Why is Lighter Considered Better?

Colorism is an issue that impacts women all over the world, not just in the United States. Skin lightening products have become a popular item on the market as a way of achieving the light skin ideal. Dencia, featured in the picture above, is a Nigerian pop star becoming increasingly known for her skin whitening line, Whitenicious. An article in the online Afritorial Magazine breaks down the issue of eurocentric beauty standards and the popularity of skin lightening products around the world. This article points out how 77% of Nigerian women use some form of skin lightening product. Even in India, 61% of all skin-care products contain some sort of lightening agents. Skin lightening is also popular in Asian countries where the beauty ideal for women is fair skinned.

Blac Chyna, a black American female model and entrepreneur recently came out with a skin whitening line that has been received a lot of backlash since it’s release, for a good reason. She promoted this product in Lagos, Nigeria claiming it can help women in their careers and boost their self esteem. Vanity Fair was found to have lightened Lupita Nyong’o’s skin tone by several shades when she appeared on the cover. The picture below displays the difference. Dark skin is not apart of westernized beauty standards and is viewed as “other” in a society that privileges and overwhelmingly represents white faces and white beauty.

African American author Ivanla Vanzant points to the roots of colorism dating back to slavery where black female slaves had children with their white owners and children became gradually lighter skinned and received benefits from this. Colonialism has created a system of reinforcing colorism, working to privilege lighter skin. White privilege was made possible by building a country off of free black labor. White privilege breeds colorism and the privileges offered to lighter skin. This article cites how these privileges operate in multiple settings including schooling, where some teachers respond more positively to light-skinned students and parents, dating and marriage markets where light-skinned black women are found more likely to marry spouses of higher occupation, income and levels of education, in the labor market with differentiating wage gaps favoring lighter skinned individuals, and the list goes on. Light skinned blacks are found to earn more money, finish more years of education, marry “higher-status” spouses, live in better locations and neighborhoods and serve shorter jail sentences than dark-skinned blacks.

Eurocentric Beauty Standards Made Global

The United States’ power in relation to the world has given it the upper hand on influencing other parts of the world in defining beauty standards. An article published in Germ magazine cites that white models dominate the modeling industry from America, to India, to China. Colored women are pressured into treating their natural hair with hair straightening treatments to fit into this eurocentric mold. The Black is Beautiful campaign works to combat racism and the suppression of unique cultural features in black people. Lupita Nyong’o gave a speech about how she used to pray only for fairer skin and was taught to despise how she looked. Her speech is posted below where she discovers the ability to accept and love herself once she sees another woman of her skin tone outwardly recognized as beautiful.

This article also features an experiment done by a black couple in 1939 called the Clark Doll Experiment, children were asked to decide which doll was more beautiful when the only difference between the two dolls was one was white, one was black. In almost all instances, children named the white doll as the beautiful doll. These children came from different backgrounds but almost all of them displayed internalized colorism and racism. Our society associates white with innocence, purity and success while we associate black with criminality, danger and deviance. Beautiful has been defined so narrowly that the single factor of skin color registers something in our mind’s.