I come from a “rainbow nation”. We like to call ourselves that. After years of hardships, South Africa has become a place with many people, many religions, many cultures… many races. Black, Indian, White, Coloured. Our skins are different. Our skins are colourful. But the difference between today and before 1994 (Apartheid), is that today, we are proud of these differences.
As a black woman of today, I am different from the black women of yesterday. Instead of my skin bringing me suffering, today I am not the women of South Africa’s past. Instead of my skin giving me shame and devaluing me as a human, today I am unashamed of my skin.
A recent study by South Africa’s University of Cape Town has shown that one in every three black South African women bleach their skin. The statistic has shown to be an increase.
For one, there is a serious self-esteem issue amongst those South African women and it’s an issue that needs to be addressed.
However, another question is raised. Why are these women bleaching their skin? To make it lighter? To make it whiter?
“She has very nice skin”, my 8 year old niece said about a mixed race women we saw as we sat and watched tv one day. “I wish my skin was whiter like hers”
South Africa and Africa as a whole has mostly been left alone by the hands of oppression, but oppression has left many Africans alone with insecurity. It’s been shown many times that black nations look down on darker women. The darker you are, the less attractive you are, according to many African societies.
At the time, along with the rights that Apartheid stole from the blacks, it also took away their worth. The blacks of the time started devaluing themselves and their skin without the oppressors doing it for them. This was as a result of the long discrimination against them. Today, still, African women feel like the dark richness of our skin is not attractive, this too shown in the statistic.
After 1994, everything in South Africa had been restored. Now we have peace and we have rights, and I believed that we had pride. But those women have shown otherwise. What is this obsession with being whiter? The oppressors have left black South Africans alone. They no longer discriminate against our skin.
But, we will not leave ourselves alone. We still discriminate against our own skin.
If we ourselves do not love ourselves and do not see the beauty in us, then I believe we might as well let Apartheid come back again so that it can hate our skin too. It is the people with my skin colour that fought to get us out of Apartheid. I for one am proud of my skin. If I was not dark and different, I would not add to my rainbow nation.
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