Skin bleaching - destructive fashion or self-hate?

Mark Wignall

Thursday, February 10, 2011

About three months ago at a well-known "massage parlour" operating somewhere in St Andrew, Coffee (not her real parlour name) was just about the only black-skinned girl working there.

She was given the name because all the other good ones used to describe an ebony goddess were already taken. The other 26 girls, all young, and like Coffee, devastatingly beautiful to the eye, catered to the steady stream of uptown businessmen, politicians and those with money to spend on life's carnal pleasures who visited the parlour.

Months before that, the majority of the other brown-skinned girls used to be black, but due to the vogue of the times or what may be a problem afflicting significant sections of the international black community and very definitely right here at home, the girls in due course bleached away their black skins and now they are all "brownings".

"Don't believe that it affects only Jamaica," said a regular traveller between Jamaica, Atlanta and New York. "You will see them on the streets, even some Africans and Haitians - they are big in it too," she said.

Pressure eventually reached to Coffee, not only by way of her colleague "massage therapists" but simply because the men who came in, after viewing the bevy of young women, would not request her "services". In the space of three months, with the application of creams and lotions, Coffee added much milk to her cup and even though her name hasn't changed, the beautiful ebony-skinned woman disappeared and eventually morphed into another browning.

There are many times that I feel quite foolish lecturing young women on certain "ends" and "corners" about not just the dangers of applying chemicals to their skin but on the stupidity of changing from a natural black beauty to a chemically induced browning.

"Look at how beautiful black skin is. Why would you want to change it to something else?" is usually met with a shrug, or, "You can seh anyting, Mark, tings a gwaan fi you."

"Nutten nah gwaan fi yuh when you stay like how you stay. As yuh start bleach, di man dem jus run up inna yuh," said a 25-year-old browning who used to be black-skinned when I met her four years ago. According to the unemployed young woman, she started it because all of her friends were doing it, but along the way she began to see tangible results.

"When mi go pon di road wid mi brown skin, mi too hot fi handle. Man a call to mi and if mi inna dance, a pure free drink jus a reach mi," she said.

I have yet to meet a reasonably well-educated or intelligent person who is into the craze. One 50-year-old woman I know, who made it out of a rough inner-city community by way of having two children for a Chinese shopkeeper in that very community, has been bleaching (her entire body) for about eight years now. Her 12-year-old daughter from a previous relationship is also bleaching, but it could hardly be said that the child had much choice in the matter. What madness is this?

It cannot be sensible to conclude that because someone is uneducated or unintelligent, that person is automatically irrational. The people who bleach all seem to feel good about themselves and their new-found self-esteem. Certainly, they look at their surroundings and their immediate neighbours in the cramped inner-city communities are all black-skinned and struggling in an extremely harsh economic environment. Not far from where they live are the upscale communities and it is there that they look to for signposts to their future.

The naturally brown-skinned men and women who live in these communities seem to be doing quite fine at the top of the economic scale, but aren't there many economically successful black-skinned people living in those communities, too, more in numbers than those who are brown?

A part of the answer, I believe, could be found in young people's strong attachment to the prevailing culture in dancehall and their knowledge of the American hip hop and R&B pop culture. There are many young people in Jamaica who sincerely believe that some American pop megastars have bleached their skin, even though they have no hard evidence of it.

At home we have certainly seen Vybz Kartel, the biggest name in dancehall, looking lighter in the face than in previous months. Let us not fool ourselves by failing to recognise that dancehall music is the primary communicator of information in Jamaica. What is Kartel trying to communicate to the many young people who idolise him?

A woman who sells the product tells me, "Many of the girls who come into my store are unemployed and they buy products sold for up to $2,000. I honestly don't know where they find the money."

Another woman told me that for her to maintain her full-body bleached skin while using the regular chemicals, she uses powder detergent on her skin at least twice per week! The advance in communications has told us in no uncertain fashion that the globe called Earth is controlled by those with paler skins. Added to that is not enough examples of countries and people of black skin which have made it to the top of the economic pyramid. All things being equal, a naturally brown-skinned girl in a Jamaican inner-city community has a much better chance of making it out of the ghetto than her black-skinned counterparts. Why is that so?

A part of that, I believe, is to be found in our menfolk, many of whom have not thrown off the ghosts of what ailed this country many years ago. A black-skinned man may marry a white-skinned woman and they may live happily ever after. Good for them, like any other couple. That is not what I am referring to.

I am speaking about more than the possibility that many of our Jamaican men still harbour a quiet but deep, almost psychotic need to possess a pale-skinned woman. It is the hangover of a ghost that stalked the land way back before the 1940s when almost everything associated with goodness and purity, especially in religion, was white or shrouded in a white skin.

We are a highly religious people and the picture of the man many Jamaicans have hanging on their walls as representing the Son of God is white. That would also make God white - Who it is said made man in His own image. So, why not bleach to finally reclaim one's true self and patrimony? Poor Marcus, indeed!

observemark@gmail.com

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COMMENTS (26)

jody hyde
2/10/2011

This is not only a Jamaican thing, Mark. Wait until the summer, in the winter it is hard to see, you will see some African man and women, face pale, fingers black, neck pale, ears and feet black. It is sickening to look at some Africans, especially Ghanians and Nigerians in the summer.

marc brown
2/10/2011

I happen to live in Kenya, and whenever a Kartel song play in the clubs in Nairobi, the young Kenyans go crazy. I'm always pleased to see that people all over the world, especially Africans, readily embrace our music and culture. However, it is sad that people like Kartel, and others, would prefer to look less like the people who die for their music (Africans) and more like the people who care less about their music (Europeans). Kartel-- come to Kenya, it will mek u stop dis bleaching rubbish.

Anancy Bedward
2/10/2011

Mark, does Chupski read your articles? I guess you will be in a lot of hot water if she read this one. How yuh know so much bout da massage place deh?

gary lee
2/10/2011

With television and cable being dominated by Hollywood, with their fair-skinned portrayals and black American stars offering less self-respecting roles, Jamaicans have developed low self-esteem in their black features. When Michael Manley married Beverly Manley, the country was in an upsurge of black recognition, but it was not to last. The pendulum has swung the other way. In politics, the brown man is king, and women continue to bleach their skin and straighten hair to attract monied men.

Mark Forbes
2/10/2011

Mark, thanks for mentioning that, while they maybe misguided, the 'bleachers' are not being irrational. It is just the way they interpret what is happening in the real world.
@Ian Francis, Peter Sparks, what accounts for the prevalence of the 'melanin-challenged' in the upper classes if not for historical factors? Don't want to say it? Come on. Man up and be true to yourselves! It just might prevent a trip to the couch later on.

Gene Knall
2/10/2011

You hit the nail on the head Mark, this is a brilliant article.
At the risk of stepping on people's corn...does anyone honestly think that a "really" Black Bob Marley would have had the success he did on the international circuit of the 1960's and 70's? Pepole seem to forget that his father was a white man. Society everywhere favours brown, light-skinned and white skinned people. Plain and simple. The "bleachers" are simply taking their cue from our society.

robert chang
2/10/2011

Should'nt we be more worried about the jamaican kids begging and sleeping on side-walks? only God knows how some of them still survive, and you concern about a rich jamaican man putting skin bleaching cream on his skin? lets have several articles per week on how to stop these kids from being predators from peadophiles due to circumstances, like being orphaned through parents being murdered or from poverty strickened communities.

Yard Vibz
2/10/2011

Mark, with this mug-shot of the Gaza Don, you've inadvertently inflated his stock price & gave him the recognition that he has yearned for. One love!

ann g
2/10/2011

if u black stay back
if u brown stay around
if u white u right
pupa Jeeees..a how massa gad werla run..why would someone want to change their skin color???? is it psychological???? or is it the remnant of slavery??? Jamaica has been skin and hair prejudice since its existence so it doen't surpris eme that that people would go this far to change their identity....whoo beyound to them Lord

Llemar Nicholson
2/10/2011

@Ian Francis..The least you could do is research your information before you state them as fact.There is always Google ready and willing to verify anything for you. Michael Jackson did not bleach his skin and that is one misconception that has helped in at least some way to fuel this stupid craze called bleaching in Jamaica.
We are suffering from an inferiority complex in Jamaica. That coupled with a serious case of "follow fashion" without even thinking. Advice: make and shape your life's path.

Elise Chang
2/10/2011

""When mi go pon di road wid mi brown skin, mi too hot fi handle. Man a call to mi and if mi inna dance, a pure free drink jus a reach mi," she said."
Wow, these are the priorities? *facepalm*
We surely need a wake up call in the country. Men AND women! This is ignorance to the nth power! I dont know what it's gonna take though to get the minds of these people straight again... smh

Peter Sparks
2/10/2011

If Mark Wignall's thesis is correct, then it should apply to whites as well. When whites use instant skin darkening creams (and that is big-business in Europe and Asia), or sit in the sun to get dark, are you saying that they hate themselves and want to be black? Your thesis and assertions are false and laden unproven facts, just hunches! Please do deeper more critical research.

Peter Sparks
2/10/2011

@ Ian Francis: AGREED!...I am "melanin-enriched "Jamaican, er (black) and i have had to use my mind and to educate it as well to make a success of myself. The writer of this article, and so many others, are always blaming their personal failures on slavery, skin colour and other foolishness. Every culture had had their holocaust. Not just blacks; so get over it! It's time we all accept responsibility for our successes and failures! You can't control what others do, but you can control yourself!

robert chang
2/10/2011

How is it self hate for a few blacks to use bleaching creams, but whites are worshiped and are seen as someone to aspire to when they promote bleaching of their black hair to blond, wearing blue contacts when the majority is not born with blue eyes, major darkening of their skin using machines, creams, sun you name it, not to mention the promoting of mutilation of their bodies in plastic surgery clinics, give blacks a break about ''self hate''

Ray Stennett
2/10/2011

"I have yet to meet a reasonably well-educated or intelligent person who is into the craze." Faith, self esteem and education will help to lift people out of their miseries. Outside of that, Darwinian survival instinct chips in and what is fed to the uneducated mind, might grow. The flesh and the outward look is what the world glamorize. We blame them but that's exactly what they see and hear about all around them. Faith, education and self esteem can help but they are pawns for profit.

STEPHANIE W
2/10/2011

BTW, what ever happened to "the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice" mentality? :)

STEPHANIE W
2/10/2011

I don't get it, I am white and LOVE the look of dark complexions. So of the people bleaching look like they are sick and it shows more of their scars or other types of skin discoloration that you did not see when they were darker. Some people try to compare white people tanning to bleaching and it's similar, but not the same. Bleaching is a daily ritual, tanning is not. Some sun is needed for health (for everyone, vitamin D) yet even the slightest bleaching is a bad idea.

Yellow Belly
2/10/2011

I don't know what God has to do with this phenomenon. If God wants white He will do the change - & it is not skin but character. "Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
The fact is may of us still are suffering from mental slavery - the British used a divide and conquer technique playing with shades of colour.
How U know about the parlour so much?

Peter Lawrence
2/10/2011

Skin bleaching in Jamaica is triggered by several factors. One of the most prominent, is the perception that blacks in prominent positions will do what they can to keep down, or at least, not help, less fortunate blacks to rise. With times so hard this factor brings out black despair/self rejection. Also in some contexts, Jamaica looks almost like a Latin American country. Street heroes like Kartel feed into what the street vibes are: gun lyrics,unda skirt,renkin'meat, and now bleach.WOW!!!

Ian Francis
2/10/2011

Mark, Michael Jackson was definitely not poor, and I question his intelligence, yet he bleached, why? He was hugely successful before he went down that path of "dyam chupidness", so your argument is weak-ish.
I am a pigmentally challenged Jamaican (i.e. white) and am here to advise that my skin colour has NOT opened doors for me. The little I have accomplished has been through hard work, getting to know people who help my career and producing results, not excuses.

David Armstrong
2/10/2011

People who bleache their skin don't have any self-esteem and don't have any pride in their racial heritage. On top of this they are ignorant to the potential harm they are doing to their body. Unfortunately, black people either because of racism, the legacy of colonialism, and the belief that white standards and beauty are the ideal fall victim to this self-abuse. I would suggest that these people read books about the philosophies of Marcus Garvey to get inspiration on how to have racial pride.

Alvin L.
2/10/2011

Excellent article showing the ignorance which is driving people of colour to use the harshest and most despicable method of changing their colour. In a country where being Black should stand for something some of us with limited pride choose to be what they are not.
Those chemical stores should be closed and the products banned from being sold.

Anthony II
2/10/2011

Until we start educating our people and teaching them their history and teaching them to love who they are and holding up worthwhile heroes to them (Mandela, King, Marley, Garvey), these practices will continue. And, yes, it happens in many black countries and communities around the world. I feel this strong sense of sorrow to think that people would want to do this to themselves.
.
"You are young, gifted, and black. And that's a fact" (listen to Nina Simone!).

Trevor Harris
2/10/2011

Mark this phenomenon is not only a J' can thing .Just yesterday,a friend of mine who is dating an african from Nigeria was telling to me that she was bleaching.It's a pity that people has to resort to this behavior in order too be seen and accepted.In days gone by we used to sing "to be young gifted and black", now to be black is a"curse" .what a shame.People must be taught to love themselves.

Andrew Green
2/10/2011

Please thier not doing it cause they think jesus is white , thier doing it cause thier uneducated as you said you dont see any educated woman or man doing that ,its just the poor people with no self esteem do that, as for kartel yea hes an idiot,he,ll try anything to look handsom.

thor bergers
2/10/2011

you are correct. Man made god, and christ as well, in his own image. and it goes further than you think. the image of christ, long hair, blond, his clothes, his attributes, are lookalikes of the german 'dons' or kings that ruled western europe after the roman empire collapsed. christ, being an arab, looks like a german king . kings wanted to tell the illiterate peasants they were godlike, so they made christ look like on of them. of course religious people believe evertything the pastor tells

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Skin bleaching - destructive fashion or self-hate?