Skin Lightening Creams

[onlinebiker]

I am listening to NPR and they are doing a segment on skin lightening creams - and how these products are racist.. .


Really?


What about sunscreen? This keeps you from tanning as much  so consequently it acts as an anti darkening agent......

And what about spray tans - and tanning lotions? Aren't they also products to change skin color? Seems like that should be racist too...

.....

And - is anyone being forced to use these? That I could see as a real problem. When it is voluntary - I don't see a problem. Sorta like tattoos... You like that? Go for it. 

It makes no difference to me.

I'll think you wasted your money.

[arewethereyet]

Skin lightening creams, to the best of my knowledge, are to help reduce the appearance of sun spots (age spots - whatever you want to call them). They aren't made to lighten a whole person as far as I know. I have tried a few of them due to some spots cropping up from less than safe sun exposure in my youth. To date, I haven't noticed that any I have tried have worked. I end up pulling out the concealer or foundation and blending as well as I can to reduce the appearance of the random spot.

We will now enter the time of everything is made into something racist...which is a way to take people's eyes off the real issues.

And the wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I am listening to NPR and they are doing a segment on skin lightening creams - and how these products are racist.. .


Really?


What about sunscreen? This keeps you from tanning as much  so consequently it acts as an anti darkening agent......

And what about spray tans - and tanning lotions? Aren't they also products to change skin color? Seems like that should be racist too...

.....

And - is anyone being forced to use these? That I could see as a real problem. When it is voluntary - I don't see a problem. Sorta like tattoos... You like that? Go for it. 

It makes no difference to me.

I'll think you wasted your money.

I found a couple of print NPR articles related to this (can’t be sure it’s exactly the same story, though) and it seems as if two companies are voluntarily either renaming or removing these products, mostly because their marketing has taken the view that ‘white skin is beautiful skin’.

While the product and the use of it certainly isn’t racist, the marketing appears to be so.

Boru

[Little lunch]

Asians use it to whiten their whole body.
And yes, they are also racist towards people with darker skin within their own communities.
I've noticed that that wealthy Asian women often wear long gloves and wide brimmed hats to help promote whiteness also.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The anti-peasant "light skin is best" idea comes from the days when women worked in the fields next to the men. Low class people had "farmer's tans". It wasn't a race thing then, it was a social status thing.

[no one]

Is tanning going to be banned next? Am I still allowed to eat food from a different culture?

[Rev. Rye]

They have legit uses, but, funny thing: most of their sales come not from people who want their skin to look less blotchy, but from people in Asia and Africa who want to have lighter skin. You want to see some look into how this happens, see this Marie-Claire portrait of Jamaican woman who try to bleach their skins. Yes, even in a nation like Jamaica, where over 92% of the population are black, racial prejudice (or, in cases like this, colorism) STILL compels many to use skin lightening.

[TaraJo]

I have heard that within black communities, light skinned black people are treated better and seen as more attractive than darker skinned black people. I'm supposing that's what they're talking about.

I'm forced to wonder if that might have something to do with it being easier to make out facial features and contrasts and shapes and shadows on lighter skin than on darker skin?

I don't think it's entirely fair to compare sunscreen to skin lightening. Sunscreen does more than change the way we look. Sunscreen protects our skin from the sun so we don't get burnt or put ourselves at higher risk for skin cancer. As far as I know, there aren't any kind of skin lightening products that do anything like that.

[onlinebiker]

I am listening to NPR and they are doing a segment on skin lightening creams - and how these products are racist.. .


Really?


What about sunscreen? This keeps you from tanning as much  so consequently it acts as an anti darkening agent......

And what about spray tans - and tanning lotions? Aren't they also products to change skin color? Seems like that should be racist too...

.....

And - is anyone being forced to use these? That I could see as a real problem. When it is voluntary - I don't see a problem. Sorta like tattoos... You like that? Go for it. 

It makes no difference to me.

I'll think you wasted your money.

I found a couple of print NPR articles related to this (can’t be sure it’s exactly the same story, though) and it seems as if two companies are voluntarily either renaming or removing these products, mostly because their marketing has taken the view that ‘white skin is beautiful skin’.

While the product and the use of it certainly isn’t racist, the marketing appears to be so.

Boru

So when I did photography for Miss Hawaiian Tropics competition- was I the unwitting collaberator of a racist plot?

[Rev. Rye]

I have heard that within black communities, light skinned black people are treated better and seen as more attractive than darker skinned black people. I'm supposing that's what they're talking about.

I'm forced to wonder if that might have something to do with it being easier to make out facial features and contrasts and shapes and shadows on lighter skin than on darker skin?

I don't think it's entirely fair to compare sunscreen to skin lightening. Sunscreen does more than change the way we look. Sunscreen protects our skin from the sun so we don't get burnt or put ourselves at higher risk for skin cancer. As far as I know, there aren't any kind of skin lightening products that do anything like that.

Oh, yeah. And this is not only from without, but from within. You'd think that a group that gets singled out for hate crimes would figure out that maybe judging someone by the colour of their skin is a bad thing.

Why this happens? I'm fairly certain it has to do with colonialism. And slavery. The whiter your skin, the more likely you are to have some Massa blood in you. The more Massa you get in your blood, Massa's probably more likely to let you work in the house and not in the fields. When slavery gets abolished, lighter-skin is seen as closer to white and you might get more respect than your darker bretheren. Hell, you might just succeed in passing as white!