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”.
When my mother was young, she lived with her grandmother for 2 years because grandpa was doing his graduate studies in the United States. She was good friends with her aunts because many of them were her age. The result of early marriages of course. Almost all her aunts are light-skinned and so is her mother. My mum got her beautiful skin-tone from her father. She disliked it. It made her feel less attractive. She secretly envied them. One day, she had the most brilliant idea. At least she thought so. She went to have a shower and ended up scrubbing her skin so hard. She scrubbed and scrubbed thinking the black layer will go away leaving a smooth, light-skinned skin tones she always wanted. This didn’t happen. She bled instead. She moved on with her life but I don’t think she got over it. Ironically, she refused to marry a light-skinned, green eyes Sudanese and prefered my father.
When I was born, I was lighter than her and I had pinkish cheeks. People were amazed at this and my mother was pleased. Later on, I discovered that I inherited her inferiority complex but in another form. It was a typical African female problem. The Afro hair. I was blessed with thick very curly hair. I didn’t like it when I was a kid. Mabye because my mother and sister have long straight hair or mabye because my mother didn’t like it and she didn’t exactly hide that. My family didn’t hide this too. I often heard this from my aunts ” oh you have a nice skin tone, nice brownish color but you sure didn’t inherit your mother’s hair”. I have my Nubian grandmother’s hair, curly and thick. Curls that bounce back. It’s African hair. I’m not ashamed of it. Hair represents so much to people. It shows your heritage. But again, aren’t my people ashamed of their whole heritage? Why shouldn’t they be ashamed of their hair too?
Conversation with mother…
Mum: hey kizzie, we have a wedding tomorrow go straighten your hair
kizzie: why, I will wash it and put some cream. I like my curly hair
Mum: y not straighten it? it will look nice.
kizzie: you go straighten it, I don’t like doing so. It doesn’t suit me
Mum: well mine doesn’t need that, do whatever you want…
So..I’m back from California. I lived by the sea for a week and then next to Bass Lake for a week. We used to go swimming, rent a barbecue boat or just walk around. I’m back with a weird tan ( u know when your body is three different skin-tones) I’m brown and shiny.
Conversation with grandma…
grandma: god, you are darker! what happened?
kizzie: we went to the beach alot, cool huh?
grandma: whatever you say…..
I read an article written by a Nigerian intellectual once related to this topic. He basically blamed some African problems on our inferiority complex. He said that we think of ourselves as inferior all the time. Our self-esteem is low. IT IS. Caucasians are white so they must be happy. White is beautiful. Asians have nice hair. Straight hair is more feminine. Get over yourself people because you are not better than anyone and no one is better than you.
India Arie had to sing about it for people to realize you must be proud of your Afro hair. Toni Morrison had to write a book about it. I just had to experience it to know there is more to me than my hair or color.
Kizzie this is a great post. Its amazing to me that dark skinned people the world over suffer from this psychosis. I remember on a visit to Mississippi an aunt on my father’s side said she thought I would marry a woman that looked like my mother. My mother is a light skinned woman with wavey hair, now mind you, my aunt is a dark skinned woman with long wavey jet black hair, but my wife at the time was/is a very very dark skinned beautiful woman. I was shocked that Black people still did this to each other. Needless to say I had no words when my mother told me my aunt said this. My mother loved her daughter in law and was upset by my aunt’s statement but being from Panama and the old school my mother was not surprised by it.
Kizzie, great post! But it’s not only Africans; it’s Jamaicans, Latin Americans, Af. Americans, and many of our people all over the word.
I blame Westernized indoctrination,but I also blame it on our own ignorance and our lack of knowledge when it comes to our history as well.
Peace.
Good to hear from you, Kizzie. I was thinking about you yesterday.
Its amazing what we have to overcome between the ears, in our hearts and minds. The enemy within.
I feel that this problem is compounded by the fact that don’t control our mediums of expression or have control over the education of our children. And, of course, you know how much I’ve harped on the importance of knowing about African history, all of it.
Not only that which is related to Christianity, Islam or Judaism, but far before religions to the early civilizations of the Nile Valley. To “Our Timeline, ” as Ashra Kwesi would say, “And not His Timeline”.
The Sudanese in ancient times were generally called Ethiopians and were often referred to in the literature of the time as the ‘most beautiful, civilized, and longest-living’ of all the peoples. And why not? This is where the world’s oldest, currently known civilization is situated. We currently call that ancient civilization the Nubian civilization. Many of their monuments were flooded out with the building of the Aswad dam in Egypt. There are monuments that still remain in Sudan.
In more, ancient times, the Egyptians of course were black, and so were the peoples of many of the lands of the so called “Middle East”. There are very reputable civilizations in East, North, South, West and Central Africa. I think that when African people lost this knowledge, we lost our way.
We need to project a lot more positive images of ourselves in all forms of media expression.
Also, I don’t think worshiping a white Jesus is any help either our cause either. The rapper KRS-ONE on the album “Return of the Boom Bap” had a remarkable song named “Higher Level”. In this song he said the first mistake the slave made was when “he accepted his master’s religion.” He then goes on to rap about the commissioning of Michaelangelo by the Pope to create a Eurocentric depiction (painting) of Jesus Christ, etc. Ashra Kwesi calls it “white idolatry”, that is to say “the worshiping of white images.” I hope this is not construed as predjudiced, because it is in no way meant to be.
Of course, we know that the oldest Christian churches are in present-day Ethiopia, and the earliest painted pictures of the Virgin mother and child are black. The black paintings which once hung in the Ethiopian churches are being replaced by white European versions, with the originals being placed out of sight. The Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church also has an older, less revised version of the bible. I think we should have their paintings in our our home and utilize their bible & not the King James version.
On the Islamic side Mohammed’s grand-father was black, and gave birth to 7 black sons. His first convert Bilal ibn Ribah was Ethiopian(present day) and the first muezzin. If I remember correctly, they fled to and spent some time in, Ethiopia as well.
The oldest Hebrew communities are in Ethiopia. They have the oldest existing Hebraic customs, they are sometimes referred to Falasha Jews, and many of them were flown to Israel in order to form a community. All is not rosy for them though, as there have been reports of lack of meaningful job opportunities.
Hopefully this isn’t a history lesson, I just wanted to illustrate that these things can help us to insulate ourselves from low self-esteem. If our history wasn’t so important, so much effort wouldn’t be spent on erasing our link to our We should be teaching this to our children so they don’t have to discover it for themselves.
Anyway, I’m attaching a link to a Hugh Masekela interview which goes into some things that I am referring to with regards to ownership of our own images. For me it was very inspiring.
Very informative. Very useful in developing a more global worldview of issues, especially as it relates to race and the pychosis from it. I also found Hugh Masekela’s interview very intelligent. He brought back memories of the 1960s, when he first came to the states. We knew nothing about apartheid, although we were (and still is) living in the midst of it.
Ensayn,
I always thought this problem is limited to africans but I realized it’s not (african americans/afro-carribeans etccc are included)
I suppose the reasons could be similar but each country has its own reasons.
Field negro.
thanks. Yes, I realized this not so long ago.
I blame it on alot of reasons ans people
In Sudan, it’s not the media it’s just people doing it to themselves. Recently, a bunch of guys warned cellphone companies to stop using light-skinned girls in their ads (when they still did, they made sure all the ads were painted black) It’s funny how people reacted to it but I still see where they are coming from.
The Free Slave,
I will add this quote to my blog:) I like it, so true
Pianki,
great, I’m Nubian and I don’t know alot about the nubian heritage. I should read more books about it. The thing is the present day nubians are so arabized so we dont even speak our langauge anymore (older generations do not my generation, my dad speaks nubian).
They are constructing a road from khartoum that will cut through nubia even the part in egypt, it will finish by the end of this year. This is great finally people can come and see the “wonders of nubia”.
I am african american , and very lightskin with green eyes and sandy blond hair …. My ideal of beauty was to have chocloate skin , and dark colored hair ( long that is ) … I always felt that black was more beautiful than lightskin .
I never liked being compared to a white girl … i used to go to the beach religiously every summer to get darker , until freckles started to come and then I stopped.
when i lived in asia , i was surprised at how many people used umbrellas in the sun , and also skin lightners.
^^^^^
I also like to add that the long hair , was something that i had , and learned to love due to the stigma attached to it … I was always fighting over my hair and skin growing up …. Some how back then I LEARNED TO LOVE MY LONG HAIR , BUT NOT LIKE MY SKIN COLOR .
However as i grew older my ideas of hair changed , and i tried to do what ever i could do to destroy it and change my perception of what is beautiful …. Now that I am older , I realize that it really doesn’t matter and i am content with who i am !
It’s also true that skin lightening creams are used in many parts of Asia, for example, India and Thailand. It seems to reflect a growing trend among darker-skinned people in that part of the world.
In the European history I studied in school, the African first appears on the scene as a slave. Amazingly enough, in my studies of the Slave Trade, I learned much about the diet, customs and religious practices of the Arawaks and Caribs of the Caribbean but nothing about my African ancestors. Yet West Africa has had its share of many kingdoms throughout its history.
As a child, it’s probably not good for fostering self-esteem to be exposed to an ‘edited’ version of our history in which we have been either ‘edited’ out of world history or offered a falsely reduced role in world history.
Anyway, Kizzie, I think it’s great that you’re interested in learning more about the history of your Nubian ancestors. As for learning the Nubian language? Well, if all of your parents are still speaking the language, maybe you and a couple of your friends could form a study group and for learning Nubian – it’s a far better choice than Arabic, English or French in my most humble opinion.
peace
this post is on point in so many ways.i constantly argue with my mum about the skin lightening issue. i think many older black people won’t have their minds changed on this issue if they dont want to which in itself is sad.
when i was living in martinique, everyone wanted to be a ‘chabin’ (light skin/green eyes). i just think all black people in all their shades are great.
byrdparker,
I would love to listen to your experience with White Americans and African Americans. I’m guessing most people think you are white.
aulelia,
In the 1990’s, skin-lightening creams were used very commonly.
Women used them religiously and every single time they would come up with a new brand. they even had a ward at khartoum hospital for women suffering from diseases related to the excess use of such creams. They don’t only damage your skin but they also cause kidney failure etc…
pianki,
I’m not familiar with American history books but I’m sorry to hear about this. I believe you read many books about african kingdoms such as timbuktu/ashanti etc.. to believe everything you read about your ancestors.
I’m sorry to say this but sometimes, American media portrays African Americans as people who are very proud to be american but hate the fact that they are related to africans or africa or anything. I assumed you are African for a long time because you knew alot about Nubia/Africa but although, I hate stereotypes, I just sterotyped myself:) sorry.
as has been pointed out above, a lot of people of colour from around the world have issues with their skin colour. i spent a summer in Sri Lanka a few years ago where people praised me on my skin colour as though it was something to be proud of. to be called “fair” is, for some people, the highest compliment possible – and they use the word literally, not in reference to personal characteristics.
and skin lightening creams are so incredibly popular it’s disgusting: http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004677.html
that said, there is also an undercurrent of sarcasm that allows brown kids who are aware of the hypocrisy to acknowledge that creams like Fair&Lovely are entrenched in our cultures to mock that. it gives a sense of agency.