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.)

If you solely relied on the media to paint a portrait of the British youth, you probably wouldn’t leave your house. And I wouldn’t blame you.

Whether we are reportedly stabbing each other to death, robbing old grannies, drawing on private property, or just simply being an unemployed nuisance, the newspapers are overflowing with negative stories about the youth. This, in turn, has led to older people fearing the younger generation.

Voicebox, by Vinspired, wants to change all of that. Voicebox aims to show what the ‘kids of today’ are actually like, based on questionnaires filled out by the kids themselves. But in order to create a detailed picture of young people today, they need as many people to take part as possible. So you, sitting there reading this, you need to take part. Even if you are just young at heart.

Another positive about this project is that it encourages people to use their data, instead of just locking it away in a filing cabinet, only for people in suits to see. Good stuff.

Voicebox. Get involved.

Two years ago, I was eager (to the point of being impatient) for something new, a new adventure with new people in a new environment.

However, things didn’t go my way and I didn’t get into the college I wanted to. So I hastily applied to a sixth form some of my friends were talking excitedly about. I felt like I was walking blind joining the sixth form, I knew nothing about the school, the first time I saw it was on results day.

Walking in on the first day, I felt disorientated and nervous, cautious of what I said and how I portrayed myself, eager to please and to fit in. I was pretty clueless as to what the next two years had in store for me.

Full of ups and downs, the last two years have tested me as a person, forced me to wise up. I learnt not to judge a book by its cover, I remember instantly disliking someone on the first day for some reason, but he turned out to be a good friend. I said ‘yes’ instead of saying ‘no’ and suffered because of it. I watched people follow other people while trying to be something they’re not. I laughed and vowed never to be a sheep.

I also met some cool people; however we led polar-opposite lives. The jaw-dropping antics of some of the other students made me realise that is not what I wanted for myself (they are nice people, but the stories I could tell…). I laughed a lot. I mean a lot. To the point of nearly choking to death. Twice. I done some crazy things, sang a lot of songs randomly, done the Cameo Candy dance about a million times, ate hundreds of cookies, something like three tonnes of bread, and spent the GDP of a small country in the sixth form canteen. I even grew a bit.

The experiences I’ve had have made me the eighteen year old you ‘see’ before you. However in leaving, I’ve found myself asking ‘What’s next?’ For the first time in my life, I don’t know for definite what I am doing come September. It’s something that I find daunting. But as one door closes, another will always open.

I just have to find that door.

NO. NO WAY.

I didn’t believe it. ‘Impossible!’ I said. I was on my way home from Oxford Street after sixth form (I bought a pair of braces from H&M, but I forgot to stop off in Mash, silly me). And I’m on the train now, minding my own business, when the London Lite confronts me with the head line ‘DAD AT 13’. Huh?

It wasn’t until I got home until I got the lowdown on the story. The news was exclusive to The Sun newspaper (surprise, surprise), so read the whole article and check out the video here.

The mind really does boggle. He conceived the child at twelve. How, how on earth can you be doing that sort of stuff at such a young age? And as for the girl, she’s fifteen. What self respecting fifteen year old goes out with a twelve year old? She must be in year ten, and he must be in year eight. That breaks the rules! You can’t go out with someone two school years younger than yourself! This wouldn’t have been allowed in my secondary school. In fact, a boy in my last school went out with a girl that was two school years younger than him and he was ridiculed for the duration of the ‘relationship.’ It didn’t last long, mainly because he realised that she was YOUNG.

At the time of writing (Saturday), I was having doubts about whether the child was actually his. He’s thirteen, four foot (that’s tiny, even I was bigger than that), voice hasn’t even broken… I don’t think he’s even begun puberty.

And lo and behold, just now I’ve discovered this article, which is basically saying that the twelve year old may not be the father. Surprise, surprise (again). You look at that girl and you tell me she’s only done it once (did anyone else notice she looks really old, like thirty old?). Other boys, a bit older (thank goodness), have come forward saying they done the deed with her around the same time.

This whole story proves that teens should not be indulging in such behaviour. They should be visiting youth centres, museums and the cinema. Not family planning clinics and Mothercare.

Oh, and I have another suggestion. They should all go and get tested. At least one of them must be crawling with something.

Deplorable.

If you haven’t heard about the whole Carol Thatcher incident, read about it here.

Many people think that this is ‘political correctness gone mad.’ Here are some comments I lifted off The Guardian’s website:

Here we have yet more instances of ridiculously oversensitive individuals overreacting to things… Carol Thatcher’s remark is apparently heard by a dozen people off-air in the supposed privacy of the green room and she is dropped like a hot potato. Jonathan Ross’s much more inappropriate remarks are made on air, heard by rather more than 12 people, and he retains his job. It would seem that Carol Thatcher does not bring the same financial advantages that Jonathan Ross does.
James Wilkie
Torpoint, Cornwall

As chief executive of Tameside in the 70s and 80s, I had dealings with a major employer, Robertsons Jam of Droylsden. Their famous golliwog had been removed from jam jars, except for exports to Africa. Africans, they told me, liked it.
David Spiers
Glossop, Derbyshire

The last comment makes me angry. Just because a couple of Africans told him they like it, it makes Carol’s comments ok? These comments are idiotic as well as mindless. The first comment claims that Jonathan Ross’s comments on Andrew Sach’s granddaughter were ‘much more inappropriate.’ Erm…no, no they weren’t. Even though more people heard Jonathan Ross’s comments, really at the end of the day they don’t have the capacity to re-ignite racial tensions and divide a nation.

At the end of the day, Carol Thatcher shouldn’t have said what she said. And the fact she may have said even more offensive comments, as well as the fact she won’t apologise (even describing the whole situation as “total bol****s”) shows she lacks understanding. The fact of the matter is, when you’re in the public eye, you have a responsibility. Whether it was in private or public, she should have not said this word, as there is always a chance that it would be leaked out. If I was famous, you’d never catch me saying the ‘n word’ in public or private, and I’m black.

Both Carol and the above comments show that they do not fully understand the full ramifications of this word. If I was in that green room with her, and she said that, she would have had to pick her face up off the floor.

All you famous people should think before you speak.

Read Some Like It Essex’s and Mike Phillips’s views. Also read about how different newspapers have different perspectives, and the toy, which can still be bought today.

Thanks to The Guardian’s website.

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?

A recent study showed that nine out of ten British adults swear everyday, with the average adult swearing fourteen times a day. The study also showed that ninety-four percent of eighteen to thirty year olds don’t mind swearing. But what’s with all the profuse swearing?

I personally don’t swear, I just think there are better words to use than the F-word, S-word, two B-words, or the M’ing-‘effing word. I mean, why use those words when you can say something more intelligent? For example, instead of screaming the F-word if something drops on your foot, why not say ‘balderdash’ instead? Ok I joke, that is a bit impractical, but on a serious note, even in today’s society, swearing still offends many and still makes a bad impression. It’s also displays a lack of command over the English language, as swearing is lazy and abrasive. I think it also restricts coherent expression, instead of telling someone to ‘eff off,’ why not kindly ask them to ‘remove their disposition from the atmosphere as it is adding to carbon dioxide levels and melting the polar ice caps.’ This a) makes you sound more intelligent and b) completely discombobulates the person you are talking to. You could also say ‘go take yourself off a bridge’; this also has the same effect (without making you sound slightly arrogant).

Although I don’t like swearing, I do think Preston have taken it too far. There if you’re caught swearing, they will hand you a fine of eighty pounds. In these times of economic downturn and mass unemployment, a fine of eighty pounds is enough to make anyone scream a few expletives.

But if you do use a plentiful amount of swearwords, try to replace this maladaptive behaviour (psychology term, sorry) with new, inventive ways of expressing yourself.

Another thing that really irritates me is the poor spelling, punctuation and grammar that people my age use. Here are the problems with all three:

1) Spelling
Now, I know that many people (including myself) use abbreviated words or phrases to save space on a text message, or simply because it’s quicker to type, but some people go overboard on this, so much so that even I am having trouble reading what someone is trying to say. ‘Can’ and ‘not’ have only three letters so is it really necessary to shorten it to ‘cn’ and ‘nt’? And is it also necessary to replace‘s’ with ‘z’ at the end of words (e.g. iz instead of is)? Another irritating habit among the social networking youth is to drop letters from words, like the ‘h’ from ‘her’, which makes it just ‘er,’ which is…nonsense. An average sentence may look like this: ‘Ey hwz u? im gd hv u spkn 2 er?’ This, over a number of sentences becomes ridiculous and it takes a lot longer to read than it would reading standard English (because your brain is trying to fill in the missing letters like a game of Hangman).

2) Punctuation…
Or rather the excess of it. It’s all over social networking sites. You know what I’m talking about, you see a comment that has an ellipsis that has fifteen dots too many or the really excited person who puts a million exclamation marks after their sentence. This makes the person just look a bit thick. Don’t do it.

3) Grammar
Why is it people insist on capitalising random letters in a word? What does this achieve? A worn down caps lock button? And what’s with the addition of letters to a word? I know someone that adds another ‘i’ to an existing one in a word (so ‘in’ becomes ‘iin’ and so on). When I asked her why she does this, she simply shrugged. It takes extra effort to randomly capitalise letters, or to add another ‘i’. Extra effort to be grammatically incorrect? How backwards is that?

ii mEN hw ard iiz it 2 yoOouSe ******* prpr wrdz????????????????? n nT SwR?????????? ii fiink we shld al tRii ToOo…………………………………………………………SpK BTtA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you can read that, you’re either bordering on genius status, or you actually type like this.

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.

So it’s New Year’s Eve and now millions of people around the world are reflecting on the past year and looking forward to what the New Year may bring. As well as planning inventive ways to get drunk and have a “good” time.

I’ve been reflecting, and this year hasn’t been too bad for me. I’ve been here and there, done this and that and met a couple of people. Of course, there have been highs and lows, but overall I’d say it has been an above average year.

I think I’ve learnt a lot this year, and it’s strange, because I remember a couple of years ago talking to a friend who was then seventeen and he said you do learn a lot about other people and yourself when you turn seventeen. And it’s true; I have learnt a lot about how people work and who to trust, and social things like that.

One of the biggest things for me this year was finally being able to pretty much do as I please without my mother ringing my mobile three thousand times a day, just to check where I was. It has amused me (and her) the tales I have to tell her about my escapades the night before, and her pretending to be angry with me (and saying in her slightly African accent: “So you think you’re a big boy now?”).

But social liberation comes with its own problems. And I’m not just talking about the mundane problems of how to get from A to B without missing the last train, or where to meet up with everyone. I’m talking about problems where you have people within your group of friends that clearly don’t like each other (which causes tension), or having two or more groups of friends and feeling like you’ve chosen one over the other. It’s a difficult situation to be in, even worse if you’re squarely trapped in the middle.

Another lesson I’ve learnt is how quickly your life changes. I knew before that one minute you can be on top of the world, and the next minute you can be down in the gutter, but it struck me just have amazingly fast things change. Things really can ‘fall apart,’ which is sad, but hey, what can you do?

I guess I’m still on the massive learning curve that adolescence brings. It’s quite interesting stuff, I suppose. Much better than learning about the xylem and phloem (which is what I should be doing right now).

Oh, and by the way, I’ve also learnt that nothing good comes with getting drunk, so whatever you decide to do today, do it sober. Trust me; your liver shall thank you for it.

Peace.

P.S: For quizzes about 2008, click here. For stuff to look forward in 2009, click here.