It is time to explore why Africans struggle with accepting their natural beauty

By Shimbo Pastory and Raymond Joel

Beauty has been a human concern for generations of humanity’s existence. It is as old as humanity itself and has played a major role in human society, even in its diversity, integration, and societal living.

Every culture has a few ‘universals’ – borrowing Aristotelian concept - with regards to beauty. Beauty is an indispensable component in discussing about anthropological existence of a people; as it permeates all spheres of life.

Nonetheless, there is a big problem today, whereby many people of African descent live in a state of denial of their own beauty, just the way they are. In a sense, we can say this state of denial is learnt.

In early years, regardless of one’s descent, children grow up loving who they are and how they look. However, as they get more integrated into society, and more exposed, their appreciation of their looks, particularly those that distinctly identify with African descent, they tend to find fault with them. Most particularly the colour of the skin, the hair, and currently the body physique. By percentage, this trend leans more on the side of women.

While it is easy to blame people for going to the extremes of making themselves look different, there are many things behind it. Common convention judges whiteness as beautiful and good, and black as ugly and evil. But this entire phenomenon is beyond the surface look, as it is a multifaceted complexity of cultural, historical, sociopolitical as well as psychological forces.

Prof Yaba Amgborare Blay, a Ghanaian American scholar-activist furthermore broadly expounds this as linked to the complex ideology of White Supremacy as it manifests itself in the aforementioned (Yaba Blay, PhD, Skin Bleaching and Global White Supremacy: By Way of Introduction, Journal of Pan African Studies, 2011).

Researchers further associate the legacy of slavery, colonization, and westernization of East Africa with the shaping of internalized dominant cultural ideals of the succeeding generations; one of them being leaning towards the dominating group as the standard (cf. Lewis, K.M. et al. (2013). The Historical and Cultural Influences of Skin Bleaching in Tanzania. In: The Melanin Millennium. Dordrecht.).

Many religions too indirectly associate brightness with holiness and darkness with what is unholy. Somehow this went beyond the precincts of religion and was misinterpreted on racial grounds. The portrayal of such in art and images idealized the good unseen beings as resembling brightness and the bad ones as resembling darkness.

We see here the influence such social powers as religion and communication media can have in influencing how we think of ourselves and others. I can recall watching an exorcism documentary made in one country in Asia (name withheld) in which black people were used to represent the Devil. In many movies, equally black people are given villain roles.

A researcher Oberiri Destiny Apuke (2018) points out that the springboard is the social learning theory (as propounded by Albert Bandura), whereby much learning takes place by observing the behaviour of others, from which individuals model their attitudes and values (Global Media Journal, Vol. 16, No: 30, 2018).

Contrary to this representation, in beauty adverts, heroes in movies, magazines, etc. those with brighter skin are prioritized. This puts pressure on women of African (black) descent to try to fit themselves into the new normal, hence leading to bleaching, or straightening hair, and hiding their true nature, just to avoid being given attention based on how different they look.

The desire to fit with western standards affects women globally, it was a surprise to find women even in Asia bleaching their skin with whitening products believing they will have the best look than their natural beauty; and probably better opportunities.

Research conducted in Tanzania by Lilian Njoki, et al. (2011) found that among the motivations for skin bleaching was explicitly “to be white, ‘beautiful’ and more European looking (Psychology of Women Quarterly Journal, Vol. 35: Issue 1, 2011).

From health experts, skin whitening or bleaching has over and over again been discouraged as harmful for the skin, may lead to cancer, and may have severe effects on the internal organs, especially the kidneys.

The World Health Organization (WHO) banned skin whitening products containing mercury, hydroquinone, and other harmful chemicals as they are detrimental to health. The Minamata Convention on Mercury bans the use of mercury for cosmetics, including skin-lightening soaps and creams, with effect by 2020 (Minamata Convention on Mercury: Text and Annexes – 2023, p. 55).

It is the duty of the government, as urged by the WHO to warn and teach the citizens about the effects of these products. It is also a new task for families and our education system, especially in Sub–Saharan Africa, including our country Tanzania, where bleaching is becoming a new normal, to integrate into our education, positive thoughts of ourselves as African people.

We ought to embrace and appreciate the complexion of our skin as well as our entire physical appearance regardless of the stereotypes associated with them.

The authors, Shimbo Pastory and Raymond Joel, are Tanzanian Catholic missionaries and advocates for positive societal change, working in the Philippines and Taiwan respectively.