690-8e4tu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317436/original/file-20200226-24690-8e4tu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This ad appeared in an issue of the Central and East African edition of Drum magazine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Duke University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1920s and 1930s, many white consumers swapped skin lighteners for tanning lotions as time spent sunbathing and playing outdoors became a sign of a healthy and leisured lifestyle. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/19/history-of-tanning">Seasonal tanning</a> embodied new forms of white privilege.</p>
<p>Skin lighteners became primarily associated with people of colour. For black and brown consumers, living in places like the United States and South Africa where racism and colourism have flourished, even slight differences in skin colour could carry political and social consequences.</p>
<h2>The mercury effect</h2>
<p>Skin lighteners can be physically harmful. Mercury, one of their most common active ingredients, lightens skin in two ways. It inhibits the formation of melanin by rendering the enzyme <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8496620">tyrosinase</a> inactive; and it exfoliates the tanned, outer layers of the skin through the production of <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Hydrochloric-acid">hydrochloric acid</a>.</p>
<p>By the early twentieth century, pharmaceutical and medical textbooks recommended mercury – usually in the form of ammoniated mercury – for treating skin infections and dark spots while often warning of its harmful effects. Cosmetic manufacturers marketed creams containing ammoniated mercury as “freckle removers” or “skin bleaches”.</p>
<p>When the US Congress passed the <a href="https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/histories-product-regulation/1938-food-drug-and-cosmetic-act">Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act in 1938</a>, such creams were among the first to be regulated.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317446/original/file-20200226-24659-1ii165p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317446/original/file-20200226-24659-1ii165p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317446/original/file-20200226-24659-1ii165p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317446/original/file-20200226-24659-1ii165p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317446/original/file-20200226-24659-1ii165p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317446/original/file-20200226-24659-1ii165p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317446/original/file-20200226-24659-1ii165p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Part of Twins’s success lay in their recruitment of hawkers to sell their products in townships. Bona, May 1959.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Duke University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After World War II, the negative environmental and health impact of mercury became more apparent. The devastating case of <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200213135755.htm">mercury poisoning</a> caused by industrial wastewater in Minamata, Japan, prompted the Food and Drug Administration to take a closer look at mercury’s toxicity, including in cosmetics. Here was a visceral instance of what environmentalist <a href="https://www.rachelcarson.org/">Rachel Carson</a> meant about small, domestic choices making the world uninhabitable.</p>
<p>In 1973, the administration banned all but trace amounts of mercury from cosmetics. Other countries followed suit. South Africa banned mercurial cosmetics in 1975, the European Economic Union in 1976, and Nigeria in 1982. The trade in skin lighteners, nonetheless, continued as other active ingredients – most notably <a href="https://www.rxlist.com/consumer_hydroquinone_melquin_3/drugs-condition.htm">hydroquinone</a> – replaced ammoniated mercury.</p>
<h2>Meanwhile in South Africa</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317447/original/file-20200226-24664-1uevavc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317447/original/file-20200226-24664-1uevavc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317447/original/file-20200226-24664-1uevavc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317447/original/file-20200226-24664-1uevavc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317447/original/file-20200226-24664-1uevavc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317447/original/file-20200226-24664-1uevavc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317447/original/file-20200226-24664-1uevavc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A full-color.
In the early 1960s, colour photography and printing saw skin lightener ads feature a range of light brown and reddish skintones. Drum, September 1961.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Duke University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In apartheid South Africa, the trade was especially robust. Skin lighteners ranked among the most commonly used personal products in black urban households. During the 1980s, activists inspired by <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/defining-black-consciousness">Black Consciousness</a> and the sentiment “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/mar/26/kwame-brathwaite-photographer-black-is-beautiful">Black is Beautiful</a>” teamed up with concerned medical professionals to make opposition to skin lighteners part of the <a href="https://www.aluka.org/struggles/collection/AAM">anti-apartheid movement</a>.</p>
<p>In the early 1990s, activists convinced the government <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-time-all-african-countries-took-a-stand-on-skin-lightening-creams-49780">to ban</a> all cosmetic skin lighteners containing known depigmenting agents – and to prohibit cosmetic advertisements from making any claims to “bleach”, “lighten” or “whiten” skin. This prohibition was the first of its kind and the regulations immediately shuttered the in-country manufacture of skin lighteners.</p>
<p>South Africa’s regulations testify to the broader antiracist political movement from which they emerged. Thirty years on, however, South Africa again possesses a <a href="https://www.lawforall.co.za/2019/10/skin-lightening-south-africa-law/">robust</a> – if now illicit – trade in skin lighteners. An especially disturbing element is the resurgence of mercurial products.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317449/original/file-20200226-24664-9ddcjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317449/original/file-20200226-24664-9ddcjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317449/original/file-20200226-24664-9ddcjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317449/original/file-20200226-24664-9ddcjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317449/original/file-20200226-24664-9ddcjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317449/original/file-20200226-24664-9ddcjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317449/original/file-20200226-24664-9ddcjv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>South African researchers have found that over 40% of skin lighteners sold in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-4632.2012.05566.x">Durban</a> and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ced.12720">Cape Town</a> contain mercury.</p>
<p>The activists’ recent victory against Amazon suggests one way forward. They took out a full-page ad in a local newspaper denouncing Amazon’s sale of mercurial skin lighteners as “dangerous, racist, and illegal.” A petition with 23,000 signatures was hand-delivered to the company’s Minnesota office.</p>
<p>By combining antiracist, health, and environmentalist arguments, activists held one of the world’s most powerful companies accountable. They also brought the toxic presence of mercurial skin lighteners to public awareness and made them more difficult to purchase.</p>
<p><em>Lynn M. Thomas’s latest book Beneath the Surface: A Transnational History of Skin Lighteners is available from <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/beneath-the-surface/">Wits University Press</a> and from <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/beneath-the-surface">Duke University Press</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132375/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynn M. Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The long history of racist beauty standards alone cannot explain the ongoing global use of harmful skin lighteners.Lynn M. Thomas, History Professor, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/971492018-08-17T08:44:22Z2018-08-17T08:44:22ZColourism – how shade bias perpetuates prejudice against people with dark skin<p>When a person of colour with light skin rises to prominence, or becomes the first to occupy a particular position, it’s often heralded as a sign that structural barriers to the progress of people of colour have been removed. This was the case when Meghan Markle married Prince Harry in May, joining the British royal family as the Duchess of Sussex. </p>
<p>Some media reports portrayed Harry’s marriage to Meghan, who has one black parent and one white parent, as <a href="https://www.thisisinsider.com/royal-wedding-meghan-markle-prince-harry-marriage-has-meaning-for-people-of-color-2018-5">signifying “hope”</a> for people of colour while others said the match could spark a <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/prince-harry-and-meghan-markle-might-spark-a-royal-cultural-revolution">“royal cultural revolution”</a>. This parallels what happened when Barack Obama, the son of a white mother and black father, was <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/barack-obama-first-black-president-us-racism-white-supremacy-donald-trump-a7532206.html">celebrated</a> as “the first black president” in the US. His election was <a href="https://thegrio.com/2017/01/19/hope-change-obama-presidency/">described</a> as a “milestone in race relations,” ushering in a “postracial country” – one that had <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1527476409340906">moved beyond race</a>. </p>
<p>However, the outstanding achievements of some prominent people of colour with light skin doesn’t signify an advance for black people, or people of colour more generally. Those with light skin still benefit from the privilege that comes with an approximation to whiteness. People of colour with light skin who are public figures are often viewed as having transcended their “race”, whereas negative perceptions of people of colour more broadly are left largely unchanged. </p>
<p>There have been some recent incidents where people of colour with light skin have expressed disdain for those with darker skin. The Radio 1 DJ and TV host Maya Jama, who is of Somali and Swedish descent and celebrated as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jul/29/maya-jama-interview-true-love-or-true-lies-stormzy">unquestionably stunning</a>”, was compelled to apologise when an offensive tweet she posted in 2012 resurfaced. </p>
<h2>Creeping ‘colourism’</h2>
<p>Colourism is prejudice involving the preferential treatment of people with light skin within and between ethnic groups. While it affects both men and women, colourism intersects with sexism so that it particularly affects women of colour. The sociologist <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317557968">Meeta Rani Jha</a> argues: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Physical attractiveness, whiteness, and youthfulness have accrued capital just as darker skin colour, hair texture, disability, and ageing have devalued feminine currency. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mathew Knowles, the father of the superstar singer and actress Beyoncé and singer Solange, has <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/matthew-knowles-beyonce-darker-skin-success-music-industry-colourism-interview-solange-race-issues-a8196406.html">highlighted</a> how light skin leads to opportunities in the entertainment industry: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When it comes to black females, who are the people who get their music played on pop radio? … Mariah Carey, Rihanna, the female rapper Nicki Minaj, my kids … and what do they all have in common? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Grime artist Lioness <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-44229236">told BBC Newsbeat</a> that she gave up music for seven years in part because talent scouts made it clear she would have more success if she had lighter skin. According to the BBC, between January 2017 and early June 2018, of the 68 female solo artists in the British Top 40, 17 were of black ancestry and the vast majority had light skin. </p>
<h2>Light skin privilege</h2>
<p>Colourism has evolved in different ways in different parts of the world. In countries with a history of transatlantic slavery, or European colonialism, colourism dates back to the preferential treatment <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00006.x">given to people of colour with light skin</a> who were often the <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0891243208316089">progeny of white slave masters</a> or colonisers. </p>
<p>Today, there are still considerable advantages to having lighter skin. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00006.x">Research in the US</a> has pointed to advantages for people of colour with light skin in education, the job market and relationships. Women of colour are burdened with an oppressive ideal of what is “beautiful” that often excludes the majority of the world’s population. </p>
<p>Colourism is simultaneously exploited by companies determined to turn insecurities about skin colour into financial gain through <a href="https://qz.com/1072367/skin-lightening-the-dangerous-obsession-thats-worth-billions/">marketing lucrative skin lightening products</a>. Interviews and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0wfjx6L9q0">videos</a> featuring black women who use <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45085674">skin-bleaching products</a> make clear that it is insecurities about skin shade that lead them to seek lighter skin, fuelling the multi-billion dollar global skin lightening industry. In the UK, some people resort to skin lightening products in an effort to try and gain advantages in the job market, or relationships, that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/oct/16/health.healthandwellbeing">they believe</a> will result from having lighter skin.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/companies-that-promise-to-lighten-baby-skin-colour-reinforce-prejudice-95024">Companies that promise to lighten baby skin colour reinforce prejudice</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Obscuring other people of colour</h2>
<p>British writer Laura Smith has <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11205165/Mixed-race-in-the-UK-am-I-the-future-face-of-this-country.html">argued</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The trend for mixed actors, models or television presenters to be deployed as the unthreatening faces of ‘diversity’ can squeeze out other people of colour.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This exclusion is compounded by the way in which people with power and privilege use the success of those people of colour with light skin, such as Markle, to claim advances for people of colour more generally. In doing so, they can obscure the marginalisation of those with dark skin and hide the effects of colourism and racism. </p>
<p>To challenge colourism, we must draw attention to the lack of people with darker skin shades in high profile or high status positions and the obstacles they face. These obstacles include a global beauty industry that thrives on insecurity and the allure of achievable “enhancement” built upon ideals that privilege whiteness and light skin. Only in recognising and challenging the racism that underpins colourism can we begin to address this pernicious prejudice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97149/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aisha Phoenix does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The racism that underpins colourism must be challenged.Aisha Phoenix, Post-Doctoral Researcher, School of History, Religions & Philosophies, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/950242018-07-27T12:29:59Z2018-07-27T12:29:59ZCompanies that promise to lighten baby skin colour reinforce prejudice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229438/original/file-20180726-106517-1eakvvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/144900295?src=kqd3EGCL_KqFfyoglTNA1A-1-5&size=medium_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Skin lightening is a longstanding practice that occurs in many parts of the world. It’s been done through the use of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/23/skin-lightening-creams-are-dangerous-yet-business-is-booming-can-the-trade-be-stopped">creams, lotions, soaps</a>, folk remedies, and staying out of the sun. The desire for light skin has been extended to children too. Advice to “marry light” is not uncommon in <a href="https://ejop.psychopen.eu/index.php/ejop/article/view/144">Asian</a> and <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0192513X10390858">black</a> families, for example, in order to produce a light-skinned child. </p>
<p>Some have also tried to lighten the skin of their unborn child with the help of new technologies, whether or not these technologies are effective or safe. In Ghana, some women have reportedly <a href="https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/tori-43214786">taken a pill to lighten</a> the skin of their foetus despite the questionable science. Others in the US using IVF technology have selected egg or sperm donors with <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dear_prudence/2015/06/dear_prudence_my_white_wife_won_t_let_us_use_a_black_sperm_donor.html">light or white skin</a> irrespective of the inaccurate results. There is even the possibility – however remote at the moment – of <a href="https://theconversation.com/genome-editing-poses-ethical-problems-that-we-cannot-ignore-39466">genetic selection of embryos</a> for traits such as fair skin. If there was a diagnostic test for skin tone that could be carried out on embryos, for instance, reproducers could select “this” embryo likely to have fairer skin over “that” one likely to have darker skin. </p>
<p>Philosophers have offered some conflicting moral principles to provide direction on whether people looking to have a child via assisted conception technologies should select certain embryos. While some have suggested that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/04/the-case-against-perfection/302927/">we should not select at all</a>, others have argued we should select embryos in various morally significant ways. These include picking: the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8519.00251">“best” child</a>; the child you <a href="http://heinonline.org/HOL/AuthorProfile?search_name=Robertson%2C+John+A.&collection=journals&base=js">most want</a>; the child that will do the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28786178">least harm to others</a>; or the child that will provide the <a href="https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/4109108">most benefit to others</a>. </p>
<h2>Complicity of companies and states</h2>
<p>Whatever the current plausibility of these various interventions, I believe there is a wider socio-political question to ask in these debates. This goes beyond individual decisions, and looks at the role played by companies which provide embryo, or sperm or egg, selection services, or skin-lightening products, and those legislators who govern such practices. </p>
<p>Companies that produce skin-lightening pills for foetuses, laboratories that develop technology for non-disease embryonic selection, and clinics that offer sperm and eggs likely to have lighter skin at a higher cost, all have a vested, monetary, interest in offering these services or products. </p>
<p>Liberal democracies too might want to allow such services or products because decisions about children are private matters and such states profess to respect citizens’ autonomy. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-future-of-genetic-enhancement-is-not-in-the-west-63246">Non-liberal democracies</a> might want populations that are stronger, smarter, more competitive or more beautiful. </p>
<p>The hypothetical argument is that, so long as there are protections in place – it is medically safe, no one is coerced, and there is recourse to resolve disputes – then it should be permitted. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229321/original/file-20180725-194140-nzmqs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229321/original/file-20180725-194140-nzmqs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229321/original/file-20180725-194140-nzmqs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229321/original/file-20180725-194140-nzmqs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229321/original/file-20180725-194140-nzmqs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229321/original/file-20180725-194140-nzmqs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229321/original/file-20180725-194140-nzmqs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Embryo selection: is it ethical?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-ivf-invitro-fertilization-embryo-laboratory-1121729447?src=gXuG57mdLXMXdw0LOJh2lA-1-49">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Some moral arguments about selection</h2>
<p>However, there are moral arguments – most often raised in the case of disability, but no less relevant in other cases – against these practices. Foremost among them is a concern over <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09687599826452">being eugenic</a> if we select against disability. Applying this to the skin colour case, if babies are bred to have fairer skin, could whole populations of darker skinned people begin to disappear? </p>
<p>Defenders of non-disabled embryo selection reject this eugenic concern. They argue this is because neither <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8519.00251">the state</a>, at least in liberal democracies, nor companies, are mandating the selection of particular traits. Rather it is individuals who are choosing what they want. This could apply equally to the skin colour case too. </p>
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<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-you-turbo-charge-your-genes-to-produce-designer-babies-53261">Can you turbo-charge your genes to produce 'designer babies'?</a>
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</em>
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<p>There are other concerns too when selecting against disability, including what is <a href="https://academic.oup.com/medlaw/article-abstract/19/2/334/944634">expressed</a> about current disabled people through selection. When applying this to the skin colour case, if darker skin is chosen less often by parents than fairer skin – a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/hypa.12056">global trend</a> when buying sperm and eggs for IVF for surrogacy – then existing darker skinned people might feel they are less valuable. </p>
<p>Those philosophers that defend embryo selection against disability discount this worry by proposing ways to make current disabled people <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/choosing-children-9780199238491?cc=gb&lang=en&">feel valuable</a>. By extension, others may argue that although people could select against darker skin, we can promote broader messages that emphasise that <a href="http://womenofworth.in/dark-is-beautiful/">dark skin is beautiful</a> and that existing darker-skinned people are valuable. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229320/original/file-20180725-194137-1mhnp0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229320/original/file-20180725-194137-1mhnp0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229320/original/file-20180725-194137-1mhnp0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229320/original/file-20180725-194137-1mhnp0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229320/original/file-20180725-194137-1mhnp0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229320/original/file-20180725-194137-1mhnp0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229320/original/file-20180725-194137-1mhnp0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Colourism is a practice where one type of skin colour is portrayed as better than another.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Colourism</h2>
<p>Another worry that I am exploring in <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjcjYvXoOTaAhXrCcAKHXpgCvgQFggpMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Farticle%2F10.1007%2Fs10728-017-0341-y&usg=AOvVaw13NDhwdFZyYWsII0iO2Wgs">my research</a>, is that companies or states that offer or allow embryo selection for fairer skin are complicit in practices that are substantively about one type of skin colour being better than another – a form of what’s called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6V1AjDqXnk">“colourism”</a>. Put into a context where skin colour, as a proxy for race and ethnicity, has been used to enslave, colonise, rape and marginalise, this is deeply troubling and ethically suspect. If we are committed to values of equality, where skin colour – among other traits – should not matter to us privately or publicly, it’s wrong to allow companies and institutions to develop or permit selection for this very unequal thing.</p>
<p>Banning practices can drive them underground: the pill to lighten foetuses is illegal, as is <a href="http://www.who.int/ipcs/assessment/public_health/mercury_flyer.pdf">mercury in products</a>, which also lightens skin. Yet both are still available, and are used by some of the poorest women in the world to boot. Stopping production of such products or services won’t eradicate the desire or societal norm in some places for lighter skin. But companies and states should consider whether current products – like lightening creams – or future interventions, such as embryo selection for fair skin, encourage or perpetuate inequality, and they should not partake in them if they do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95024/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Herjeet Marway does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A philosopher’s take on the ethics of products that allow parents to lighten the skin colour of their unborn baby.Herjeet Marway, Lecturer in Global Ethics, Department of Philosophy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/779852017-06-12T14:48:50Z2017-06-12T14:48:50ZSelf-love - not bans - will bring an end to Africa’s bleaching syndrome<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173166/original/file-20170609-4790-wpn69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children as young as three internalise a bias against dark skin. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>To be black in the world today is to be <a href="http://static.oprah.com/pdf/dark-girls.pdf">stigmatised</a> for having dark skin. To be light-skinned, on the other hand, is to be celebrated in line with western beauty standards. </p>
<p>Black people not only experience this stigma from outside of their “racial” group. The bias against dark skin has also been internalised by black people the world over and manifests as <a href="http://www.eurweb.com/2015/02/dr-ronald-e-hall-the-colorism-conversation-still-an-issue-in-the-african-american-community/#">colourism</a> within the black community.</p>
<p>My research <a href="http://www.sachajournals.com/user/image/ajss2014hall002.pdf">suggests</a> that African-Americans consider light skin as the most ideal personal characteristic one can have. And this internalised bias towards whiteness is not only limited to the US. In my 30 years of studying this subject, I have found it to be prevalent in all places where people of African descent live – including Togo, Senegal, South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. </p>
<p>The stigmatisation of dark skin has led to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-time-all-african-countries-took-a-stand-on-skin-lightening-creams-49780">the popular practice</a> of skin bleaching. After discovering the practice three decades ago, I began to investigate a condition that I have named the “<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/41675381?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">bleaching syndrome</a>”.</p>
<p>There have been attempts by governments to discourage the use of skin bleaches through sales bans, but these have been <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/life/2016-11-29-south-african-women-still-use-dangerous-skin-lighteners-research-finds/">largely unsuccessful</a>. </p>
<p>For as long as black people continue to idealise light skin, the bleaching syndrome will continue to afflict many dark-skinned populations. </p>
<h2>The bleaching syndrome</h2>
<p>The bleaching syndrome has three components. In the first place, it’s psychological, involving the adoption of alien ideals and the rejection of native characteristics. </p>
<p>African-American psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted a famous “<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/05/13/doll.study/index.html">doll study</a>” in the 1940s that showed how black children as young as three come to understand their place in the world as “less than”. They reach this conclusion long before they have the ability to articulate race. It’s a phenomenon black psychologists refer to as a “<a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=mIrf1uUTNCYC&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=john+e+lind+color+complex&source=bl&ots=VTgwsPsh8h&sig=RXpjy4nKpKk235KkIIYYV9EbBVI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAz6iVs67UAhVCtBQKHQrTAl8Q6AEIIDAA#v=onepage&q=john%20e%20lind%20color%20complex&f=false">colour complex</a>” </p>
<p>This idea that dark skin is “less than” gets reinforced daily on television, in <a href="http://amhistory.si.edu/archives/ac0651.pdf">advertisements</a> and through other forms of mass media.</p>
<p>The bleaching syndrome is also sociological. This means that it affects group behaviour in line with these ideals. The fact that black rappers systematically <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW_Vtp-JzV4">select</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsFxtIxRqJA">light-skinned women</a> to model in their videos is a good popular example of this. </p>
<p>The final aspect of the bleaching syndrome is physiological. Here, individual psychology and group behaviour eventually lead to the alteration of skin colour. </p>
<h2>Demand fuels supply, despite bans</h2>
<p>Throughout the African continent there have been attempts to discontinue the use of skin bleaches. These products are banned in <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/gambias-president-orders-female-government-workers-to-cover-their-hair">The Gambia</a>, <a href="http://thewip.net/2008/08/12/skin-bleaching-thrives-despite-ugandan-government-ban-on-dangerous-cosmetics/">Uganda</a>, <a href="http://www.whiterskin.com/banned-skin-bleaching.html">Kenya</a>, <a href="https://qz.com/572707/why-its-time-all-african-countries-banned-skin-lightening-creams/">Cote d’Ivoire</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/fashion/skin-bleaching-south-africa-women.html?_r=0">Ghana</a>. Nigeria has not banned bleaching per say but has banned the <a href="https://nlipw.com/a-quick-look-at-some-drugs-banned-by-nafdac-in-nigeria-issue-3/">toxic additives</a> like mercury contained in bleaching creams. While experts in <a href="http://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=2457.0;wap2">Senegal</a> have called on the government to take similar steps. </p>
<p>Bleaching soaps and creams have also been <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/skin-lightening-hydroquinone/">banned</a> in the European Union, Australia and Japan. </p>
<p>Despite these efforts it does not appear that the popularity of the practice has slowed significantly. In countries such as Nigeria and Togo <a href="http://howafrica.com/nigeria-has-the-highest-number-of-women-bleaching-their-skin-in-africa-who/">over 50%</a> of the women bleach. </p>
<p>The fact is that the continued demand for bleaching creams means that they will continue to be manufactured and sold on the market, even if they are illegal. The bleaching syndrome persists because light skin remains the ideal and the sale of bleaching creams remain profitable. </p>
<h2>Treat the problem at its root</h2>
<p>The “<a href="http://www.curlcentric.com/natural-hair-movement/">natural hair movement</a>” offers a good example of how we may be able to combat the bleaching syndrome. </p>
<p>Natural black hair, afros and dreadlocks have been historically <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-slavery-to-colonialism-and-school-rules-a-history-of-myths-about-black-hair-64676">stigmatised</a> – much as dark skin is today – and there was a time when Black people applied all sorts of concoctions to straighten their hair. In fact the first African-American millionaire, <a href="http://time.com/3641122/sarah-breedlove-walker/">Madame C.J. Walker</a>, made her fortune selling hair straightening products to black people. </p>
<p>But today, many black people take pride in their natural hair and refuse to straighten it. This was not achieved by banning relaxers and other chemical hair straightening concoctions. </p>
<p>Rather, it was political action that changed black people’s ideas about black hair. <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/stokely-carmichael-9238629">Stokely Carmichael</a>, <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/angela-davis-9267589">Angela Davis</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stephen-bantu-biko">Steve Biko</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Patrice-Lumumba">Patrice Lumumba</a> are among those who rallied against self-hate and spread a message of African pride. Natural hair came to be associated with freedom and justice. </p>
<p>The problem with bleaching bans is that they attempt to treat the physiological symptoms of the bleaching syndrome without addressing the sociological causes and the psychological colour complex that is at its root. </p>
<p>The bleaching syndrome will only come to an end when Africans and all black people learn to love their skin, just as they have learned to love their hair. Only then will bleaching creams become obsolete.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77985/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronald E. Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At the root of the skin bleaching phenomenon is a psychological complex.Ronald E. Hall, Professor of Social Work, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/564662016-03-21T08:54:34Z2016-03-21T08:54:34ZColourism: #unfairandlovely proves it remains a universal slight on humanity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115573/original/image-20160318-4432-3hv32r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sisters Mirusha Yogarajah (left) and Yanusha Yogarajah, who started the #unfairandlovely campaign with Pax Jones.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BCRNan_EMcB/?taken-by=unfairandlovely_">Pax Jones/Instagram</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past few weeks the <a href="http://paxjones.com/unfairandlovely">#unfairandlovely</a> campaign started by black photographer <a href="http://mashable.com/2016/03/11/unfair-and-lovely-campaign/#dFbHdGb9ESq5">Pax Jones</a> and sisters <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35783348">Mirusha and Yanusha Yogarajah</a>, from the <a href="http://www.utexas.edu/">University of Texas</a>, has taken off on social media. It has set <a href="https://twitter.com/search?f=images&vertical=default&q=%23unfairandlovely&src=tyah&lang=en">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/unfairandlovely_/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/UnfairAndLovely/?fref=ts">Facebook</a> abuzz. </p>
<p>The first women to be featured in the campaign were of Indian origin. But dark skinned women from across the world quickly took to social media to affirm their beauty against the dominant mantra that fair is lovely. <a href="http://www.self.com/trending/2016/03/the-unfair-and-lovely-campaign-is-embracing-darker-skin-tones/">According</a> to Jones the campaign emerged organically out of a series of photographs that she took with a view to combating the “under-representation of dark skinned people of colour in the media”. </p>
<p>Discrimination against people based on the tone of their skin, a phenomenon called “<a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2013/10/colourism-why-even-black-people-have-problem-dark-skin">colourism</a>”, is evident across the globe. It happens everywhere from <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35261748">Thailand</a> to <a href="http://www.self.com/trending/2016/03/the-unfair-and-lovely-campaign-is-embracing-darker-skin-tones/">Sri Lanka</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/24/dark-skin-india-prejudice-whitening">India</a>, <a href="http://fairnessclub.com/">Pakistan</a>, <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/lifestyle/style/beauty/the-dark-side-of-skin-lightening-1103381">South Africa</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/05_may/01/white.shtml">England</a> and the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/20/light-girls-skin-bleaching-phenomenon_n_6503630.html">United States</a>. In places like <a href="http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/Humanities/History/Regional%20%20national%20history/African%20history/In%20the%20Name%20of%20the%20People%20Angolas%20Forgotten%20Massacre.aspx?menuitem=%7BEF0E1ED2-7796-49DB-A6EA-B3DC9E30B2C4%7D">Angola</a> and <a href="http://www.versobooks.com/books/524-damming-the-flood">Haiti</a> it has taken on an intensely political form. There lighter skinned people have privileged access to some forms of political and material power.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hYjHixQ9Ns4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">British soul singer Laura Mvula deals with the travails of dark skinned beauty on her 2013 song “That’s Alright”</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Yellow bone experience</h2>
<p>In South Africa light skinned African women sometimes find themselves referred to as “yellow-bones”. These women have often report their experiences as being double edged. On one hand they are praised as beautiful but at the same time they are also subject to stereotypes and <a href="http://www.destinyconnect.com/2015/01/20/light-skinned-girls-open-up-about-discrimination/">derogatory</a> remarks. But in the main colourism means that light skin is seen as desirable and dark skin as undesirable.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115574/original/image-20160318-4443-1u03afx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115574/original/image-20160318-4443-1u03afx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115574/original/image-20160318-4443-1u03afx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115574/original/image-20160318-4443-1u03afx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115574/original/image-20160318-4443-1u03afx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115574/original/image-20160318-4443-1u03afx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115574/original/image-20160318-4443-1u03afx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indian actress and film director Nandita Das, who started the ‘Dark is beautiful’ campaign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Jean-Paul Pelissier</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Colourism is a complex phenomenon. In <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murali-balaji/not-caste-in-color-dispel_b_4243013.html">India</a> it is often argued that the preference for light skin pre-dates British colonialism and is evident as far back as the <a href="http://www.ancient.eu/The_Vedas/">Vedas</a>, a collection of hymns and other religious texts composed in India centuries before the birth of Christ. But at the same time the desire for light skin in India cannot also be divorced from the <a href="http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/how-does-indias-caste-system-work">caste system</a>, the country’s North-South <a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/the-great-divide/201412">divide</a>, the impact of colonialism and the manner in which capitalism has exploited these prejudices via the beauty industry. In India the hegemonic desirability of light skin has been challenged by campaigns such as “<a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Why-Nandita-Das-doesnt-like-being-called-dusky/articleshow/21477821.cms">Dark is beautiful</a>” spearheaded by actress <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0201903/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm">Nandita Das</a>. </p>
<p>There are some commonalities between South Asian communities across the world but there are also major differences. What it means to be Indian is very different in different diasporic Indian communities. In places like England or the US, South Asian communities often still retain strong ties with India. As a result their issues around colourism are frequently similar to those in the Indian context, although local forms of colourism and racism are also shaped by understandings of the significance accorded to skin tone in other communities. </p>
<h2>Links with India</h2>
<p>The majority of South African <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/history-indians-south-africa-timeline1654-2008">Indians</a>, mainly descendants of indentured workers, have very little direct connection with India. Social, religious and cultural practices, as well as cuisine, have developed independently. While there are some overlaps with the Indian experience in terms of the desirability of light skin tones there are also important differences that have developed according to the local political and social context. </p>
<p>In South Africa the matter of skin colour is often classed and shot through with very localised understandings of differences between North and South Indians. For many, including myself growing up at the end of apartheid, colourism was not always a significant presence in our families. In my case this was a direct result of my family’s thinking, and the impact of the Black Consciousness <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/introduction-black-consciousness-movement">movement</a> in <a href="https://www.lonelyplanet.com/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/durban">Durban</a> in the early 1970s.</p>
<p>But there are also South African Indian families in which colourism is <a href="http://darklovelyandsouthasian.tumblr.com/post/29471713797/born-in-south-africa-and-of-south-indian-origin">intensely felt</a>. In some cases it can even result in discrimination within the intimate space of the family and, as a result, significant personal trauma.</p>
<h2>Hair Texture and Facial Features</h2>
<p>Colourism is also sometimes evident among the <a href="http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/in-south-africa-after-apartheid-colored-community-is-the-big-loser/?_r=0">Coloured</a> community in South Africa. It predates apartheid, has endured after the end of apartheid and extends beyond a concern with skin tone to include hair texture and the shape of facial features. In Durban, where some historically Indian and coloured communities are in close proximity, ideas about skin tone have taken on multiple influences.</p>
<p>Because different black communities have shaped each other’s ideas about beauty and colour in South Africa our experience cannot be reduced to an offshoot of the Indian or American experiences. And while there are certainly subtle and at times not so subtle issues around skin tone, the situation here is not nearly as bad, as, say, in India, Pakistan or Thailand. In fact it could be argued that the situation in South Africa is better than in the US and the United Kingdom. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115575/original/image-20160318-4415-1cub9x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115575/original/image-20160318-4415-1cub9x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115575/original/image-20160318-4415-1cub9x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115575/original/image-20160318-4415-1cub9x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115575/original/image-20160318-4415-1cub9x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115575/original/image-20160318-4415-1cub9x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115575/original/image-20160318-4415-1cub9x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South African black consciousness leader Steve Biko.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As <a href="http://mg.co.za/">Mail & Guardian</a> editor <a href="http://mg.co.za/author/verashni-pillay">Verashni Pillay</a> noted in a recent <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2016-03-14-unfairandlovely-how-growing-up-in-africa-helped-me-own-my-skin-colour">piece</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Africa has experiences its own share of colourism and the horrors of skin bleaching. Phrases like ‘<a href="http://livemag.co.za/real-life/colourism-media/">yellowbone</a>’ to describe fairer skin black women don’t help. But the writing of Steve <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stephen-bantu-biko">Biko</a> and a growing sense of black pride makes it easier to embrace darker skin in South Africa.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Skin Lightening Products</h2>
<p>Skin lightening products have been <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/News/dying-to-be-white-20160220">banned</a> in South Africa since 1992. In India crass <a href="http://qz.com/219698/these-skin-lightening-commercials-will-infuriate-you-and-should-shame-indias-ad-industry/">adverts</a> for skin lightening products are ubiquitous – a fact that invariably shocks South Africans of all races.</p>
<p>In South Africa colourism is not simply a story of the continuance of colonial and apartheid racial practices, or influences from <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_out/guides/2003/bollywood/newsid_2683000/2683799.stm">Bollywood</a> and Hollywood. It is a story of how all of these influences coalesce. </p>
<p>South Africa’s colourism is also a story of how the political innovation of the Black Consciousness movement in the early ‘70s - often carried into <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/">ANC</a> politics - has freed many people from colourism. But at the same time it is also a story of discrimination within and between black communities that has evolved and survived after oppressive laws have been revoked.</p>
<p>And as the #unfairandlovely campaign has proven, colourism sadly remains a universal slight on humanity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vashna Jagarnath does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Colourism - or discrimination based on the skin tone - manifests in different ways across the world. In the main it means that light skin is seen as desirable and dark skin as undesirable.Vashna Jagarnath, Senior Lecturer, History Department, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/497802015-12-11T04:08:26Z2015-12-11T04:08:26ZWhy it’s time all African countries took a stand on skin lightening creams<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105069/original/image-20151209-15564-nrogex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In many parts of Africa skin lightening is a popular practise despite the health risks associated with it.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With up to 70% of women using skin lightening creams in parts of Africa, Cote d’Ivoire has led the charge in tackling skin lighteners and has banned the practise <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/07/ivory-coast-bans-potentially-deadly-skin-whitening-creams">nationally</a>. It is time for the rest of the continent to follow.</p>
<p>Skin lighteners have become a common part of life in communities across the continent which is home to an estimated two thirds of the world’s darker-skinned population. In the late 1960s, 60% of urban African women reported using skin lightener formulas. It became the fourth most <a href="http://hwj.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/02/06/hwj.dbr017.short">commonly used</a> household product after soap, tea and tinned milk.</p>
<p>These days, 75% of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12081345">Nigerian</a> women and between 52% and 67% of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15779174">Senegalese</a> women use skin lightening products. A survey conducted in South Africa’s administrative capital Pretoria showed that 35% of <a href="http://www.libvolume8.xyz/textile/btech/semester3/chemicalprocessingoftextiles1/objectsofbleaching/objectsofbleachingnotes2.pdf">women</a> use them.</p>
<p>Demand is also high in Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya where buoyant economies and advertising have targeted young women of marriageable age. There has been a marked shift in male preferences toward women with light-coloured skin emphasising the idea of <a href="http://jpanafrican.com/docs/vol4no4/HUNTER%20Final.pdf">“racial capital”</a>. </p>
<p>But skin lighteners are damaging. The World Health Organisation has banned the active ingredients of skin lighteners - a chemical agent called <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1220808">hydroquinone</a> and <a href="http://www.who.int/ipcs/assessment/public_health/mercury_flyer.pdf">mercury</a> - from being used in any unregulated skin products. </p>
<p>Unregulated products have significantly higher quantities of hydroquinone and mercury than those recommended by <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ced.12720/pdf">dermatologists</a>. Using them could lead to liver and kidney <a href="http://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/38140">failure</a>or hyperpigmentation, which is dark skin patches forming on the area where the product is used. There is also a risk of skin cancer because the melanin synthesis which protects the skin against ultraviolet radiation is inhibited by hydroquinone. </p>
<h2>The stereotype</h2>
<p>The word “yellowbone” has gained <a href="http://www.beyondblackwhite.com/makeup-basics-women-of-color-yellow-bones/">popularity</a> in the US as well as countries like South Africa. It refers to a lighter-skinned black person, perpetuating the lengthy racist Eurocentric tradition which propagates negative images and aesthetics of black people and people of colour. </p>
<p>African descendants in America, the Caribbean and Brazil have internalised these fabricated and fictionalised images of themselves. In an American setting this is a psychological abnormality coined Post Trauma <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Post-Traumatic-Slave-Syndrome-Americas/dp/0963401122">Slavery Disorder</a>. In South Africa, it could be equated to what I have coined “Post-Apartheid Inferiority Disorder” (PAID). The most visible global symptoms include: </p>
<p>1) use of skin lightening or bleaching creams </p>
<p>2) preference for white or light-skinned friends and children </p>
<p>3) wearing of blond hair or blond wigs </p>
<p>4) internalised inferiority and a lack of self-love or veneration </p>
<p>5) lack of group unity and trust. </p>
<p>The motivation for using skin lighteners is linked to colonial history. Lightening one’s skin is perceived to come with <a href="http://www.mills.edu/academics/faculty/soc/mhunter/Hunter_Buying%20Racial%20Capital.pdf">increased privileges</a>, higher social standing, better employment and increased marital prospects. This, coupled with influential marketing strategies from transnational cosmetic houses using iconic celebrities, increases the allure - primarily for women, but increasingly for men. </p>
<p>Skin lightening is described in many different ways across the continent. In Mali and Senegal, the terms “caco” and “xeesal” are <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-4632.2005.02809.x/abstract">used</a> while in Ghana, the term “nensoebenis” describes the condition of the skin after <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19470077">chronic</a> skin lightener use.</p>
<p>With its political overtones, South Africa has a distinctive history with <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25196692">skin lighteners</a>. Various ethnic languages describe the practice. In isiXhosa it is known as “ukutsheyisa” which means “to chase beauty”. In isiZulu it is known as “ukucreamer” meaning “applying creams on the skin”. </p>
<h2>The health risks</h2>
<p>Skin lightening creams can be divided into legal products recommended by dermatologists and illegal, over-the-counter and unregulated products. </p>
<p>Most reputable skin lighteners are expensive. Because of this, the market is vulnerable to over-the-counter, unregulated and unsupervised use of skin lighteners. The use of these creams can result in irreversible <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2133.1975.tb05110.x/abstract">skin damage</a>. </p>
<p>The majority of illegal “depigmenting” or skin lightening creams can contain between 8% to 15% of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1220808">hydroquinone</a>. The use of hydroquinone in cosmetics has been banned since 2001. Hydroquinone is used in large quantities in paints and as a photographic developing <a href="http://www.chem.unep.ch/irptc/sids/OECDSIDS/123319.pdf">solution</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the laws restricting the use of hydroquinone, I found a range of different brands of skin lighteners available in pharmacies and supermarkets in the Johannesburg area.</p>
<p>The attraction to the practise is encouraged by overt advertising and the advent and influence of social media and mobile phones with roaming apps. </p>
<p>Although individuals have started speaking out against skin lightening, such as the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/senegal-fashion-bleaching-idINDEE95N09B20130624">Senegalese models</a> who took a stand at the Dakar Fashion Week, governments need to take action. Regulations should ensure that the creams are safe and that illegal products are kept off the market. In addition, governments should encourage the view that being paler skinned isn’t a panacea and that black is beautiful too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lester M. Davids does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Unregulated over-the-counter skin lighteners can have detrimental effects on the men and women who use them. So why are governments in Africa not taking steps to ban these products?Lester M. Davids, Professor of Cell Biology, Dept of Human Biology, UCT, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.