When dark babies are not good enough! Thank you Andile: what an article!

It is a pity such articles never attract attention they deserve. Your article Andile was a good read and spot on. I do not need to seek far, why our African communities do not see the need to read it. Inherent in them, Africans, especially women would like to have a white skin, not black. White is beautiful & black is ugly. It was drilled in us, knowingly, inherent in us, a black skin is an abomination and must be rid of by any means, using even hard-core chemicals to rid the pigmentation that sentenced us to blackness. My sad experience in Berlin Germany was when I saw Africans laughing at a Sudanese black man for being pitch black. These were blacks laughing at another black because he was too black; they said. A pot laughing at the kettle; or a one-sided skin-competition who is blacker! Amazing! Internalized inferiority complex.

I don't blame African women for rejecting black skin much. Some Sub-Saharan communities converted to Christianity 500 years ago. Their adopted Christian religious beliefs reckoned that God is supposedly a white man because Maria and Jesus were white. Where does an African fit in, in such colour demographics? Even Satan, the advocate who sits at the left hand of God the father, (his duties in heaven are judging the living and the dead) is white too! Of late Satan has been socially constructed to be black to feed the narrative that Satan is bad and therefore black! Can we even possibly begin to judge a black woman for skin-bleaching, some men too, rid themselves of the abomination: the black skin?

The refusal of own black skin is a serious identity crisis. The African woman does understand why God the loving father made them black, while all other nations are white skinned. Why is the skin colour creating a social and political divide, despite all the enlightenment around us.  Today, the skin colour determines who is master and who is slave? Who is inherently good and who is inherently bad purely by the shades of colour skin; the colour white, or nearer to it, uplifts one's social status in many global societies. It is for this reason, African women will go lengths and breadths in getting dangerous bleaching creams to be white, the much desired and much adored skin colour. To be white means you are pure in thoughts, words, and deeds. Most African women know the serious health effects of skin-lighting creams but will risk it all the same to be white. It is as if to be white is an achievement or a trophy to be upheld, a passport of acceptance in all global societal settings.

It is not Christianity only that told black Africans that they are inherently inferior and evil, coloniality was upfront about primitive and uncivilized Africans. Black was synonymous to primitivity and uncivilized. The combination of Christianity and coloniality confused and twisted the thinking of an African. Both these institutions targeted the African mind first: made them guilty for being black: but because Christianity institutionalized guilt as virtue, African people are forever guilty about everything, and are supposed to be ashamed of their black skins. Evangelism told them Africans must be Christians first to enter heaven: Africans will go to heaven only by the grace of God and not that they are children of God. Therefore, we have Christian institutions at every corner of Zimbabwean towns and cities, wearing white garments singing glorious nonsense of halleluiah and amen. They feel nearer to God in white garments: white, a sign of purity. The colour black is a sign of mourning and sadness. A black dress and black shirts are usually worn at funerals. Black people have associated the colour black with death and funeral events dressed in black; their colour skin has connotations of evil and sadness: a reason to get rid of it altogether. These are serious identity crisis in all global societies today. It is not even possible to convince Africans against a foreign God, Christianity they so passionately worship. 500 years of colonialism and evangelism is long a time enough to reduce African nations as primitive and uncivilized.

I am an avid reader of an English philosopher, Allan Watts. In many of his audio books he talks about two white astronauts who were sent to the space to find more about God; what colour skin was God almighty really? The astronauts went to the space, upon return, they said they indeed saw God; however, SHE IS BLACK! This story could be an adage that could have many interpretations. They observed most of the time that the universe was pitch black. It felt as if one could touch the blackness because of the deep penetrating presence of blackness. The basic colour of the universe is black, however, there are intervals when there is light and stars from far away: light and darkness vanish alternatively: what dominated most in the universe was blackness. They concluded therefore if God is the universe, then she is black; light is subordinated to darkness alternately. Why is God in the universe female: it was not possible for me to understand Allan Watts's explanation on gender importance in that context. Darkness and blackness, what is it that made the universe GENDER FEMALE? (Gender-positive)

This story above is, however, never meant to perpetuate an extreme volatile, highly explosive binary discussions of race, resulting in tensions about the hierarchical aspect of white/black race:  But it must be about colour in relation to the universe. Black/ white race on earth has no relevance with the existence of the universe; how important is one race with the other race are social constructions; it is the effort of human race seeking superiority over the other he/she perceives inferior. Humankind is only 3 million years old on planet earth: research says, it all started in Tanganyika: a virus developed into homo sapiens in East Africa. Migration causes and effects: splitting of oceans that led to geo-locations going all directions of the earth surface is how humankind developed in that context. Therefore, my strong belief is, there is one human race not two not three. Black pigmentation means that those in the global south needed it to prevent themselves from skin diseases caused by the deep penetrating sun's rays. If blackness has a function of health, why is it evil, an abomination and should be fought and rid of, even the offspring are subjected to the practice of skin-discoloring war?  

When I was a teenager, A soul singer Percy Sledge from USA visited Rhodesia, South Africa, and Zaire. He openly sneered at the blackness of the Congolese men. Percy Sledge thought white bulls were needed in Congo to give a better colour to what he perceived as "too black Congolese people". A mix of the two would result in a much better shade of colour than a straight blackness. This "joke" was greatly enjoyed and laughed at in all corners of Southern Africa. The racist aspect of the statement was never criticized or dwelt on much, nor did it scratch the surface to provoke a serious race debate. The silent African voices, politically and socially, constituted inferiority complex among colonized and uncivilized Africans.

My article may read and sound anecdotal to many: I am trying to answer Andile's well written article. Andile's article is a whole script and several sub-scripts.

There is the other aspect of African curse: the hair of an African is inferior too; a business niche has been established, to sell African women much in demand European and Indian hair. There are different products of hairs: some are natural human hair, and some are artificial, a lucrative business and is at the hands of Chinese entrepreneurs who make billions of dollar- profits from these products to sells to African women who denied their identity long back. Be it a woman in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Mali, or Chad; they will be wearing wigs, temperatures will be 44 degrees Celsius: the intense heat and the black wig, black skin, do not go together, but an African woman will brave the heat to look "attractive" and "beautiful". The long hair is the pride of an African woman, to forever throwing the long hair at the back imitating what Indians and White people do, when talking. At the same time, women are forever scratching their heads because the sterilization of human hair is, in most cases, incomplete or not done at all. Some of these natural human hair pieces are infested with lice.    

Andile, your article is a great contribution to African people and in the diaspora. Personally, I have written several articles about skin-bleaching and health issues related to it. Talk about political correctness of wearing a European wig and the black face! Carefully observing African women who bleach they have artificial white skin texture; not even attractive to look at. There is a lot of research done in institutions of higher learning: trying to understand the psychology and sociology behind total denial of oneself and wishing to be different from what was given to you at birth. I doubt if there is anything we can do beyond documenting about it. I will end this article by quoting Dr James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey "I am proud of my colour, whoever is not proud of his colour is not fit to live." That was Dr James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey.