By Sabelo M.

I’ve been wanting to put this out there, somewhere, for a while because I think it’s an interesting and relevant conversation to participate in and having it sit in my notes app makes me itch. I do understand, however, that it may alienate some people and that’s fine, this is just an opinion piece. I am very conscious of the fact that this is a sensitive issue, so I want to drop in some disclaimers before launching.

I am not an advocate of skin bleaching in any capacity. It’s not that I’m playing the devil’s advocate in this article, this is certainly my genuine opinion. It’s just that I don’t want my intent to be misunderstood or obscured. I’m not a dermatologist, esthetician or qualified skincare professional and I wouldn’t dream of pretending to be one – I’m just friends with Google.

Anyway… Let’s get into it.

For context I am a black, southern African woman in my early twenties who grew up in the south of England. This means I spent my formative years as one of the very few non-white faces in school/ church/ the town. Whiteness has been the cultural norm that I have experienced since I started attending school. I say this without any emotional overtone – I am speaking factually.

It’s no secret that before important social events (or as a matter of daily course) many white people will fake tan to feel their best and most beautiful. This is an innocent and relatable enough motivation.

Over the past 4 or so years, however, I’ve found myself repeatedly asking myself the same question: “Why is deliberately changing your skin colour only considered weird and shameful for some members of society?”

(This question obviously pertains specifically to black people bleaching and white people fake tanning. Of course, bleaching and fake tanning are pervasive within other demographics. As well as this, I am conscious that there are white people who seek to be paler and black people who seek to be darker, but for the purposes of this article, these considerations aren’t my focus.)

I tried to avoid jumping to conclusions and instead went through a checklist of possible, reasonable answers:

1. Bleaching is biologically/ medically damaging and fake tanning usually isn’t.

2. Tanning is something that occurs naturally so there’s no harm in reproducing the effect – the same isn’t true of bleaching.

3.  Bleaching is (more) permanent and fake tanning is temporary.

The above points more or less satisfied me until about a year ago when the phenomenon of ‘black-fishing’ came to the forefront of public awareness. (I’m not going to get into all of that for the sake of brevity; I’m also fairly sure that that’ll be a blog topic of its own some day.) In light of this, I decided to revisit my checklist, but this time a bit more thoroughly and with a more critical eye…

On point 1: Bleaching is absolutely biologically damaging. We know this. Let’s discuss tanning. Most people opt for fake tanning lotions or spray tans, but tanning beds have been and continue to be used as well. I would hope that by now, we all know that tanning beds are linked to skin cancer. Tanning beds (and excessive sun exposure) may also cause forms of Keratosis, eye damage, and immune system suppression. The obvious response to this is to circle back to fake tanning lotions and point out that fake tanning is not always dangerous. Consider this: Imagine that we discovered a way for black people to safely lighten their skin, in the same way that white people darken their skin. It strikes me as unlikely that they would be considered equivalents. That is to say, one would have shame still attached to it.

On point 2: The reasoning behind this is that we can go out and ‘catch the sun’ unintentionally, so there’s nothing wrong with reproducing this effect intentionally.

This may surprise some, but many black people become significantly paler in winter. I have two sets of concealer and foundation: one for summer and one for winter. Depending on the individual and their skin’s melanin production, some white people become significantly paler in winter and some don’t. The same thing goes for black people, both in terms of acquiring and losing a tan. We can see that skin lightening because of the environment is a naturally occurring phenomenon as well. Let’s talk in terms of purely ‘natural’ means of skin colour alteration then.

Often, when the opportunity presents itself, white people sunbathe. What if black individuals deliberately stayed out of direct sunlight and delighted in overcast weather because they felt most beautiful when they were their lightest? This behaviour would probably be received as cause for concern. The obvious defence to this is that Vitamin D is necessary and good for you and one behaviour promotes its intake whilst the other inhibits it. As much as this is a strong criticism, I think it’s disingenuous to suggest that Vitamin D intake is white peoples’ primary motivation for sunbathing. Not to mention, in my opinion, the harms of excessive sun exposure outweigh the benefit that is Vitamin D intake. Onwards.

On point 3: The harmful effects of tanning are permanent and cumulative from a person’s very first tan. As for fake tanning lotions, I would wager that of the people who fake tan regularly, if they could do so and have longer lasting effects, they would – the option just isn’t there. As previously mentioned, if a temporary and safe method of bleaching were available, would people think it was as innocuous as they (presumably) think fake tanning is? I remain sceptical.

My overarching point is that practically, the two are not dissimilar. There are differences, evidently, but when we run a few hypothetical situations, it becomes clear that the real points of contention are the social factors more than the physical ones. So let’s unpack those social factors…

Another quick disclaimer: This section is going to involve more of me asking questions. This isn’t because I think I’m Socrates and it’s not necessarily because I don’t think I know a lot of the answers. I’m just trying to take the reader through the process that I went through, because I found it valuable. Also it adds some variation, saving this from being a block of unrelenting ThisIsWhatIThink (although that’s exactly what this is).

Now I’m going to stick my neck out a little bit and say that there is much more reason for black people to bleach, than there is for white people to fake tan. White people fake tan because of fashion, whimsy, and at the most, individual insecurity. Black people bleach as a product of systemic racism, the desire to be white-adjacent, pressure to assimilate and globally upheld eurocentric beauty standards. However, this isn’t reflected in public attitudes. Let me take a moment to reiterate that my intention is not to be inflammatory, this article is meant as an honest mini-investigation, communicated entirely in good faith.

I’ve noticed that when we observe tanning methods in their most harmful forms (i.e. tanning pills, tanning beds, excessive and deliberate sun exposure without SPF protection), they’re largely thought of as stupidity or a function of something approximating insanity.

Why is it that when white people seriously do everything in their power to appear black, it’s considered a mental illness and it’s dysmorphic, but when black people do the inverse it’s considered pathetic and a product of self-loathing?

The blame for self-image issues is usually placed at the feet of the black individual and we fail to look to institutional racism. Black-aspiring-whites are held in puzzlement whilst white-aspiring-blacks are regarded as typical *but also derided* because, for whatever reason, it’s embarrassing to want something that is desirable but ‘out of your league’. Similarly, it’s quirky for a multi-millionaire to talk about wanting to return to basics and be minimal, but it’s exposing and uncomfortably vulnerable for someone living in poverty to talk about the lifestyle and commodities that they wish they could afford. So it may be that whiteness is a safeguarded ‘ideal’. Is it objectively desirable? Or is it so because society creates those conditions?

Of course there’s also the idea that it’s considered cowardly and pitiful to seek membership in a group that has marginalised the group to which you belong, instead of empowering fellow persecuted members and having pride in your collective characteristics. However, if eurocentricism and colourism in beauty are Officially Denied (and they still are), it doesn’t seem reasonable to blame those labelled as substandard for trying to assimilate.

In a nutshell, opinions about bleaching compared to those held about fake tanning are revealing of broader, underlying issues. I’m not suggesting anything normative at this point, nor am I saying that we should accredit bleaching and stamp it with the seal of approval – of course not. I’m just highlighting the idea that it might be worth us asking ourselves what attitudes we are endorsing and participating in with our everyday behaviour.