It seems clear that people who seek to “lighten” their skin using creams/concoctions invariably comprising dangerous chemicals do so from an inadequacy of self-worth.

They reason that the darker-skinned you are, the less you are and the less likely to be successful.

Backward though it is, there is actually material basis for such thinking.

In Jamaica, the Caribbean, and wider Americas, the enslavement of Africans, kidnapped and transported across the Atlantic by Europeans to work on plantations over a period of 400 years, established and ‘concretised’ a view that Whites were superior.

By extension, Blacks were meant to be downtrodden servants and ‘foot stools’.

That reality evolved into further colour demarcations which also became linked to social class, so that ‘browns’ and ‘high browns’ took on categorisations between the top and bottom.

It’s an unfortunate truth that as recently as the 1960s and even into the ’70s — long before skin bleaching became the fad it is today — jobs at front desks in commercial offices as well as banks and insurance companies were largely confined to people of brown to high brown complexion.

Today, many Jamaicans — even if only unconsciously — still place a higher value on brown complexion, relative to black. The thinking is especially prevalent at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.

Black empowerment and renaissance movements at various times in the last century, including the Black Power phenomenon of 50/60 years ago, largely sought to instil a greater sense of self-worth for the descendants of slaves.

The teachings of National Hero The Rt Excellent Marcus Mosiah Garvey and many others in the 20th century underpinned that universal drive for black self-worth and empowerment.

Skin bleaching today is surely a sign of a serious social relapse which needs to be addressed at all levels.

Beyond that, a Sunday Observer story confirms what many of us already know: that skin bleaching damages and undermines human health.

We are told that some chemicals/substances used in creams, meant to change skin colour, cause disfigurement. In truth, we see the unsightly evidence all around us.

Also, we hear such substances can negatively affect brain development, can cause kidney failure, trigger irritable behaviour, memory loss, and muscle weakness.

And while it’s well-established that bleaching thins the skin, we are alarmed by word from medics, Dr Wayne Wright and Dr Alfred Dawes, that it makes wounds harder to heal, makes it easier to pick up infections and for surgeons to operate.

Dr Dawes, who is the Opposition spokesman on health, is reported as saying he refuses to operate on people who are actively bleaching because of the risks.

He says in part: “… long-term bleaching… destroys the dermis, which is the thicker part of the skin … when you are closing the wounds, the stitches tear through the skin like wet tissue paper, and because of that you have poor wound healing and poor cosmetic outcomes.”

He makes the obvious point that there is need for public education to guide people, regarding the risks of skin bleaching.

This newspaper believes the Ministry of Health and Wellness and other relevant arms of Government need to get such a programme going as a matter of the greatest urgency.