I Want What She Has: Emulating the image of a different race
August 4, 2009 9 Comments
Hey everyone I am so wore out! In Toronto we just wrapped up Caribana, the annual parade and festival celebrating Caribbean culture. My hermit behind made sure to go out and enjoy the festivities; in addition here in the Province of Ontario we had a holiday yesterday, even though I somehow found myself at work. I won’t blog about Caribana much because well it’s something you definitely have to experience in person, but I will say this year was one of the best ever.
Through my travels this weekend I came across a startling trend amongst black women: Bleached out skin and blonder than blonde wigs. Now I wish my camera was actually my eye, because I was so busy starring in awe that I forgot to snap a picture. Black women and hair; our hair is so diverse because we have the ability to switch it up in the form of weaves, wigs, straightening iron, Solange etc. We often experiment with different colors and so forth; I understand that it’s fun to play around with your look, but play safe! The bleached out skin was actually a bleached out face with a brown body and a wig that practically matched color of the face- SMH. I’m not sure where this trend originated, but it didn’t agree with me- at first. I mean when I did that Freak-Um Friday post on unleashing your inner white girl I didn’t mean literally.
As I starred at the bleached-out bounty I instantly pondered issues around light skin vs. dark skin and how black people still subconsciously practice self-hatred.
While writing this I decided that posting specifically on self-hatred and beauty standards/prejudices would just be like a post on any other blog, and in case you haven’t noticed- THIS IS NOT LIKE ANY OTHER BLOG.
I decided to take this to another level.
I’ve always said that the black goddess is the most desired and loathed goddess in the world. Uh huh, she is. I could list 100,000+ plus reasons why & how she is loathed, but what about the ways she is desired and emulated?
I came across a picture of Ganguro “black face” girls while searching for pictures of bleached out black women. The Ganguro style emerged amongst Japanese teenage girls in the 90’s and if you’re lucky you’ll see remains of this look in and around Tokyo today. The style involved getting dark tans or applying lots of bronzer, wearing the hair long and bleached or wearing a colourful wig (as shown in the picture), getting afro-perms, wearing very colourful clothing with prints, and a bunch of other wild ish. Now I wouldn’t say that this style is directly related to the image of the black goddess, but its pretty close. Some say the Ganguro style actually emerged to emulate the typical Californian sun-kissed white girl…black face =white girl? Ok?
The look caused uproar in Japanese society as does the bleached-out-black-face woman cause an uproar, well in my society so far. It makes me think that on some level it may be normal to try to emulate our sisters of other races because at the same time the world is watching us?
What does everyone make of the extreme image alterations?
Ganguro girls vs. the bleached-out ebony?
Rebellion, statement or self-hatred?
Is it that deep?
A natural Ganguro girl,
Tee’d Off
Goddess, Society
………….crazy. Nothing deep or introspective for me to say about this. Just crazy.
Nightfall said more then what I can say about the subject… smh…
I was researching this very topic a while back for one of my posts. I was surprised to see and read where this has even become a problem even in Africa of all places. I can’t remember which country, but the gov’t there had to ban skin bleaching products because it became so prevalent that woman were beginning to develop cancer from a certain chemical in the products they used. The irony of this was that the product was made in England.
Why am i not surprised? I was looking through pictures on google and saw ads for skin bleaching creams. They sell them here on this side of the globe, or at least something similar but they are merely used for “smoothing out blemishes”- right!
The ladies I saw this weekend were probably shopping for make-up in the dark but then again who knows maybe they are on to this skin-bleaching crack
Yep very tru. My Mom is from Nigeria and they definitely practive alot of skin-bleaching over there. there is a product called Tura cream that is made in england that my mom even used. I wouldn’t call my mom’s skin bleached out because she is natually lighter, but she has been using this product fro years nonethless. smh luckily it has no real side effects I have seen…
As for the skin-bleaching in general – I am against black ppl tryin to look white, but I have used complexion creams before to lighten up dark spots that result from acne or scars. But I left the blonde wig at home – does that count as self-hate? lol
nah choklit go hard or go home..you gotta bleach it out and rock the blonde wig lol
do the bleaching creams (for acne scars) actually work?
I am too scared to try that..I’ll just stick to bio oil or cocoa butter.
As for nigeria & skin bleaching- I blame it on the damn movies..all the females be light skin!!??
Girl, I see bleached out skin all the time (men and women in the Afo-Carib communities of Brooklyn); and the worst kind too. Some of them are so bleached out the skin looks down right raw! Ugh!
Anytime I see one of them I start singing that old reggae song “dem a bleach, dem a bleach out dem skin. Dem a bleach fi look like di browning”.
I don’t respect it. I think it’s straight up self-hate – that whole “white is right” concept.
As far as the Ganguro girls are concerned, that ish is disturbing. Really though? That’s how you see the black community?
I don’t like it one bit. Now I don’t mind them exploring our culture (*check out Japanese Dancehall on YouTube*), but by exploring our culture they SHOULD’VE found out how we think blackface is disrespectul / insulting. Do they see us powdering our faces white, walking around with chopsticks in our hair, saying “ching chong yi”???
SMH, damn shame.
well we do wear the hell out of their chinese slippers lmao…
nah but seriously I think its a cry for attention both the bleaching & ganguro look..you cant get a real job looking like that and no matter how much you bleach your skin you will still be considered a NEGRO. To everyone else in the world you are not just light skin or dark skin just NEGRO
I was giving cut eye at first but now I am just intrigued..like is it cool to just wanna take on the form of someone else because maybe they dont like who they are? I thought this only affected the blk community but I’m seeing its not that isolated…japanese ppl are willing to look stupid too!
as for the japanese dancehall..it was cute for a millisec but I’m over it
no one can wheeell it like a jamaican I’m sorry
I mean at least be a chinese jamaican, but these girls dont speak or understand the dialect…here I go on a hating spree again lol
This particular post is interesting because there was a discussion about this on Tyra Banks Show and as you have pointed out this is an issue not only in the Black community but also Asian, Latina and South Asian woman are victims to this type of mentality. For Asian women, apparently having plastic surgery on their eyelids is popular so that they appear less “ethnic”, and for South Asian, Latina, and generally all women of colour having a lighter tone is revered as being more beautiful (SAD).
It strange that you came out with this post the same day I had a slight confrontation with a family member who has…how should I say this nicely…SLAVE MENTALITY’ (sorry it can’t be said nicer) that lighter is better. My sister and I have very contrasting appearances she is a gorgeous black girl with a fair complexion, tall, skinny could pass for a model as oppose to my darker complexion, I’m short, a little extra weight, etc… This family member made it very clear ( I was surprised at how direct he was) that she was much prettier than me and explained why…OMG, I wanted to cry…Because we have such as huge age difference, and for the simple fact that I have such a pride in the range of tones, and complexions that women of colour come in I am able to overlook his comments as ignorance… However if me and my sister were closer in age I might have a complex.
Personally, it starts from when the child is young to have pride in their appearance whether that is with providing your daughter with dolls and books that represent her beauty as well as the beauty of others…perhaps there wouldn’t be this issue! Or with mothers and fathers ensuring that they build their childrens self esteem so that outside influences don’t affect them.