The following was submitted by Stephanie Okoli. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter @steph_1572.

The bleaching cream I used as a teen had a distinctive smell. The chemicals swirled together to make an illusive citrus scent. Caratone was the name of the brand. The bottle was bright yellow with a light-skinned Black woman on it, subconsciously telling you if you used it, you’d look like her. Many Black women fell for such products, including my mother. She was the one who introduced me to bleaching cream and soaps. She is naturally light-skinned, so I don’t know why she uses bleaching products, but it’s clear why she and the aunties in my community felt that I needed bleach cream; I was too dark for them. I had taken my father’s brown skin, and in the eyes of many, that was a problem. Although many encouraged me to lighten, the process was isolating due to the shame that came with it. Nevertheless, I gave in to the media, my elders and my peers. I let everybody tell me I wasn’t good enough. Black boys, in particular, expressed that they don’t date Black girls, especially dark-skinned ones. I didn’t intentionally bleach for their attention but for the idea society marketed to me. I started my lonely journey in “bettering” myself for the public eye. It was only in 2015 that I decided to actually better myself, and it was all thanks to social media. Due to the Black women fostering a community online, I challenged social norms and emulated the women I saw online. 

The early 2010s were indeed a different time. Black women were the butt of the joke on social media. Kevin Hart let us know he thought dark-skinned Black women were “Broke ass dark hoes,” the Vine app was a breeding place for race jokes and minstrelsy, and we let light-skinned vs. dark-skinned jokes fly at any time. Racism and its child colourism had consumed another generation, and instead of fighting it, we laughed along. The only time someone stopped laughing was when the joke landed on them. And the joke landed on me in junior high when Black boys expressed their disdain for dark-skinned Black girls. One statement I believe that has stretched across Canada is, “I don’t date Black girls.” It’s usually followed with an array of insults and “It’s my preference.” It didn’t matter if they had dark-skinned Black mothers, sisters and aunties. The only Black girls that were acceptable to them were ones with light skin. Black males are also victims of colourism, but they have patriarchy on their side. Their male status gives them the privilege to uphold this hierarchy against their female counterparts. I did my best to ignore their insults, but the misogynoir ate at my self-esteem. I refused to give them satisfaction by letting them know they hurt me, so I faced the pain alone.

It didn’t help that my mom was pressing me to bleach my skin. I was told it would help with my acne and dark marks, but I knew the real reason she wanted me to take it. Skin lightening is somewhat championed in my community. It’s safe to say it’s an endemic here and abroad. It’s one of the many troubling results of slavery and colonization. These acts of terrorism have made people of colour internalize lighter as better. None are exempt from this notion, including the African communities of Calgary, Alberta. Bleaching products are in almost every African store here, even though they contain ingredients illegal in Canada. I knew bleaching was wrong, but I gave in to her suggestions anyway and started. The lighter I got, the more compliments began to come in. However, the compliments drifted into statements like “are you mixed? You’re not dark like everybody else.” I was compared to mixed relatives and randomly told by a friend in conversation that she scrubbed hard in the shower in hopes of scraping off her dark skin to get lighter. In this stage of my life, I wasn’t equipped with the boldness or terminology to say, “all of this is anti-Black” mainstream pop culture hadn’t gotten “woke” yet. All I had was that one skin bleaching episode on The Tyra Banks Show.

2015 was the breaking point for me. “Black girl magic” and “melanin” had broken into the mainstream, and the natural hair movement was gaining popularity every day. Black women started getting praised on social media by other Black women, and people gradually began to follow. Mainstream media took this shift in North American culture as a simple trend, but I took it deeper than that. I saw people who looked like me embracing their skin as it was and how kinky hair it was. This constant pro-Black representation picked at the self-hate I had and changed it into self-love. By engaging with pro-Black content, the algorithm made suggestions that aligned with positive outlooks on Black life. The positive representation helped me continuously fight to put the bleach down until finally, I did. The critiques from my elders came back, but I had fallen into an online community made for Black women, which shielded me from their attacks. I’m not saying social media will solve colourism but, using that online support system that the internet hold is something essential.