Senegal's Fashion Victims

Sorry, friends. I forgot to share this one with you. I remember growing up in and around Enugu in the early eighties and wondering, with others, why some otherwise glowingly dark-skinned people suddenly became as yellow as ripe bananas. We came to know that, in spite of the vaunted black pride slogans, many Africans fell victim to abysmal forms of self-loathing, or race-loathing as was exemplified in their flight from their skin color. Many of my friends did. I, too, tried a skin-bleaching soap if only to see what it would do. I discarded it nearly as promptly as I began to try it. It wasn't because I had some extra love of my dark color; it was just uncomfortable. At some point it was like rubbing pepper on your skin. I totally understand (though I do not wholly agree with) a person undertaking something to comply with the beauty standard of the time. I don't however understand why people would inflict lasting pains to themselves in order to appear beautiful, as this story shows. I try as much as possible to put myself in the position of women who go this length. Perhaps if I were a woman, constantly under the fierce gaze of society and men, wanting me to comply with their often undefined and undefinable standards and demands, I might succumb to that undefined and undefinable temptation.