S4E139 The Harsh Truth About Skin Bleaching and Colorism

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• 9:25 [Ad] Eye-Opening Moments Podcast
• 10:02 (Cont.) S4E139 The Harsh Truth About Skin Bleaching and Colorism

Transcript

Speaker 1 (0s): All right. Good morning. Both and both ties. I took my camera off because I, I just didn't feel like being on camera today. I mean, I don't look funny or anything. I just didn't feel like being on camera and just to prove that I looked the same way. This is me this morning, you know, but I just don't feel like being on camera so I can turn off the light in my car and drive like normal. I just wanna talk about skin bleaching for a second.

I believe I touched on this last week. I, I don't remember what I spoke about last week, but when my sisters came over, visited me, I just wanted to circle back to this and she was showing me a picture of a former friend, and then apparently they found her on social media and she looks nothing like, like who she was. She went from being like kind of big and really dark skin and certain features to, she changed, she lightened, her whole body changed.

Like you could tell she did, she augmented her face. It was just like a lot going on. So I, I, I went to work and I typed in the percentage of people skin bleacher or something like that, right? Because I, like, I know logically it exists, but I'm like, how, how do you even do that? Then when I was doing a little bit of basic, you know, recon little bit of research, I came across this stat that it's 10 to 15% of African American skin bleach.

And, but it was talking about those from the continent, 77% of Nigerians skin bleach, 35% of South Africans and 30% of Ghanaians. And I thought it was really interesting 'cause I remember one time I was looking at what was I looking at? And I remember seeing, there were women from Nigeria and I don't know what video or something I saw on tv, whatever, and I was looking at these women and I was like, why did they look so weird for a second?

Like, something wasn't right. And now when I look back, it was like their skin wasn't quite matching what it looked like. I don't know, it didn't look healthy. Like it, it, I don't know what word I want to use, not knowing what that was. All I know is I was like, it was it, I think it was something on Nigeria and it was like a show or I don't remember what it was, but I saw like a brief clip of something and I was like, what is wrong with that woman?

And there were several women like that. And I very well could have been, who knows, I could have been watching the show. I was skin bleaching, but I was looking at like, it just looked wrong. And then I remember I was looking at like their hands and I was like, do they have fiddle idol or something? Didn didn't know what it was. I was like, what's wrong with these ladies? Nevertheless, now don't come and eat me up for it because I'm telling you what I observed. Okay? When I think about the comments that have been made to me in the past or to one of my family or whatever, I'm beginning to believe there's something to this.

I remember my mom was telling me how when she was doing some real estate or whatever, one time how the lady she worked with, the lady she worked with was a, a, a broker. And she made a comment, something about hair, about how, and she was Nigerian and she told my mom that it was something about hair. My mom's like, no, I gotta do mine. You know, kinky hair, whatever.

She was like, no, your hair's not like our hair. It's still different. And she was like, what? And the lady was telling my mom about how the black people here our hair is, is not as kinky or some, something like that. And my mom just kind of just dismissed it. She was like, all right, whatever. But the same lady actually was married to a white man. And you know, my mom wasn't really caught up.

She doesn't really care. But you know, my mom has known darker women to make comments about like how they will not be with a dark skinned guy because they're dark skinned. And I'm like, oh my god. You know? So circling back, that was, I remember my mom was telling me some stuff about that, but I remember when I was playing tennis, people were telling me about how some of the men who were from the continent, I'm their type before for reasons such as skin tone, et cetera.

And I was like, well, I'm a whole married woman. Like, so I don't, I don't care about anybody's type, but the point they were making was, don't be surprised if they're smiling up in your face and all sort of stuff. And I was like, I can't deal with this. I'm just trying to hit this ball and then go home. Where am I going with this? So after seeing this clip of my sister's friend and, And they were shown the before and after, and then I go to work and I look up the percentages, I was like, holy cow, this is something else.

And then I was doing some further research, come to find out, they were talking about celebrities are actually lightening their skin now. I don't know if it's like large scale and mass, like trying to be like a full on different woman, a different man. But, you know, things came up about celebrities lightening their skin. And so I always just thought that much of what we would see would be the effects of photography and, you know, alterations done to these photos when you're looking at like, whether it's digital or print, media, whatever it is.

So, you know, after doing all that, I was like, you know, people who sit there and talk about how, you know, everybody loves is getting their in. I'm like BS I think I've come to the conclusion that everybody is unhappy about something. I I will even put this all the way onto white people too. White people wanna be darker Black people.

Brown people want to be lighter. White people want curls. Black people and brown people want straight hair. Nobody's happy black women are, are wearing wigs and ripping out their edges. White women are wearing tons of tapings and extensions and clippings. And I'm like, nobody's happy. Everybody wants to be somebody else. You've got black women wearing whole wigs of somebody else's hair because their hair isn't gonna happen.

Wanna let that one sink in for a second? So one of the coworkers, I was like, what's going on? I was telling him, I was like, look at this. I was showing him a stack and, and I, I actually googled not the, I went on YouTube and I googled, blah, blah, blah. And they were showing, no, I'm sorry. I had shown him a stat that I looked up. And then I went on YouTube before he had come over. And I had, I shouldn't say Google it, but I YouTube it. I don't know. I searched on, on on the skin bleaching thing and there are all kinds of videos and tutorials on how to bleach your skin.

Now I, I feel like I'm gonna have to take an L here because I never concerned myself with skin bleaching. I don't bring myself back on camera for a second. As you can see, I have never been a dark skinned woman, so I don't have that lived experience. And sorry, my hair for a second. And I actually, you know, I, I don't, I don't have any experience with that.

Okay, so come on camera. Now

Speaker 0 (9m 29s): Let's take a quick break.

Speaker 3 (9m 32s): We're here to give you actionable strategies. We're here to dive deep into the world of side hustles, digital marketing and smart income boosting tactics, The Dark Horse Entrepreneur podcast.

Speaker 1 (9m 54s): So with, I've never really thought about it because I had not been affected by that type of thing. For those of you who are new to my channel, I'm the Black Opinionated Woman, also known as above. The reason why I wanna talk about this for a second is, I, I, I kind of preface all of this. 'cause I wanted to retouch on this whole colorism thing. I've sent it multiple videos. Before growing up, I was aware of racism per se, but I wasn't overtly maybe covertly, but not overtly aware of colorism, right?

For the most part in my family, I, we just talked about black, white, whatever, right? Like, we never really went into a whole lot of like, it's not to say that I had never faced it, but it just wasn't really prevalent in my family. So, well, at least I was unaware of much of that. I'll leave it there, okay? Because it doesn't mean, so just because you're not aware doesn't mean that it didn't exist.

Alright? So I wanna make sure I put that out there. And in previous videos, I told people that when I went to college, I, I, I didn't understand colors and per se, I couldn't really name it because I wasn't wildly familiar with it. I didn't even know there was a term called colorism. I was aware of racism. But, but this thing called colorism, you know, I became more aware of colorism as a, a college student than, you know, when I was living at home.

And so once I became aware that there was these biases against this, this light skin, right? Like, I think it wasn't something that I found out on day one. It was one of those things like over time I was like, man, like people, you know, whatever. So what happened was when I first became aware, like consciously aware of this thing called colorism, which at the time was never named colorism, or at least I, I had not heard of this term.

One of the things when I looked back was how, like in my previous videos, I said, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing. And I want this to sink in because there's a lot of people who are not honest, they're not honest about, you know, colorism and that sort of thing. And so I did nothing for one, I was, I was like a nude, right?

I was new in terms of being consciously aware of this thing called colorism Number two, I didn't have the language that nor the tools to address the issue, right? I didn't, I can't speak for anyone else. I'm speaking for myself. I didn't have the range at the time. Keep in mind I was new to this thing called colorism, like I didn't even know that's what it was called, right?

But I, it, but I still was only vaguely aware. I thought it was just like a couple of one-offs, a couple of random dudes. I was unaware. So after becoming aware of this thing called colorism and how fe this runs, especially with a lot of men who look like me, who, who have a lot of issues in, in how they approached women, I, I observed a lot and to, in, in, in fairness to me, I was so like, duh.

Like, because for, I just identified as being a black woman and, you know, we all our shapes and sizes and everything like that, like to me, we were all the same. And, and we are nevertheless. I remember as I got older, especially in my early twenties when I was out of college, how the men would treat women differently if they were darker skinned. And like I said, I still couldn't name it.

I, I was, I was struggling with, well, it's not racist, I just don't 13, like, I was like a whole thing. And so, like I said, when I became aware, when I became aware of this, this thing called colorism, sadly I did nothing. I was ill-equipped to, to have, like, I could have the conversation, but I couldn't name it. And, and in, in all the ways that people were affected by it, right?

Because for the most part, my interactions in terms of how colorism worked was primarily from a mate standpoint. But it goes deeper than that. It goes deeper than that, right? But in my early twenties, the only way, I shouldn't say the only, but the, the, the conscious way that I knew what colorism was, was in terms of mating choices. Now, when I go circle back to this Google, these stats, 77% of Nigerians, 35% of South Africans, 30% of Ghanaians, 10 to 15% of African Americans who are engaging in this, this practice of skin bleaching.

When I look back at these stats, I'm like, oh boy, this runs deep is for all kinds of reasons. And, and so when I was looking up like, well, why are they, why is it so prevalent on the continent? Well, mating choices, it circles back to mating choices for one, women seem to have better marriage prospects if there's skin is lighter, And they will go to all kinds of lengths from what I have read on the internet to lighten their skin.

Now, I've seen things in recent times, of course I'm much more aware that people do, but I didn't know the number was that high. I mean, I know people lighten their skin, but I mean, just look at how people, when they put on their makeup, they make sure that their makeup is several shades lighter than what their actual skin tone is. I said what I said. So when I was looking at the stats, well, mating choices change when you're lighter.

Now when I was looking at the stats for black people here in America, and obviously the percentages are lower, well, I shouldn't say obviously. Well, a, a lot of the reason why or not doing the whole skin bleaching, because I think we're much more accepting of natural beauty and that type of thing, you know, with all this go natural hair, natural this, natural that. So people started to accept like, okay, this is what it is. I'm not saying that it's where we need to be, but there has been a big push for this type of movement, right?

So you'll see women more willing to wear their natural hair. I still see many people from the continent, my, from what I have observed wearing these really bad wigs and the amount of makeup they're wearing on their skin and, and it never looks good. And it is dawning on me. They've probably skied and now they're also covering up all makeup and it's so bad and it's so bad. Like the makeup is bad, the hair. And I'm like, what are they doing?

Like something's wrong with their beauty standards and, and, and this, this is what's happening. But when I circle back to the conversation I had about colorism and me not doing anything that, that's the truth. Now, a lot of people wanna take, take that information and they'll try to vilify me as if like, I was horrible person. No, I wasn't. But I did not address that until later because the, the more I started living and having experiences and understanding, then I started making, I started off with making comments and addressing some of the things that people were saying.

And now as an adult, you know, obviously I know so much better, they say, well, you know better, you do better. But in the beginning, I didn't do anything. And it, let's be honest, partially because I was preferred doesn't wanna be preferred, right? But the one thing I didn't do was denigrate these women, if anything, the darker the woman that I tried to be friends with, the more they denigrated me. And it was so sad about many of these situations where like, I'm thinking these are some bad women, these are some gorgeous women, And they were too busy wanting to destroy me.

And I'm like, how do you walk around looking the way you do with all this power and gorgeousness and you wanna tear me down? Beautiful women. But they, they've had a lot of issues. But, and this is not just skin and I think there's some other things going on, but nevertheless, when I, when I was younger and I became mildly aware of this thing called colorism, sadly I did nothing. I was, I didn't have the lightish northern range. I had a, my range was limited.

I didn't have the tools to address it. And frankly, I was in a position of being preferred and not understanding how when you don't dismantle things, it hurts all women, right? So I didn't necessarily stoke anything, but I didn't necessarily dismantle anything either, which is just as harmful if you ask me. I was really young. I was in like my early twenties.

So like I said, circling back to the skin bleaching statistics, I was sitting here thinking and looking at this, and I'm like, well, much of the skin bleaching, I think all stems back to mating choices. Now, I do understand that colorism, the effects of colorism runs deep in terms of employment opportunities and, you know, perceived safety, right?

It, it runs deeper than mating choices. So let's be clear. But much of what I am seeing in terms of skin bleaching all stems back to mating choices and what is considered feminine, what is considered beautiful, et cetera. I, I was really shocked to see that 77%, as what I've researched online of Nigerian skin bleach, 35% of South Africans, 30% of Ghanaians, and 10 to 15% of black Americans here in the us.

I was like, holy cow. And I think the differences basically are with the Americans here, we have a lot of these movements of be natural, wear, natural hair, blah, blah, blah. Which I think is great because I still, I think we miss the mark here too. But when I see those from the continent and I see why, like, and I always wonder why their skin looks kind of like weird And they wear, there's really, really light makeup and it's, it's just weird looking. It's all starting to make sense now.

Look, you guys can be mad. You're allowed to be mad at me. Don't come from me. You're allowed to be mad. These are the things that I've ob observed and these stats I read, it came from Google. So don't be mad at me. You better be mad at Google. Go be mad at Google. I'm just reading to you the stats. I don't know, like I did not perform any sort of research into how they came up with these numbers. I just read you the stats. But yeah, this, this skin bleaching thing is deep. When I looked at some of the videos that were on YouTube of what these women were doing, I was like, holy cow.

The things that people will do to lighten their skin for, for mate, for marriage prospects, for job opportunities, for how you are perceived your your position in life. But these are just my thoughts. Hopefully you leave a comment, but don't get mad at me for reading the stats that Google put out there. Like I said, don't argue with me. Argue with Google. Google. You might have some people arguing with you, but don't argue with me.

All right? I'm close to work. So that's all I got. So leave a comment. Seriously, you need to leave a comment. And if you haven't subscribed, then you need to go ahead and subscribe because I'm amazing in every way and can practically do no wrong. All right, have a good one.

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