Glenda Simms, Contributor
DR. SIMEON KOROMA, chief government pathologist of Sierra Leone, has pointed out that medical professionals in West Africa are becoming increasingly concerned about the incidences of skin cancers amongst dark-skinned young women following the prolonged use of bleaching creams and chemical peels. He also reports that the main motivation for using these preparations is the achievement of a fairer colour in order to be more attractive to men.
Local dermatologist, Dr. Neil Persadsingh, looks at the unabated phenomenon of bleaching, which he describes as the application of chemicals to the skin to get a fairer complexion. He concluded that this practice might not necessarily be linked to low self-esteem and yet, he concluded that: "Bleaching may tell us more about the society in which we live than anything else, since the bleacher feels that what she is doing ... ensures that her personal identity is augmented and the society reaffirms this view."
It is difficult for this writer to understand how a high sense of self can thrive in an individual who hates the colour of her skin.
The aim of this discussion is to look at the role of stigma in the ideas that black women have about who they are and who they could be. Stigma is defined as "a negative emotional response to differentness". In a 1979 publication, The Fact of Stigma, Dr. Ann Beuf discussed the effect of stigma and pointed out that "for those who are socially stigmatised by race, religion or caste cultural myths of their own inferiority may be internalised."
BLACK IS UGLY?
It is in this light that I argue that in the Jamaican society, black girls are not considered "beautiful", and this is why too many of them have grown up to practice negative self-mutilation such as bleaching with chemicals which result in illness and in a dead-end search for the "browning without", and with little emphasis on the strengths within.
Stigma against blackness in general and black people in particular, is evidenced in overt and covert forms of discrimination in many parts of the world. This stigma is particularly destructive to the psyche of the black woman. In the process, it is not only about black women and teenage girls and how they see themselves. Black children are also affected in very deep-seated psychological ways.
It has been argued that the first important phase of colour stigmatisation of children is experienced in families and that parents in general and mothers in particular are implicated in this conspiracy. Indeed, it is within the family that the notion of the "pretty girl" is first conceived. Of course, this is reinforced by neighbours, friends and family members who shout in unison "what a pretty little girl".
This "pretty little girl" is usually the light-skinned, long or curly-haired child who is juxtaposed beside her dark-skinned sister. The "pretty little girl" grows up to be the societally defined "beautiful woman" even if, by all objective standards and by various cultural measures, she should most aptly be described as "homely".
On the other hand, the dark-skinned sister with the so-called "knotty head" or "kinky hair" is never defined as a "pretty girl". At best, she might be described as "good looking" especially if she has flawless smooth skin. Under the optimum social and economic conditions such a girl will grow up to be an "attractive black woman". We need to note that the colour of her skin is always a part of her descriptor. In other words, she stands out from the crowd "even though she is black". Oftentimes such a woman is defined as "cute" or "exotic". Prominent examples of this type of woman are the Jamaican, Lois Samuels and the African, Alex Wek.
GENDER STIGMATISATION
Gender stigmatisation results in a number of societally acceptable bizarre and violent forms of responses to Womanhood. These include, but are not limited to different types of female genital mutilation, disfiguration through practices such as foot-binding, son preference which leads to discrimination against girls, pre-natal sex selection resulting in the abortion of the female foetus, dowry payments relegating women to servitude and the stigmatisation of racial groups which lead to socio-economic and psychological marginalisation of an entire people, men as well as women.
However, when gender stigmatisation converges with colour and racial stigmatisation, the women bear an unequal impact of this double jeopardy.
SKIN BLEACHING AS A CONSEQUENCE
It is obvious, that in both Euro-dominated and African-derived societies, the aesthetic ideal for women is patterned around the racial features of white women. In the Caribbean this ideal has bombarded the collective psyche for over 500 years. In short, the essential physical features of black people have been stigmatised. Such stigma has been historically patterned and is currently experienced as a negative emotional response to the differences that are obviously key to the human family.
It is as if we are not to validate the aesthetic of our blackness, instead we are being forced to find some measure of sameness. The search for Buju Banton's 'Browning' by dark-skinned black women is an effort to see if we can all be the same a kind of bland approximation of "anything but black". This concept of "sameness" is explored in a story used by Elizabeth Spelman, but originating in Iris Murdoch's novel The Nice and the Good. She speaks of the character Uncle Theo, who is sitting on the beach contemplating the concept of multiplicity. He is terribly uneasy because of the number and variety of pebbles on the beach. There are pebbles of all shapes, sizes and colours.
The only way Uncle Theo can feel comfortable with the beach is to reduce the many into one. Thus rather than pebbles, he begins to think of pebblehood. Perhaps, what Uncle Theo will soon discover is that within his pebblehood those who are stigmatised will find their own ways of creating hierarchies amongst their group.
This is why the search for the "browning" is a dead-end confusion in which black women who feel the impact of stigma tell the world through bleaching that being black is undesirable, objectionable and reprehensible.
Usually stigmatised groups represent minorities in most cultures people of colour in Euro-dominated society, disabled persons, short people and homosexuals to name a few.
This rule is not applicable to the stigma against dark-skinned people in Jamaica.
SHADE DISCRIMINATION
In this context, the facescape of the country is predominantly and obviously black. Shade discrimination is the outcome of stigma against a majority. This is a kind of sociological and physical apartheid which might or might not be measured in obvious economic marginalisation.
Obviously then, we need to ask some clear questions in order to get definitive answers to deal with the social and economic effects of the stigmatisation of black peoples.
Do dark-skinned black girls in Jamaican society grow up to be black women who, at a deep psychological level, still struggle to accept themselves in totality?
Is such a woman continually being forced to achieve and excel just to prove "her point"?
Is she perpetually in a Piagetian state of disequilibrium about self, identity and peoplehood?
What is the impact of poverty, miseducation, illiteracy and sub-human living conditions on the most stigmatised of the Jamaican population?
These are very challenging issues for politicians, social and economic planners and all those who have ideas about "fixing" what is wrong with our values and attitudes to self and to others.
Perhaps the time has come for all educational, religious, social, political and media institutions to take proactive steps to ensure that another generation of black girls need not bear the brunt of historical stigmatisation.
Dr. Glenda Simms is the Executive Director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs.
