This is a direct response to miafarradaily's post on shadism, and makes no pretence of clarity, research or objectivity. It just grew too long for the comment box.
I think it's simplistic to say "I don't know where it comes from!" and stamp one's feet in righteous indignation. I think it is directly filtered from colonial influence. Nigerians in Nigeria were never slaves, but they were servants and houseboys, and white was still seen as better. It's easy to assume that the further one was away from black the closer he/she was to white, to better. Nigeria has only been independent for fifty years, and as recently as twenty years ago there were still white missionaries in schools and such - I was taught by a couple in primary school. We're not as far away from it as we'd like to think we are.
I strongly disagree about it being an imported mentality.
Are we less susceptible to racial prejudices because our racial experience was different? Was it somehow less damaging to our psyche? No, that would be some form of perverse superior-victim mentality.
I'm very light-skinned, with two siblings who are very dark and two who are 'mid tone to light' - whatever that is - a light skinned father and a dark skinned mother. No one could accuse my family of being shadist, purely by definition, and yet among each other we openly joke about our skin. However it is mostly the lighter-skinned ones that are the brunt of the jokes, while the others are seen as 'normal'.
At home in Nigeria I have been made to be very self conscious about my skin. I stick out in the crowd. I'm so yellow, what cream do I use? I'm so yellow I turn red! I'm so yellow, and have such weird tastes - oh goodness, writing? art? No wonder, I'm practically white! Ha ha ha. And also, oh I'm only 'fine' because I'm yellow. If I'd been dark I'd have been ugly. "God saved you oh!"
You are completely right about it being a prejudice, a strong negative, horrible one that has led to people wanting to marry white people so that they could have mixed-race kids, or want to marry yellow people so that they'd have light-skinned children. It is completely self hatred, I agree also.
Mostly though I think both extremes bear the brunt of this shadism business, as if we chose to be lighter or darker than everyone else. Really, the message is almost that we are wrong for being different, for standing out. That we should strive to blend in, that by being so different we are somehow upsetting the careful balance of things and should either be mocked or pitied for it.
When Mia says, "Would you pray for light skinned children, or bleach your children's skin if your prayer isn't answered? Would you bleach your own skin to become what you prefer? No. You only do that if you're shadist, if your preference is in fact a prejudice." I find that to be a rather dangerous qualification. The distinction between preference and prejudice is so slight that those words should not be thrown around simply to make an argument.
For instance, if I preferred Hermes to H&M I would pray, and save up, and deny myself of the lesser h&m to acquire what I prefer. I would buy the Hermes for H&M collection (if there ever was one), or the cheaper imitations of the design. Would that be the same as being prejudiced? I would think not.
"light skinned girls like that often attracted too much, or the wrong sort, of attention. Wealthy men, often older and already married, liked having a light skinned girl on their arm. Ministers, senators, businessmen...they all viewed light skinned women as a sort of accessory." I can completely relate to this.
It is interesting to note however that the piece goes on to say this, "if this was true, and light skinned women had now become the 'dumb blondes' of Nigeria, why were clever, intelligent, beautiful dark women wanting to hop on the bandwagon?" Which does not defend the intelligence of lighter-skinned women, but is merely baffled that darker women would want that.
There's still something missing in this assessment of shadism that perpetuates dark as ultimately better, since light is the prejudicial preference that has been pitted against it. The effect of this is seen for instance in this comment on the blog:
To be fair I do not think that was the mia's point, but it will be interesting to see how many comments go in this direction.
Hello! I think this is my first comment on a post made in reaction to one of my posts. It's very exciting, so thank you! I'm going to try to be as thorough as possible in this comment so as to answer all your points.
ReplyDeleteI think you may have gotten the wrong end of the stick a few times. I've re read my post and no where do I say, or even imply that dark is better than light, which is something you seem to think I did.
The 'dumb blonde' theory was hearsay, which I repeated without a defence of the intelligence of light skinned women because anyone who needs such a defence to be spelt out is really too silly to be given the time of day. That point was speaking directly to the lengths women are willing to go in order to become lighter skinned even if it meant that some idiots would think they were less clever. I thought it came across very strongly that I was advocating equality for all hues, not putting dark above light, but in the event I left you with the wrong impression here's my view: All hues are equal!
Re the Hermes/H&M example- I've already tweeted at you that I think this was an unhelpful analogy. Designer vs highstreet is miles away from what I was talking about and is not, of course, a physical preference at all. You also say: "I find that to be a rather dangerous qualification. The distinction between preference and prejudice is so slight that those words should not be thrown around simply to make an argument." The distinction is not slight at all, I wasn't tossing them around to make an argument, I devoted paragraphs to analysing the difference between the two and I did it because calling a prejudice a preference is the go to excuse for bigots. White supremacists say they aren't prejudiced against black people, they'd just prefer not to do business with them, live with them, intermarry with them. It's absolutely crucial when calling something a prejudice to say why it's not just a preference or else I'd have had comments saying: Oh, I am not shadist. I just think yellow girls are beautiful and dark girls aren't and God forbid I ever marry a dark girl...but this is just a preference, Mia.
If you actually think the line between preference and prejudice is thin, or that my analysis of what splits the two is off, please let me know. Also, I'd be keen to hear how and to what, exactly, my analysis was "dangerous".
As to whether my analysis of where shadism comes from was over simplistic- it's not. I examined the possible sources and concluded tht they didn't satisfy me but the only thing I was absolutely rock certain of was that it was a self inflicted bit of self hatred. Why we chose to inflict it- well, that's up for debate. Recall that I said I was 'inclined' to believe that it was an imported prejudice i.e. acknowledging there's room for it to be argued either way. You didn't challeng my conclusion that it is a self inflicted racial scar which I think was the most important point.
Of course the differences in our racial history from that of African Americans ought to leave us with different racial scars. Two different cuts, two different scars. I didn't say that our cuts were less deep or that we were in any way superior- I didn't even imply that. I simply said that no one ever forced us, explicitly or implicitly, to value light skinned Nigerians over dark skinned Nigerians..it was a point of view we chose and continue to perpetuate. White may have been better in colonial Nigeria but for light to still be better in post colonial Nigeria is baffling to me.
To conclude- I think the comment you highlighted was unfortunate, but I think the writer of that comment wasn't saying dark was better...but was trying, in a clumsy way, to say he didn't think light was better. Or maybe he was clumsily agreeing with the 'dumb blonde' theory you yourself say you can 'relate to'. Or maybe he was just being flippant. I'm sure I don't know because ultimately, I can't say what he meant! I am however very pleased that no other comments followed that thread, so I think my all hues are equal point of view came across clearly enough.
ReplyDeleteIf there was anything missing in that post, it was the fact that I didn't highlight how,in the UK, black people of all hues are generally treated equally. Now, this only supports my theory that Nigerians chose to inflict this nonsense on ourselves- if it was truly the sole fault of colonial influence then it should still be felt in England, home of the colonial masters, but it's not- a state of affairs in direct contrast to America.
I just want to flog this horse one more time because I'm a bit worried that you may have missed this paragraph when you said that my post "perpetuates dark as ultimately better"- Here's an except from my post:
"Please don't misunderstand- I think women of every hue are gorgeous, and I'm NOT insinuating in any way that in a video about African women, only dark skinned girls are welcome. That is a nonsense. Nor am I saying that the preference of dark skin over light skin is any better, I'm just asking myself, why do we do the opposite? "
Okay...I think I answered all your points? Let me know if I didn't. Thanks again for reading, commenting and posting this.
I know this ended up being VERY LONG, but you know me, I waffle on!
xxx