Whitenicious by Dencia; A Reflection

Hi, my name is Whitney.

And I have just come to grips with the fact that, within my own ethnicity, I am fairer skin toned.

I didn't like this at first. I always wanted to be brown, reveling in my "summer skin", when the sun would bless me with between 2 to 4 shades of shimmering golden brown. Then I would curse the months after October, when those beautiful hues left me looking more like unbanked yellow cake batter waiting impatiently to get into the oven. In all seriousness, the actual dislike came when I discovered that the origins of my skin tone were traced back to the rape of one of my family's great matriarchs by a man of European decent, and the subsequent birth of a blue eyed, curly headed grandfather which led to a very fair toned mother, which led to me. 

You can see why I wouldn't like it.

But like I've said, I've come to grips with this now, figuring, I cant change it, and at this point in my life, I don't want to. Even though I don't like the situation that produced it, I'm choosing love the skin I'm in. I'm beautiful just the way my creator crafted me, and besides, of all the actual issues in life, my skin tone wouldn't be the one I would lose sleep over. 

So you can understand why this whole Whitenicious situation really confuses me. For those who don't know, Whitenicious is a skin whitening product supposedly for the removal of "dark spots". This product is endorsed by Dencia, a Nigerian-Cameroonian pop star, who not only I guess the dark spots she wanted removed was the one covering all over her body.

Please feast your eyes on this before and after photo. (Warning: You might find this disturbing.)

The one on the left is before and the one on the right is after...

Yep, this is Miss Dencia before the Whitenicious, and this is her after. 

I don't understand. She's a beautiful woman. Why? What? Huh?

She stands behind her product says on social media “S/0 to everyone supporting whitenicious & s/0 to those indirectly supporting but thinking they’re hating with PHD worthy Essays. #FreePress.”

Then I thought, Sure! I would endorse this product. After all who wants to be their natural hue? Why be brown when you can be fair? I mean forget gorgeous deep hued women of color like Naomi Campbell, Lupita Nyong'o, Iman, Lauren Hill, India Aire, Bethann Hardison, and Alek Wek to name a few among the millions of others. 

And you know what's even better than a woman from the motherland endorsing this product? The fact that it sold out within DAYS of it being released. Days. What does that say about the global mental state of the Black Female? What does that reveal about how women of color really feel about their own beauty? Do we really believe that light skin is the right skin? Do we actually think that an hue other than our God given skin tone would be be better? 

This can't be good. It's like we are bleaching our skin. Guarantee, let's say in a year or two, there is going to be one of those commercials for a big law firm doing a lawsuit for all the people who used this product and it had adverse affects. Something similar actually happened recently in Japan due to a skin whitening cream produced in Korea. 

It's the same with why we choose to "relax" our hair with products that cause blistering of the scalp, destruction of the hair, and have been proven to be carcinogenic. 

And for what? So that we can think we are actually beautiful while we destroy ourselves? When is it going to stop? 

When we make it stop. When we choose to stop buying into the lies that only long straight hair, narrow noses, and fair skin are the standard of beauty, stop supporting these products, look in the mirror and tell ourselves, every single day, that we were created in the image of God and God does not make garbage.

That's when it will stop.

These are just my thoughts, what do you think?