How your harmless whitening cream is fueling racism?
Why are you using whitening creams and products in the first place?
Colonialism
We think fair-skinned people are the best; superior to us, the epitome of beauty, civility and sophistication, which is why we have Eurocentric beauty standards.
Eurocentric beauty standards put fair-skinned on the pedestal. That’s what white supremacy. We think people with white skin are superior, have better opportunities in life, are respectable, pure, beautiful, belong to a certain class etc. Media constantly feeds us all these notions.
When you think white skin, color is better or superior, than they see automatically brown or black skin color as inferior. Harmful stereotypes (e.g. perceiving black people as dangerous) are attached to brown and black people, demonizing skin color and dehumanizing the person.
PREFERENCE FOR FAIR SKIN IS A SYMPTOM OF INTERNALIZED RACISM AND COLORISM
Perceiving an entire race as superior because of their white skin and trying to have that while punishing people for NOT having that is racist.
Some ways people are punished for having dark skin:
1. The darker the skin color, the more dangerous and/or inferior a person
2. Culture insults and feels sorry for dark-skinned women ‘no one will want to marry them’
3. Offensive slurs are used derogatorily against dark-skinned people
4. They are made fun of/or are pitied.
