This reply is also in reply to Gman’s & Piyanke’s posts.

I think one mistake I made in the previous posts is that it all ended up harshly sounding like “all beauty products are bad and should be banned!” … (with immediate effect?) … Of course I didn’t mean that. There's of course nothing wrong with people making themselves up if they think that’s good for their “chances” in life, enhances their modern being. Also, I do not believe, deep down my heart, that it is (even remotely) right to imprison anyone found [let alone “suspected of”] bleaching. That would look like a mad, colour-based witch-hunt, divisive, really crazy and dangerous (almost like sending a rabid dog on a free biting spree!). Of course it would be foolish for a layman like me to even claim that all skin-care products—(including those that are primarily chemically-based, with high levels of concentration/"purity")—are bad and should be banned, when people of all races do need and do use skin-care products, from what I know.

I would have to retract that statement about “looking cool”; nevertheless, it was both what I meant and what I think the article implied skin-bleaching is mainly about (especially I think in younger, more “ambitious” women, or any of those that are “trapped in desperation economically”). Here, I think what we blacks have is an *excellent* example of a complex conflict-interrelation between race/COLOUR and gender, and how these factors relate to social class and economic power. We all know that the human skin is the largest biological organ of the human body, most easily visible to the eye, and so the “allegation” of skin-bleaching being mainly about “looking cool” would still hold water (as long as this “false idea of upward social acceptance” applies).

In part due to the brevity of my 2 previous posts (on this thread addressing skin-bleaching), I didn’t really address, or failed to directly mention, the “economic aspect” that can be tied to skin-bleaching and its triggers ... The “emotional aspect” was more or less alluded to, in that especially social entities such as “home” and “family”, but also “social surroundings” (which can mean also*friends*), are “bodies” that are there to protect/advise/educate/enlighten the emotionally strained/pressurized of their members, in any healthy familial or social setting. Shouldn’t Society always be there to protect those of its subjects in need, even those in need of emotional/psychological support, or even be able to recognize such needs and pin-point them where they apply for a society to function healthily, even in capitalistic societies?

In a well-balanced post facing the issue of colo(u)rism (I prefer “skirting” around this word, but fear using it), Eja wrote his own straightforward, eye-to-eye inhibitions about “fair skin”, “good hair” etc (and I think he also meant their psychical implications on our physical being, all of us).

Black people who bleach their skin (ESPECIALLY) “for economic opportunities” are complicit in their own physio-psychological demise and there should be many harsh words in store for them, apart from psychotherapy! There should be no beating about the bush on that subject, if we want to address the issue in its fullest context. We cannot afford to be complaining about “White Power” or “Black DIS-Empowerment” or inferring that there are (certain) “tightly locked doors to economic power” impeding our progress (as dark blacks) when, at the same time, the keys to opening up some of this “blockage” may lie squarely not in our hands, but at the backyard of our own households.

I say, let’s first CORECTLY EMPOWER black people then—MENTALLY & PSYCHOLOGICALLY—instead of just talking about “economic empowerment”, an empowerment that usually ends up meaning and sounding like the same old “empowerment” we all know: Material things (for a few), money, banks, blank, nothing, bang! … Sometimes, I really wonder if what MOST of us black people are really “crying about” is MONEY or physical comfort and nothing else! I don’t think this is at the top of the list of what white people & their communities would want for themselves (as a group). What about the issue of production & consumption? … It would seem to me to be more about controlling the flow of OWN created resources; then, and only then, can one “control everything”!

The Power of the White Media is there for all conscious people to combat: it may look like a futile attempt, but it is very worth a winnable try! My view is that we are complicit in our own demise as a BLACK race if the ‘only sub-group’ among us we can “pick on” for our internal (economic) woes, and even inter-personal wrangling and backbiting, are the lighter and (more often) socially better-placed ones among us (HALF OF WHOM WOULDN’T EVEN CARE ABOUT THE DARKEST-SKINNNED, KINKIEST-HAIRED AFRICAN ALIVE ON THE PLANET TODAY, or “whether such beings can be found”), because The System OF COURSE favours lighter-skinned blacks ahead of darker ones, in most instances. We can hardly change that!

But should references to “the System” make it “pardonable” for dark-skinned, kinky-haired types—including ALL black women—to bleach their skin, fix their lips, have a “nose-job” done on them etc so as to appear socially acceptable, or so that they could stand “with confidence” behind a pulpit and squeal orders at other blacks and other people about what is black and right?!) … And what System are we really talking about and where? … I think this is where we have to realise that, in a full sense, we do have the power to shape up or reshape our own image, or the image that we think we portray for the benefit of others: at least for those who think they can be leaders. I think, for the average black, the catch-phrase should go something like ‘Self-evaluation with general education’, or education in its fullest sense: Self-Education as general education should be applied in its rightful practical context.

From the images I have seen advertising skin-bleaching products, one can see that of course even (“naturally”) light/er-skinned people do bleach their skin or can bleach their skin. Of course this wouldn’t be as “easily detectable” as on a dark/er-skinned person. But most of these issues are relative of course; the word “black” is itself relative. I spoke about the “grey area” in a previous post and this is part of what I was referring to. Such “blacks” are just as condemnable in my view, without favour, and without any wish to instigate “witch-hunts” (as these are, as mentioned, counter-productive).

The keyword here is, again, education. My main concern is to lay emphasis on the fact that—(within this firmly-fixed, colour-based mental system of orientation)—we blacks would remain groping like a dusty herd of lost sheep in a dry desert, or a dry plant in a dry month, not knowing what to follow or turn to for our spiritual thirst, and those supposed to shepherd us out would choose to first drink their fill before they can even appear to be more lost than we! … Of course it would help no black—(and least of all the darkest-skinned, kinkiest-haired average black)—if we, amongst ourselves, at the back of our minds, indirectly enhance the same colour-based, gender-hating clichés under another fake banner of “Black Power” (or “Fire Power”) as the “new” catchword for “better economic opportunities for all”, when what really is at stake—for MOST(?)—is personal daydreams, poor lives, hopeless characters, reflex actions and survival instincts.

As we bet with time against our black lives, we shouldn’t gamble away our basic physio-biological identities for the elusive dollar (hidden at the bank).