Love Your Ebony Skin, Stop The Discrimination.

8 out of every 10 Nigerian woman is bleaching her skin according to TVC news. In the UK and America there are billboards and TV adverts that portray certain types of women as the ideal way to look. So blonde hair, blue eyes and size zero waist images are splattered everywhere you look. So when people in this part of the world are obsessed with their weights and dye their hair and wear contacts I kind of get it because many people are influenced hugely by what they see in the media.

Now I don't know about any other part of Nigeria but in Lagos when I see billboards and TV adverts they usually show your average Nigerian celebrity who, 9 times out of 10 is dark skinned. So I can't even blame media propaganda for the insanity that is sweeping through not only Nigeria but the African continent. So what is to blame for this new trend? My husband reckons its because the women believe that that is the only way they will find husbands as most African men want light-skinned women. But I refuse to believe that our African men are that shallow. Another thing is that if a dark skinned woman bleaches her skin and then gets married she will probably produce dark skinned babies because you cannot change your DNA. There was a case in China last year where a man was suing his wife for fraud because when he married her she did not disclose that she had had plastic surgery to turn herself from a duckling to the swan he saw and fell in love with, so when she gave birth to their son he looked just like her before the plastic surgery and he did not like it at all. When you understand that in China couples are only allowed to have one child then you can sort of understand where the guy is coming from. My point is you can change the outward appearance but you can't change the inside and what is on the inside will always come out one way or the other. Also it is always easy to tell when a person has bleached their skin even if they have done the new upscale type of bleaching that doesn't leave the knuckles and knees darker than the rest of the body.

I am not going to go into the health reasons as to why bleaching your skin to make it lighter is not a smart idea, because I believe that has been done and over done and we are all now well aware of the damage it can cause our skin and internal organs.
I won't even slate the people who bleach their skin because I believe they are victims of low self esteem and self loathing caused by a habit of judging the extent of their  success by comparing themselves to others and by a need to be like others because they lack the courage to stand out.

I decided to put pen to paper to express my concerns as a mother about the  message bleaching is sending out, you can't go anywhere without seeing at least one multicoloured person. It makes me wonder how it will be in the next few years, in my children's generation and in my grandchildren's generation. What message is it sending out to them now about the colour of their skin?

Here's what its saying to your beautiful baby girl and mine, that her brown skin is something to be ashamed of and rid herself by any means necessary even if it burns her, damages her organs, gives her cancer or even kills her.

It tells her that she is not as pretty and has limited opportunities compared to her lighter-skinned sisters because women are judged by the shade of their skin and not the content of their character.

It tells her that she is not attractive enough to be approached by a man because of the colour of her skin even though she has the most amazing ebony skin.

In truth skin bleaching is as a result of discrimination and we should all have a big issue about and speak out against it like we do about slavery and rape and other injustices.  To allow it to continue is to tell our children and the rest of the world that we despise our ebony skin and thus they have the license to as well.
Say no to discrimination, say no to skin bleaching for the sake of our children.