Beauty And Colourism

There is no one example of what the African man or woman looks like. The cultures within the continent are very different, so are the languages and the skin type as well. In some cultures, the lighter your skin is, the better you are treated because it is believed that the colour of your skin shows how you behave. This is a problem because it means that young people, specifically young girls, have a weird view of beauty. This leads to the rise of creams being sold that lighten your skin, but there are two problems with this. Firstly, there is no scientific basis for believing that a person’s personality is affected by the colour of their skin. Secondly, the lightening creams are very dangerous and have bad long term effects.

THE PROBLEM WITH COLOURISM IN AFRICA

Colourism is the belief that a person’s behaviour is determined by the colour of their skin. For example, that people with lighter skin are more intelligent than people with darker skin. This is scientifically incorrect because what determines your skin colour does not affect your intelligence. Humans all have the same type of genes. Genes are like a set of instructions that determine what you look like and they affect how melanin affects the skin.

Melanin is a pigment in people’s skin, hair and eyes. The darker a person’s skin is, the more likely it is that they come from a sunny country because darker skin does not get harmed by the sun as much as pale skin. There is no link between a person’s skin colour and their behaviour. Melanin only affects the colour of your skin, not how intelligent or attractive you are. Intelligence is mainly influenced by your upbringing and not really by your genes. That is why education for all people is so important because this helps them become more intelligent and have more opportunities in life.

THE DANGERS OF SKIN LIGHTENING

Skin lightening products have become more popular in black communities, specifically with women who want to become lighter skinned. This is because they believe that being beautiful means having lighter skin. What many of them do not realise are the dangers in skin lightening creams. They contain chemicals such as mercury, hydroquinone and steroids.

  • Mercury is a highly poisonous element that causes skin rashes, memory problems and muscle weakness.
  • Hydroquinone is another toxic chemical that stops your body from producing more melanin, so your skin does not get lighter. It is normally used a bleaching agent so should never be used on human skin over a long period of time. It can lead to skin rashes, excessive redness and burning skin irritation.
  • Steroids lighten your skin by slowing down your blood flow, which is very dangerous as it leads to your skin become more sensitive to the sun.


The sale of these kinds of products has already been banned in certain countries like in the Cote D’Ivoire in 2015. The list of ingredients of these products is not always correct, and there is research that shows that many of these creams contained one or more poisonous ingredients that were not mentioned in the list.

Intelligence and skin tone are caused by two different factors so it does not make sense to believe that some people are more intelligent than others because of the colour of their skin. The use of skin lightening products is unnecessary and unhealthy. Beauty is a relative idea so that what one person considers to be beautiful but another person might think that it is ugly. To treat someone badly because of the colour of their skin is harmful, especially in a continent with a diverse range of skin tones. People should be able to accept their differences and work together. This will help Africa become a stronger continent.

 

Related Post – Blackass: Does the Colour of our Skin Define Us

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