I
wrote a piece recently, a tribute to the late veteran actress Bukky Ajayi and
the multi-instrumentalist OJB Jezreel, in which I raised a number of issues,
including how in Nollywood today, there is an obsession with the whitening of
skin, an anti-Negritude yellowing, what I referred to as “the bleaching,
chameleon crowd of Nollywood beauties.”
The
various reactions to the piece conveniently ignored this subject; two young
ladies who felt that I was probing an unpopular theme drew my attention to
this. I was reminded that being light-skinned is now the in-thing, indeed the
socially acceptable norm, because there is now a universalization of the
concept of beauty and self-esteem.
The more light-skinned you are, the more acceptable you are in various
circumstances, that is. I thought if this was true, then it is a tragedy indeed
for the black world. For, once upon a time in the history of the black race,
being black was a thing of joy and an instrument of protest.
When
Jesse Evans gave the black salute at the 1939 Olympics, after winning four gold
medals, he was making a racially loaded statement about black pride and
achievement. Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther
King, Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, Muhammad Ali are key historical figures in
the struggle for the black identity in the United States not to talk of various
moments and efforts culminating in the Obama phenomenon eight years ago.
None of these historical figures would ever have contemplated a globalized
notion of beauty and self-esteem, which superiorizes and imposes the idea of
being white in 2016, and for same to be validated by blacks, living in the
black world’s most populous country- Nigeria.
Closer
home, the independence struggles across Africa were fuelled by ideas of racial
pride, and indeed in the 1960s, the coalescing of that around the negritude
movement projected confidence and faith in the black colour, the people’s
culture and identity. To be added to this is the expressed faith that black
people all over the world can contribute meaningfully and significantly to the
march of human history.
Being
black was nothing to be ashamed of. Cultural workers used their art and
narratives to promote black culture.
Writers identified with their natal roots. James Ngugi for example,
became Ngugi wa Thio’ngo. Albert Achebe dropped his Albert and became Chinua
Achebe. Wole Soyinka argued that “a tiger does not proclaim its tigritude”; it
should act and in his writings, he proved the point.
Black
activists like W.E.B. DuBois left the United States and traced their roots to
Africa. But today, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of that movement
are turning back the hand of the clock.
They
want to be white! They may in the long run constitute a minority, but
artificial beauty is a growing trend among black people. I was once asked to
buy Brazilian hair, during a trip to Brazil. I went dutifully to a shopping
mall asking for Brazilian hair.
Nobody could figure out what I wanted. Brazilian hair is what a lot of
Nigerian women wear, or attach to their natural hair to achieve the effect of a
straight, Oyinbo-ish hair and to hide their own natural, curly hair. It
took me two days of trying to buy Brazilian hair in Brazil before it occurred
to me that Brazilian women are not likely to be selling Brazilian hair in their
own country since in any case, every one of them is born with it.
But
here in Nigeria, Brazilian hair is a big deal: it is one of those items a
bridegroom must budget for, otherwise, no wedding and I understand, this could
be in the range of N350, 000 per hair. The final cost could also be determined
by the adopted style: normal leave-out, closure or frontal, all designed
to create an artificial effect. Even the eyelashes you see on our ladies these
days may not be real: eyeballs are replaced with contact lenses, and there is a
new craze now called eyebrow wig: a wig on the eyebrow!
The new global culture of beauty has also imposed on our women what is called
acrylic nails, or plastic nails. With those cat-like nails, women find it
difficult to wear sanitary pads, jewellery, button their shirts, eat dollops of
swallow with their hands, type on their phones or wash clothes and plates, and
yet every young lady out there is wearing strange nails in the name of beauty.
Check out the faces too. Make up has been turned into such an art of deception;
you could marry your ex-girlfriend and not know she is the one because she has
changed colour, changed face and changed everything about her.
Make-up
and making up are associated with success, but it is pure 419 as many may have
discovered. Women talk about laying a foundation on their faces as if
they are bricklayers, they also talk about contouring and highlighting the face
to look different: the effect is that every ugly girl is contoured and
highlighted to become a stunning beauty.
We
are also in the age of breast implants, breast reconstruction, liposuction,
pumping of bum-bum and lip lightening (there is cream method or peeling with
machine!) and the use of body pads and slimming girdles and all kinds of
borrowed gadgets to make a woman look prettier than she is.
The idea of the “African Queen” celebrated over the years, and more famously by
Tu Face Idibia in a song of the same title has thus undergone a
transformation.
Women
and men (yes men also) in Africa’s most populous black nation, and quite a
significant number, are all struggling to become either light-skinned or copy
the Kadarshian/Kanye West effect. I have been made to understand that in
Nollywood for example, dark-skinned actors and actresses are ignored by
producers: they say they don’t look good on camera and that only light skinned
actors sell movies.
So,
there is a marketing side to it but it must be crazy if true. Celebrities are
also expected to be glamorous all the time. This is why public figures don’t
step out of their homes or take pictures unless they are properly made up. And
to worsen the story, I am told you need to look clean, and fresh to be
considered successful and the black colour does not project success.
Here we are confronted with many men and women
who are bleaching their skins, to look fresh and successful. The prostitution
angle to it is buried in the argument that men are naturally attracted to
light-skinned ladies. And it is a big industry, one of the most lucrative
businesses in Nigeria today.
The
minimum cost of a bleaching cream is N15, 000 per week. These include Egyptian
milk, Arabian milk, Snow White and steroid creams like Movate, which is used to
bleach the scalp. Yes, the scalp! They bleach the scalp too.
There
is also a bleaching tablet, which costs as much as $500; four tablets are
usually taken per dose. Some people opt for what is called bleaching injection
to peel off the melanin, and one injection is a tidy N250, 000. There are
special creams for old women and men with resistant skin, at higher cost.
The madness is across all age brackets, and may God help you if you have a
bleaching wife or girlfriend.
I am not making this up. The various creams and services are hawked daily at
Ikeja roundabout, under the bridge. The merchants also advertise tattooing,
hips enlargement, penis enlargement and breast reconstruction services. And in
Yaba, Lagos, you’d find the biggest cosmetics store run by a certain Mama Tega
who is said to be the oldest and the most trusted in the business. The
irony is that she, herself, is interestingly dark-complexioned! The girls who
work for her and her patrons are not.
The stress and risks involved in bleaching and looking white
by all means possible are so much, but the people involved do not care. The
knuckles and the lips do not bleach easily, so people go about looking patched
up and they have to buy a different chemical to lighten their knuckles, elbows
and knees. The side effect of the chemicals used includes bad body odour and
stretch marks, the skin is thinner and more sensitive, and the chemicals expose
the person to enormous health risks.
It
is also a lot of work. If you are bleaching your skin, you have to use the
cream everyday, morning and night. If you miss the cream for a week, you’d look
different, and you have to stick to the same supplier and mixture: so much
needless stress.
I am aware that every individual is entitled to a freedom of choice including
the choice to look the way they want. But I see the spread of a bleaching
culture as a display of so much insecurity and lack of self-esteem, and an
assault on the legacy of all the men and women who fought and are still
fighting to ensure that black identity matters.
It
is also shocking that many mothers are now in the habit of introducing their
children to bleaching creams very early. They don’t want dark-skinned daughters
and sons! And the ones who fail to do this feel terribly embarrassed when they
are photographed with their children and the skin colours do not match. Check
family photographs these days. And worry about the many ladies out there living
a life of pretense engaged in “coded waka runs” (euphemism for
underground prostitution) just so they can buy skin whitening creams.
This is a sad story about the way we now live, even as I recall the antiphonal
lyrics of James Brown’s “Say it Loud – I’m Black and Proud” (1968) - one of the
greatest songs of all time. In Nigeria’s entertainment industry today,
being black is almost a taboo.
The
women want to look like Kim Kardashian and the men seem to think that to be a
celebrity is to be light-skinned. In the larger society, a “faworaja”
(fake appearance) culture is on the rise. The people are deliberately
re-colonizing themselves mentally and physically. What can anyone say to
such persons who are ashamed of their own identity? I speak for myself:
“I’m Black and Proud”. But even if I wan bleach sef, I black so tay, cream
go finish for market…
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