In our society, we place great importance on wealth, youth and appearance. However, it seems that we’re sliding backward towards a time where lighter skin is favoured over darker skin.

During the 1960s, the term ‘Black is Beautiful’ was banded about, aimed to celebrate black people’s features and make people proud to be black. But nearly fifty years on, we seem to have forgotten all of this as whitening cream sales rise as people become more and more desperate to have the ‘perfect’ caramel skin.

Darker skinned people have nearly always faced disapproval, openly portrayed as savages or buffoons in the media (e.g. gollywogs). But these portrayals have always been by ignorant white people during the days where racial equality wasn’t so high on the list. These days, it’s people who should know better, people who aren’t white who seem to be pushing light skin on all of us.

I’m a dark skinned teenager of Ghanaian heritage. I’ve heard positive comments as well as negative ones. Now, people who make negative comments are stupid and ignorant, and usually posses an ego that has been inflated to a point where it engulfs the person. However, ego and/or stupidity are no excuse. People shouldn’t have to put up with these sorts of negative comments. Everyone should be allowed to be comfortable with whatever shade they are, whether they’re as white as snow or as black as coal.

I have been wondering what’s brought this intra-racial contempt on. I Googled something along the lines of ‘dark skinned contempt’ and two interesting articles came up. Tameka J. Raymond (aka Usher Raymond’s ex-wife) and British journalist/author Yasmin Alibhai-Brown both wrote interesting articles on this topic. Both blame the rise in popularity of lighter skinned people on the media. Raymond says: ‘Reading magazines, social media sites, watching our music videos, and television shows feed our appetites for all things ‘beauty’. Rarely, however do I see depictions of grace and elegance in the form of dark complexioned women.’ While Alibhai-Brown comments: ‘The beauty and fashion industries still maintain a closed shop when it comes to the selection and promotion of models. In women’s magazines, on catwalks, even shop dummies, dark skin is rarely seen… Exceptionally, Naomi Campbell and Iman are permitted to strut with their white peers. Let’s pray no bus ever runs them over.’

Now, I try not to use the ‘media card’ too often, as I feel that it is the first thing people blame when things go wrong, however, I’m willing to make an exception in this case. In 2008, L’Oreal ran a campaign for its hair lightening kit, featuring Beyonce. The public were outraged when the picture was released. L’Oreal was accused of lightening caramel-coloured Beyonce’s skin until she resembled a white girl who had spent two weeks in Ibiza. Of course, L’Oreal vehemently denied photoshopping the picture to within an inch of its life, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether L’Oreal is lying or not.

Also in 2008, Italian Vogue created its first ‘All Black’ issue, where all the models used in that issue were black. This issue sold out world-wide. However, many darker-skinned models complain that they cannot find work. The fashion industry’s excuse? ‘Black models don’t sell.’ Well Vogue clearly decapitated that excuse. The projection of just one type of beauty in the media excludes the majority of the population. If you aren’t tall, thin, and have light skin, I’m sorry; you just don’t cut it in this society.

Some people are so desperate to attain this narrow view of beauty that they’ll result to drastic measures. As previously mentioned, sales of lightening creams are rocketing; however some of these creams are not safe. Indy Rihal of the British Skin Foundation says: “Unfortunately, many skin-lightening creams contain illegal compounds that can damage your health; the most common compounds are high-dose steroids.” Regrettably, some people don’t heed these warnings and still carry on applying these creams until their face is three shades lighter than the rest of their body, or the veins in their face become visible, or until their skin develops a grey tint to it, ruining their face forever.

What is even sadder is the prospect of having a generation of young dark-skinned people hating their own skin colour. I came across a Yahoo Answers question, with a seemingly young person (I’m assuming a girl) wishing she wasn’t ‘dark skin black’ and asking whether ‘you guys do any bleaching cream that will made [sic] me fair skinned?’ They go on to mention that they are teased at school, and they want to be none other than Beyonce’s skin tone (oh, the irony). This case of self-loathing is increasingly becoming more common.

I think it’s down to all of us to promote beauty in all its forms, but I also think that I can be our generation that breaks the mould and ends this ridiculous, narrow minded view on what it means to be beautiful.

I’m dark-skinned. And what?

(Image thieved from here. Sorry.)

I’ve just literally just come back from the flashmob that was being held in Liverpool Street Station. If you were living under a rock and have no idea what I’m talking about, read on. Basically, a flashmob happens when a group of people meet up in an area at the same time. And I’m not talking about ten or twenty people; I’m talking a couple hundred. Or thousand (like in this case). The one today took place at Liverpool Street Station, and most people found out through the genius that is Facebook. It was supposed to be a fifteen minute silent dance, where everyone turned up and danced to whatever was on their own ipod.

I’m telling you it was one of the most mental experiences of my life.

I got there about nine minutes late, but it was already in full swing. I was instantly overwhelmed with the amount of people present. And as for the ‘silent dance’ bit, scrap that, it was more like a loud rave. People screaming and jumping around (my friend said he saw a man strip – I didn’t, thank goodness) and dancing to, well, nothing.

The police were there also, and I think they were amazed to see how many people turned up. Commuters who didn’t know about this momentous event also were shocked to find Liverpool Street Station literally overflowing with people. It was so bad that they shut the Central Line part of the station, which rendered me stranded.

I exited at around thirty five past seven, leaving the police the impossible task of breaking up the mob (they yelled at everyone to leave over the public system – to no avail) and quickly called my sister to find out an alternative route home (she knows about these things).

After arriving at Moorgate, I topped up my Oyster (it cost me ONE POUND THIRTY FIVE to get to Liverpool Street, criminal!) and got on a train and changed at Bank to get back onto the Central Line. On the final part of my journey, the train didn’t even stop at Liverpool Street as it was still closed. There were some Chinese people on the train who were eating something I can only describe as Rice Krispies that were glued together in a shape of a cylinder (I thought this was intriguing, I would have taken a pic but it would have been rude). A couple of stops before mine, two girls got on the train wearing school shirts and very, very short skirts (they pretended they weren’t cold, they were lying to themselves). They flirted with the men around them (which clearly made the guys night – funny!) and got off at my stop. Then, I nearly slipped and dropped on sand that was put on the road (I don’t care what anyone says, the ‘Waffle grip’ on Vans is not actual grip), and I thought: ‘Is it going to snow again?’ I looked up, and lo and behold, it was.

Madness. Only in London, eh?

I’ve literally just seen this and had to blog immediately. I was probably the only person who wasn’t raving about the Gorilla advert (and wasn’t impressed when they tried to recycle it using a different song with the same footage, slowed down), and the dancing trucks one just wasn’t as effective. But this, this is brilliant. It’s just so random. Watch it, and see what I’m talking about…

I’m back! Yes, the exam period is over for now (don’t bother asking how they went, I don’t know), and I’m going back to what I do best… sleeping, eating and, of course, blogging.

Here’s a bunch of mini-entries, stuff I would have blogged about if I wasn’t chained to a textbook, or trying to stay awake trying to learn what Y.A.V.I.S means and how it relates to psychoanalysis (if you don’t know what I’m on about, don’t worry, neither do I).

TV:
I watch a lot of rubbish that is on TV, stuff that rots my brain. It’s great. But even I could not bear to sit down and watch Celebrity Big Brother this year. I didn’t even know who half of them were, and I still don’t. At least Coolio is getting more royalties as radio stations are beginning to play ‘Gangster’s Paradise’ again.

I watched a Panorama programme about youths who had been jailed for murder involving a knife. It was quite sad to watch people who probably weren’t much older than me spend the ‘best years’ of their lives behind bars. And one of them in particular struck me as quite an intelligent person, but yet they still made the stupid decision to arm himself. I still don’t get why young people in urban areas still insist on carrying a knives to protect their area, because, at the end of the day, if the council want to kick you out of your house…they will kick you out of your house.

Mr Motivator is back on GMTV. It’s the nineties again.

Skins, Hustle, Gossip Girl, Waterloo Road and the new generation of 90210 have started, or about to start on TV. I’m too young to know what the old 91210 was like, so I’m watching it with an open mind, I’ve seen the first episode, and it was ok… Who else has noticed that there are a lot of mixed race children in Waterloo Road? Even the extras are mixed race, I actually don’t think I’ve spotted any fully black kids. Here’s proof that mixed race really is the new black (and white).

I’ve been watching a lot of Daytime TV recently, and I hope never to be unemployed. Daytime TV is so, so dire. Jeremy Kyle, Trisha… bad programmes with bad people. I wonder what posses them to actually go on there and air out their problems in front of thousands (thousands, not millions) of people.

I only watched part of the inauguration because another TV was on in my house and I could hear it. How do I feel about it? Fine, ok, whatever. All I noticed was how badly his tie was done up.

I don’t even know what Swiftcover is, but I do not want to be associated with it after this advert. Why couldn’t they make an advert like this brilliant T-mobile one? There’s also an advert with a child proclaiming he ‘wants to do a poo’. Yeah, I didn’t need to know that either…

Music:
The video for Beyonce’s ‘Diva’ is out. See what I mean?

Madonna. No. Stop it. Stop it right now.

Miscellaneous:
It’s the end of January, so you must have given up on your resolutions. I’m clever. I didn’t make any.

So Woolworths has gone. Sad times. I’m going to miss the one in Stratford. It had bright lights and was near one hundred degrees all year around.

Proof that when your parents join Facebook, you should delete your account. Thank goodness mine can barely work a computer.

This I’m sure has been blogged to death, but I couldn’t really find anything wrong with Microsoft’s ‘witty’ response to the Mac adverts. Until now.

I’ve realise what is wrong with these adverts: they try too hard. Way too hard. These adverts are like the odd one out in the ‘cool’ group at school, the ones who were only allowed to hang with the cool kids because they were the slave, or were the pun of all the jokes. These adverts desperately seek attention, rather like Stephanie Pratt from The Hills, or a forty-seven year old woman in a mini-skirt. They try so hard to be noticed, they just end up looking ridiculous and terribly, terribly uncool.

The worst part of the television advert is the Asian man in the glasses towards the end. He says: “I’m a PC and a human being. Not a human doing, not a human thinking, a human being.”

This line pretty much sums up and proves every negative point that every blog is saying. I bet the people at Mac are rubbing their hands with glee, waiting in amusement as Microsoft seek new ways to destroy themselves.

P.S: Pharrell Williams and Eva Longoria, I don’t care how much you got paid; I just lost some respect for you.

(Image taken from here. Please don’t sue me.)