Dark Skin Paradox

At the time when Africans are trying to find ways to improve their image in the world, others are determined to maintain the status quo through fashion and modelling as a means of promoting their business interests.

From ancient times, Africa has been synonymous with dark skin. Black skin is admired by many people throughout the world. It has been romanticized in songs and poems for being nature’s aesthetic gift to the black race.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the world media and television images of European women have affected the consciousness of some African women to develop a liking for light skin. This preference has led some African women to bleach their skin with dangerous carcinogenic chemical substances.

It is said that black is beautiful but it seems that African women are being made not to believe in what nature has given them. For example, each time beauty contests are held at local, continental and world levels, the winners have always been women with light or white skin.

Why should it be the case? This discrimination against the African dark skin arose from the simple fact that the determinant factors and the criteria for selecting beauty contest winners are designed and created by Europeans to promote their cultural heritage and business interests worldwide.

The kente cloth is part of Akan cultural heritage and strongly linked with Akan chieftaincy and religion in Ghana. It is good to promote the kente industry abroad.

But it is equally foolhardy to associate kente with only light-skinned women and not the actual dark skinned African women who are in the majority in Africa and in the Diaspora. Europeans, Chinese, Japanese or Indians will never buy kente in any large quantities, because kente represents a culture different from theirs; and kente is unsuitable in those climatic areas.

It is about time Africans started to present authentic images of their own race.

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