My Skin Global —Raising Awareness about the Dangers of “Skin Bleaching”

Africa Agen­da

An audi­ence of black, brown, and white peo­ple meet­ing at the Daniel’s Fund in Den­ver to dis­cuss the dan­gers of Skin Bleach­ing and Col­orism. Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 14, 2022

Skin Bleach­ing or “col­orism” among peo­ple of col­or is a top­ic that rarely comes up in com­mu­ni­ty dis­cus­sions in the Unit­ed States or in African countries.

The prac­tice is also known as “skin light­en­ing.” It involves the use of chem­i­cal prod­ucts by most­ly black and brown peo­ple to help change or light­en their com­plex­ion or phys­i­cal looks and appearances. 

It’s a sub­ject that the Den­ver-based orga­ni­za­tion My Skin Glob­al wants to raise to the fore­front of our con­ver­sa­tions because of the health haz­ards it pos­es to the community.

Human rights activist Fran­coise Mbabazi, a Rwan­dan native liv­ing in Col­orado and founder of My Skin Glob­al con­vened some of Colorado’s black edu­ca­tion­al and med­ical lead­ers and the com­mu­ni­ty for a dis­cus­sion to raise aware­ness about the issue.

Speak­ing at an event held at the Daniel’s Fund in Den­ver on Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 14, Mbabazi raised the alarm bells about what the prac­tice does to the psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal health of those involved. 

“This is an issue that has not been at the fore­front of the com­mu­ni­ty, but it’s com­ing up,” Mbabazi said. “It’s going to con­tin­ue to come up as we all spread the word.”

Community Education and Awareness

Retired med­ical prac­ti­tion­er Dr. Ter­ri Richard­son, invit­ed to dis­cuss the con­se­quences of skin bleach­ing, used her time at the event to high­light some of the dan­gers of skin-light­en­ing products.

“The ingre­di­ents that are used are very dan­ger­ous,” she said. Some of the dan­gers she men­tioned include skin dis­or­ders and var­i­ous types of can­cers that result from the treatments.

Richard­son said black peo­ple need to love them­selves first and fore­most to help over­come the chal­lenges they face in society.

“When we talk about col­orism, when I look around the room, to me every­body is beau­ti­ful,” Richard­son said. “And we see all shades of everything.”

Richard­son traced the colo­nial roots of the issue and talked about how pub­lic pres­sure can be brought to bear on the mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar indus­try that man­u­fac­tures these skin-light­en­ing products.

Christi­na Jones, a man­ag­er and edu­ca­tion­al leader with Den­ver Pub­lic schools, used her time to talk about how learn­ing expe­ri­ences for stu­dents of col­or can be designed to accom­mo­date these kinds of discussions 

“How many times are we giv­ing our­selves a life sen­tence for some­thing that we didn’t inflict on our­selves,” Jones asked the audi­ence of more than 30 par­tic­i­pants both online and in per­son at the event. “And so, it’s real­ly impor­tant that the work that we are doing to edu­cate kids to know that they do not have to have a life sen­tence in who they are,” she said.

Plasha McCune, an edu­ca­tion­al leader in Den­ver who facil­i­tat­ed the after­noon con­ver­sa­tion, asked par­tic­i­pants to pledge to engage in con­ver­sa­tions that can change the nar­ra­tive about Black people.