Skin Bleaching and the Deconstruction of Blackness

The Afrocentric view concerning Jamaicans who bleach their skins is that they suffer from self-hate, a result of the lingering psychological scars of slavery. The self-hatred thesis is tested by comparing the self-esteem scores of a small convenience sample of skin bleachers with the scores of a control group. The two groups have almost the same average scores above the median, which indicates that skin bleaching did not occur because of low self-esteem. The preliminary results suggest that there are varied reasons for skin bleaching and there is a range of Black identities as each person constructs his or her identity in a multicultural society.

This article deals with skin bleachers’ representations of skin color and the reasons that inform their representations. A content analysis was done of the reasons the participants give for bleaching their skin. The participants bleach their skin to remove facial blemishes, to make their faces “cool,” as a result of peer influence, to lighten their complexion, to appear beautiful and to attract a partner, to follow a popular fad, and to have the visual stimulus of the bleached skin because it makes them feel good. In Jamaican society, negative representations of dark skin indicate that dark skin is devalued, whereas light skin is valued. The hegemonic representation that elevates light skin over dark skin and guides the behavior of the skin bleachers has its roots in socializing institutions of the larger cultural milieu. The interaction of the government, the church, the education system, the media, formal culture, and popular culture from the colonial period to the present sends repeated messages that light skin is superior to dark skin.

Adult Education Research Conference Proceedings, 2011

Founded on the significance of the skin bleaching phenomenon in Jamaica, and the persistent influences of colonialism, the purpose of this paper is twofold: (a) to explore the skin bleaching phenomenon and (b) to provide a snapshot of how colonialism (despite national independence) influences perceptions of beauty and identity in Jamaica, particularly through informal learning. Based on an empirical study, the research sought to explore and understand the perceptions and motivations behind the practice of skin bleaching, given the historical and social context, and how it influenced the participants' perceptions of beauty and identity

This article theoretically integrates Nigrescence theory and the model of Black Identity Transactions by using them to explicate skin bleaching. Blacks including skin bleachers are at various stages of Nigrescence (pre-encounter, encounter, immersion-emersion and internalization) or the process of becoming black. The majority of skin bleachers' search for beauty occurs because of their miseducated identity in the pre-encounter stage of black identity development. Skin bleachers transact their miseducated identity by bonding and bridging with people that complement their modified aesthetic physicality and buffering against people who insult them. The validators of the skin bleachers are also at the pre-encounter stage of blackness because they justify the skin bleachers' rejection of Afrocentricity with Eurocentric values. The skin bleachers and their validators share similar values. However, the fiercest critics with opposite values at the immersion-emersion stage see whiteness as inferior including the bleached skin and blackness as superior. The mature critics of the skin bleachers such as the Rastafarians among others are at the internalization stage of blackness. These critics seek to empower skin bleachers by reeducating them about the beauty of blackness and the medical dangers associated with skin bleaching. Black identity transactions occur in all stages of Nigrescence and the two can be theoretically integrated as the discussion of skin bleaching reveals.

The popular explanation for skin bleaching among Black Jamaicans is self-hate. The concept of complex personhood debunks the psychopathology explanation of skin bleaching. Complex personhood is an autonomous, multidimensional, nuanced and optimal self that displays strength, weakness, resilience, ambiguities and contradictions. Some of the skin bleaching literature frames the skin bleachers as self-hating, restricts identity to a binary, argues erroneously that there is only one way to be black and silences the skin bleachers in public discourse. The self-hate explanation for skin bleaching in Jamaica is informed by the doll study in America which confounds the minority of Black children’s choice of a white doll with self-hate. The self-esteem studies in Jamaica and America refutes the self-hate thesis. The use of complex personhood to understand the behavior of the Jamaican skin bleachers liberates them from the self-hate explanation for their behavior and provides the alternative explanations of miseducation and colorism. Keywords: skin bleaching, self-hate, complex personhood, miseducation, colorism, Jamaica

Bleaching of skin is the action in which person(s) apply chemical substances on their body to chemically alter (e.g., in this case, lighten) their skin pigmentation. The purpose of the study is to gain ground in understanding, how and why this phenomenon of skin bleaching is occurring in the African Community in the U.S., as well as how skin bleaching affects them. In person interviews are conducted to collect qualitative data on women and men of color in the African diaspora, in the United States who decide to engage in the bleaching of their skin. Previous prominent research in skin bleaching is used to understand the phenomenon of skin bleaching in a global perspective, in terms of its roots in colonial past and how it has manifested in the 21st century.

The dominant explanation for skin bleaching is self-hate. This article uses the notion of complex personhood to liberate skin bleachers from mental pathology arguments. The bleaching syndrome in the literature has not been empirically verified in the Black community and does not deal with the physical bleaching of the skin. The argument that colorism and miseducation drives skin bleaching and promotes Whiteness ignores the range of non-white identities constructed by skin bleachers as well as their rejection of whiteness. The research in Africa reveals the negative dermatological, medical and neurological effects of skin bleaching influenced by the colorized neo-colonial institutions. The self-hate thesis persists in the academy and ignores the psychic strength and agency of Blacks to resist oppression. Complex personhood states that skin bleachers have functional and multidimensional goal-directed selves with strengths, weaknesses, ambiguities, contradictions and resilience. This personhood liberates skin bleachers from mental pathology argument by (1) rejecting rigid identity binaries, (2) accepting their vulnerabilities which are separated from the trauma of slavery, (3) highlighting their black identity, (4) revealing their psychic strength and autonomy in their defense of their body modification and (5) articulating their daily optimal psychological functioning.

This paper explores the cultural debates on skin lightening or ‘bleaching’ in Jamaica through the lens of popular music, in particular dancehall music culture. Social debates on skin lightening in Jamaican often identify this practice as a form of mental slippage, and as a solely epidermal manifestation of low self-esteem generated by white supremacist ideals that negate the black, African self. Yet, progressive dancehall debates and popular slang suggest that a progressive move towards contemporary manifestations of skin bleaching are associated with contemporary modes of fashion and ungendered rites of beauty. As such, the paper draws on the lyrics and slang of dancehall artistes and delineates a path from Buju Banton’s Browning to Vybz Kartel’s Cake Soap as it attempts to flesh out the overlapping cultural debates that surround skin bleaching.