I pinched this from the good folks at Afro Spear. Its a short essay, written by a Sudanese sister, about the preference in Sudan for light complexion and straight hair. This is a near-universal challenge for African people. GI
Abang Othow, South Sudanese model (image source: http://abagond.wordpress.com)
Dark-Skin and Afros- Our worst nightmare
I’m not going to generalize this to all Africans. I’m going to speak about my nation. Inferiority complex is implanted in every Sudanese. We constantly bring ourselvesdown. We dislike ourselves. We are always trying to be something we are not. We view ourselves as inferior and others as superior. We need to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery!
The dream of the average Sudanese girl is to marry well and have a lighter skin. Lighter skin is viewed as beautiful (Sudan is not the only one in this case!). We bleach our skins, use lightening creams and use harmful skin-damaging products as long as we become “lighter”.
The video below is supplement to brother Tom Burrell's book, Brainwashedand what he calls the Restoration Project. Burrell is a veteran advertising executive gone rogue.The video calls to mind Bamboozled (my favorite scene from Bamboozled is the clever parody of black cultural nationalist thought and why Afrocentric folks spell Afrika with a "k") . Spike Lee raised the alarm about negative media images, but he never really took up the crusade. But then again Spike is an artist, not an activist. Or rather his activism is his art.
He did his job. We dropped the ball.
When I listened to brother Burrell (dap @ Chichi) a few weeks back on NPR my first impression was "important news but old news." We all know, I thought to myself, that the media produces and reinforces black pathology. I didn't even bother looking at Mr. Burrell's website because this is discussed a lot in Black Nationalist and Afrocentric circles. Back in Los Angeles, we used to write letters and picket against these media images as part of CAB (Coalition Against Blaxploitation). CAB (pronounce "Cabe") was an umbrella group of local activists and civil rights organization. It was organized by the local branch of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) . Brother Astenu and brother Legrand Clegg, Compton City Attorney were two of the leaders. But watching the video and reading Mama Sarudzayi (Facebook) comments about demoralized youth in her community jolted me. It reminded me that any black American person under 45 years years old is the child or grandchild of the most recent round of vicious government-sponsored assaults on the black freedom movement. I also think we better understand Ismael Reed's scathing critique of Preciousand Spike Lee's calling out Tyler Perry for producing coonery and buffoonery in this context. (Burrell's project might also help us put to rest the fantastical conspiracy theories of Jay Z the undercover freemason devil worshiper.)
"[Images of Black pathology] This is mass insanity. Self hatred, self destruction, the result of centuries of untreated trauma. This trauma was willfully and skillfully orchestrated and executed not by some outlaw vigilantes or clandestine thugs. The architects of American chattel slavery and the insanity it produced were none other than the Founding Fathers."
