wyldhoney posted:

I don't understand the surprise over skin bleaching in black cultures.

Post-colonialism is an ugly disease. In my parents' youth certain people couldn't hold jobs like teachers or bank tellers because they weren't "clear" enough.

My brown skinned mother married my dark skinned father amidst subtle and not so subtle handwringing about the skin colour of their as yet unborn children.

My mom was constantly asked if her children 'all had the same father' because my baby sister took after my dad while me and my other sister took after my mom.

My cousins are 'better looking' than I because they are "shabin". I was teased relentlessly at school for not having a nose bridge. I spent a long time crushing hopelessly on (white) guys with Roman noses.

I grew up on a diet of Seventeen magazine and Cosmo where everyone was white. I read Sweet Valley High and Nancy Drew and even Enid Blyton (where the only black character is a loving golliwog.)

The dark girl in Destiny's Child was the least pretty and was quickly dropped. Dark Aunt Viv on the Fresh Prince was replaced by light Aunt Viv. Lil Kim was clowned on because she was "dark" (close to my complexion). Google her now. Guys fawn over Beyonce in a way they never did about Foxy Brown.

I used to smile and feel good about Buju singing "I love mi car mi love mi bike mi love mi money and ting, but most of all mi love mi browning" until I learned that I certainly did not qualify as browning because I wasn't "clear" enough and my hair wasn't long enough.

Serena Williams is clowned as manly because she is a big strong black woman.

I could go on but maybe that's enough. Generations of black Americans, Africans and Caribbean people have grown up hosed in the head because of white supremacist indoctrination. Don't act so shocked that some are willing to do ANYTHING (from blonde weave and hazel contacts to nose jobs and skin bleaching) to erase the stain of their blackness. It makes it easier to survive and to thrive.