SKIN BLEACHING -Sisters Your Black is Beautiful
Hello everyone,
I have not posted here in a long time. Actually in over a year. I have been too busy with life or life has been busy with me.
Today's post, I will file under "Things I gripe about that are non of my fucking business"
Skin Bleaching
Today, I am going to pick on Bahamian women. Of course, many BLACK women both on continental Africa, the so-called Motherland, and the diaspora are guilty of this self-hate bullshit in my opinion, but since I have been living in the Bahamas these last 17 months, Bahamian women and women living in Bahamas get the price today. In the Bahamas are Bahamian, Haitian, Jamaican, Guyanese, African, Trinibagonian (Trinidad and Tobago citizens), and a garden variety of Black women.
Before now, I was living in Trinidad, and before then I lived in Lagos, Nigeria so I am making comparisons.
Why do many Bahamian women bleach their skin? To put things in perspective, the general population in the Bahamas is 90% BLACK.
Ebony Black, Coffee Black, Ivorian cocoa beans Black, Caramel Black.
But many seem hell-bent on lightening their skin color; young, old, and the not-so-old.
It is like I am back in Nigeria, where many are guilty of doing the same thing.
In Nigeria, the general population is 100% BLACK. So there should be no pressure to want to be light-skinned right? Wrong! Nigerian women want to be as light-skinned as "Oyibo" (the local term for Caucasian)
One of the feel-good emotions I experienced when I first moved to the Bahamas in November 2015, was that I felt so at home because the majority of the people looked like me. Black. Black. Blackity. Black, everywhere I went. At the Bank, all the tellers were Black, and in the stores were Black business owners. I was excited. it was like I was back home in Nigeria. It felt really good.
Recall I just moved from Trinidad, where the general population is about 40-45% Black depending on who you ask and the rest of the population is East Indian, Syrian, Chinese, and a mix of European descendants.
And where East Indians and Blacks are gathered together, some racial shit goes down. I am not even going to go into details right now. But know that there are race cards/wars being played in Trinidad, especially during election season.
Back to skin bleaching in the Bahamas. It does not look nice and I don't know who these women and a few men are trying to convince that they are naturally light-skinned or "Bright" like a common term here. But I am not fooled. And I am sure many others are not either.
Some are so poorly done, it is obvious the poor skin is being bleached, tortured, and tormented by the demons of bleaching creams. It is a horrible sight to behold, you see blotches, areas of dark skin that refused to be wished away.
Each time I come across one of these skin bleachers, Fela Kuti's song " Yellow Fever" just starts playing in my head: Yellow fever, you dey bleach o, you dey bleach.....your face go yellow, your yansh go black"
I have not posted here in a long time. Actually in over a year. I have been too busy with life or life has been busy with me.
Today's post, I will file under "Things I gripe about that are non of my fucking business"
Skin Bleaching
Today, I am going to pick on Bahamian women. Of course, many BLACK women both on continental Africa, the so-called Motherland, and the diaspora are guilty of this self-hate bullshit in my opinion, but since I have been living in the Bahamas these last 17 months, Bahamian women and women living in Bahamas get the price today. In the Bahamas are Bahamian, Haitian, Jamaican, Guyanese, African, Trinibagonian (Trinidad and Tobago citizens), and a garden variety of Black women.
Before now, I was living in Trinidad, and before then I lived in Lagos, Nigeria so I am making comparisons.
Why do many Bahamian women bleach their skin? To put things in perspective, the general population in the Bahamas is 90% BLACK.
Ebony Black, Coffee Black, Ivorian cocoa beans Black, Caramel Black.
But many seem hell-bent on lightening their skin color; young, old, and the not-so-old.
It is like I am back in Nigeria, where many are guilty of doing the same thing.
In Nigeria, the general population is 100% BLACK. So there should be no pressure to want to be light-skinned right? Wrong! Nigerian women want to be as light-skinned as "Oyibo" (the local term for Caucasian)
One of the feel-good emotions I experienced when I first moved to the Bahamas in November 2015, was that I felt so at home because the majority of the people looked like me. Black. Black. Blackity. Black, everywhere I went. At the Bank, all the tellers were Black, and in the stores were Black business owners. I was excited. it was like I was back home in Nigeria. It felt really good.
Recall I just moved from Trinidad, where the general population is about 40-45% Black depending on who you ask and the rest of the population is East Indian, Syrian, Chinese, and a mix of European descendants.
And where East Indians and Blacks are gathered together, some racial shit goes down. I am not even going to go into details right now. But know that there are race cards/wars being played in Trinidad, especially during election season.
Back to skin bleaching in the Bahamas. It does not look nice and I don't know who these women and a few men are trying to convince that they are naturally light-skinned or "Bright" like a common term here. But I am not fooled. And I am sure many others are not either.
Some are so poorly done, it is obvious the poor skin is being bleached, tortured, and tormented by the demons of bleaching creams. It is a horrible sight to behold, you see blotches, areas of dark skin that refused to be wished away.
Each time I come across one of these skin bleachers, Fela Kuti's song " Yellow Fever" just starts playing in my head: Yellow fever, you dey bleach o, you dey bleach.....your face go yellow, your yansh go black"
For the uninitiated, the song was very popular in the mid-1970s. A classic Afrobeat song was done in pidgin English, a widely spoken locally adapted version of the English language in Nigeria and most of West Africa with variations depending on locality. A little different in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Ghana. It is spoken across what we call the Anglophone countries in West Africa. It is the version of the English language that unites the commoners and the bourgeois
The word "Yansh" means Buttocks, backside, or the urban American "Booty"
So Fela Kuti the legendary Nigerian Afro-beat musician was warning Nigerian women and pretty much everyone because some Nigerian men are also guilty, of the dangers of skin bleaching. If you have never heard of Fela. Google darling, please google.
The show "FELA" ran on Broadway in New York City from 2008 to 2012. I managed to catch it on a visit to New York in the spring of 2010 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. I have never been prouder. The Broadway production received eleven 2010 Tony Award nominations. And won Best Choreography, Best Costume Design of a Musical, and Best Sound Design of a Musical.
The production made appearances in London's west end in 2010. So that people in the Western hemisphere who never went to Fela's concerts in Europe when he toured in the 1970s and 80s got to know a little bit of his talent when he was alive.
Okay, I digress, back to Skin bleaching in the Bahamas, sometimes I literally have to hold my tongue and not say " Darling, you are beautiful, why the fuck are you doing this to yourself" to one of these skin bleachers.
Honestly, it was a sort of a culture shock for me coming from Trinidad.
I lived in Trinidad and I rarely came across a Black Trinidadian (Afro-Trinidadian) woman that was bleaching her skin, especially given the fact that in Trinidad, there are other races of a naturally lighter skin tone so you would expect some pressure. But Trini Women kept it real on that front, even when they are often called "Darkies"
And Black Trinidadian women wear their natural hair more proudly than anywhere else I know, including the so-called Motherland (Africa).
The word "Yansh" means Buttocks, backside, or the urban American "Booty"
So Fela Kuti the legendary Nigerian Afro-beat musician was warning Nigerian women and pretty much everyone because some Nigerian men are also guilty, of the dangers of skin bleaching. If you have never heard of Fela. Google darling, please google.
The show "FELA" ran on Broadway in New York City from 2008 to 2012. I managed to catch it on a visit to New York in the spring of 2010 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. I have never been prouder. The Broadway production received eleven 2010 Tony Award nominations. And won Best Choreography, Best Costume Design of a Musical, and Best Sound Design of a Musical.
The production made appearances in London's west end in 2010. So that people in the Western hemisphere who never went to Fela's concerts in Europe when he toured in the 1970s and 80s got to know a little bit of his talent when he was alive.
Okay, I digress, back to Skin bleaching in the Bahamas, sometimes I literally have to hold my tongue and not say " Darling, you are beautiful, why the fuck are you doing this to yourself" to one of these skin bleachers.
Honestly, it was a sort of a culture shock for me coming from Trinidad.
I lived in Trinidad and I rarely came across a Black Trinidadian (Afro-Trinidadian) woman that was bleaching her skin, especially given the fact that in Trinidad, there are other races of a naturally lighter skin tone so you would expect some pressure. But Trini Women kept it real on that front, even when they are often called "Darkies"
And Black Trinidadian women wear their natural hair more proudly than anywhere else I know, including the so-called Motherland (Africa).
More Nigerian women wear artificial hair than anywhere else, remember Nigeria's population is over 200 plus million. The most populous black nation in the world but the women seem to hate their natural hair.
Aside from the medical and health pitfalls especially as you scrub off the protective melanin that nature has put on dark skin to withstand the scorching sunlight and accompanied ultraviolet rays that are so abundant in the tropics where we live.
No one is deceived or convinced you are really that color, instead, it announces your insecurities and lack of enlightenment to the world.
We really should try and be our authentic selves physically and otherwise because no one is fooled when you are trying to be what you are not.
There is Power in living your Truth.
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