Intro: look at me mommy. I’m strong, I'm beautiful, I’m black.
Nina: Hey y'all. Welcome back to the Every Shade Podcast. Oruko mi Nina, that's my name is Nina in Yoruba. That clip from before hopefully needs no introduction whatsoever. That was Malcolm X in Los Angeles in May 1962. Like him or not, there was something about that man's voice that made you sit up and listen.
How many people can still command an audience like that? I wanna be able to speak so that even people who can't stand me shut up and listen. I know everything I say next is likely to be triggering to some people out there. I acknowledge that and I refuse to apologize in advance. I’d like to worry about it, but I really can't worry about half the things I should. There just isn't the time in the day. So buckle up. And let's jump into some honesty.
Today I'm talking about the C word, the big C. You know where you go somewhere, you think, C here, C there? C everywhere. What shade are you? What counts as Black? What counts as Brown? This differentiation, the words in our vocabulary.
blackie, hey yellow pawpaw…toyin tomato…browning…shes beautiful, she is light skineed…he is a good looking man, light skinned brotha…mestiso, maputi in tagalog
What are the signals our kids are getting from everything around them? From how we speak, how we behave, how we interact, the commentary you make in your home to what's on the telly. One of the darkest things I ever heard was a father say, was his child coming home from school and trying to scrub his skin off because he'd been teased at school for being dark.
What is your legacy to your child beyond your cheekbones? Are you passing on the mental anguish of colorism? Are you passing on the ignorance of applying a value to a person based on their skin tone? The fact that this still exists within the community, that the original crime perpetrated continues to metamorph into something that we maintain.
Then there's the media, the billboards. Who knew billboards would still be a thing in 2022? The cover of magazines.
How far have we come? I wonder from being told subliminally or otherwise that what you are is to this or to that. you've been told that your skin is too dark. Your nose is to this. Your hair is too kinky. Too curly. Your bodies are too curvy, too big. We can't cater to your size. We can't do your hair; we can't touch your face.
We've got nothing for your skin. It's all too….You! We are then given options to try and change all of those things about ourselves that are all too inconvenient, right? So you have this to change your hair, this to change your nose. That to change your body. And you've got skin whitening to change your skin. Voila!
This concept of skin whitening goes way, way back. This idealization of a pale complexion, particularly for women, has a very, very long history. If you go to the Smithsonian's overview of American skincare history, you'll see safe arsenic, and complexion wafers. Another one I saw there was, uh, white witch for the skin, cleanses, softens, and whitens.
Then there was Peggy Page's whitening balm from Ohio. in Southeast Asia, there is a skin whitening phenomenon like I have never seen. While it's not unique to Asia, it's definitely reached very different heights here. Skin whitening is, everywhere, and we're just not talking about it enough. I've had someone categorically tell me that they got a job, a man, because they whitened their skin.
There is a generation of women, men, and non-binary people because this thing is genderless and don’t not want to have their natural skin tone. And let me clarify here before y'all jump down my throat. I'm not talking about hyperpigmentation patches or general brightening of dull skin. I'm talking about that ‘I'm in a full body cast situation and I wanna go from X all the way to Y all over.
And so because fair is better or is that white is better, you then engage in warfare against your own body because the standard of beauty displayed to you over and over again is one that looks absolutely nothing like you. Your very adept brain has decided that to be beautiful, to be powerful, I must have a different skin tone and I'm getting by any means necessary.
Your brain sees the social advantages that come along with having lighter skin. Ergo you will be treated and interacted with as more beautiful, more powerful of a higher status. And off you go. I knew about the creams. I knew about the dodgy ingredients, the mercury, the corticosteroids in these things. I knew about the aunties that mix creams in markets.
I knew about hydroquinone, which really should only be prescribed, but is freely available on multiple shelves in developed markets. So people bathe in this because they will be white. Excuse me. Uh, fair. By any means necessary. I heard about the IV nurses who go around to your house to give you these drips that turn you white.
Uh, I mean, sorry. Fair. And they come around every so often just to top you up so you don't lose the whiteness. I mean, fairness and the adverts, they're everywhere on billboards come in, whiten. No longer is this hidden in, in dodgy deals on skin whitening creams done in dark alleys. It's no longer, ‘My auntie knows this lady who travelled to this place and met this other lady who used this cream and it worked for her.’ No. There are whole companies and they have the word whitening in their name.
And what are they promising, we will make you beautiful. Once we take off about six to seven shades off of you, then and only then will you truly be perfect. What is the role, the integrity and the sincerity of the beauty industry? When they finally found some other looking models to stick on their ads and shove on their websites, what changes did they make to their boardrooms?
Or were we satisfied to be appeased with inaction camouflaged as a bald-headed, dark-skinned woman holding a bottle on a billboard? Another hurry up, So they shut up, Job. Does the beauty industry include you?. The brands you use, does it empower? Does it grow? Does it nourish? Does it embolden or like a wet toilet seat, Does it leave you damp and confused? Always coming up too short on the beauty scale of life. And I've heard it all before, so before you say it, let me, Nina, these people are making a personal choice. It is their business. They are grown folk. Do you need to get so worked up about it? The answer to that question people is almost always, yes.
I'm open to hearing a more evolved response, though. I wanna have this conversation with skin whiteners and non-whiteners alike. A lot of this goes well beyond colorism, though. That's the C word I was banging on about earlier. Colorism is not racism. It occurs within the race. Colorism is the foul tasting cocktail that emerges from the leftovers of previous cocktails of racism, colonialism, patriarchy, superiority complexes, and some takeout You left in the backseat of a car in the summer Heat with the windows wound up. It smells bad. It tastes bad. It permeates your home, and you're halfway considering burning the house down, Just to get the stench out. For those who have never endured it, seen it up close, It's truly a rarefied experience.
A Hierarchical perception of value based on the skin tone of an individual, and of course the prejudice that you then apply based on said skin tone. Several industries play on this core concept of, of added desirability, whether it's skin tone, body type, hair, it's in a cream, it's in this $20,000 bag, it's in a bottle in this procedure, or this waist cinching straight jacket
And the shame we should feel. How is our shame being monetized? The shame you have for your hair, for your body type, your face, your skin. How is someone else profiting from your shame? , how does it impact your psyche and the psyche of the children that you raise? I couldn't quite get consistent figures, but the skin whitening industry is estimated to be somewhere in the 9 billion area in 2021, give or take a billion and projected to double by 2031.
And so when I think of the odds of little on me having any impact whatsoever, y'all, I need all the encouragement I can get. I know this has been a bit heavier than my normal, so for today, my encouragement to myself is this. You chose to spend time with me today, whether at the gym, on your walk, during your long commute home, you chose Every Shade.
Thank you. Until next time, it’s Every Shade,