Recently, a Yoruba Nigerian couple Yinka and Michael Oluyemi were fined £92,000 in an inner crown court for knowingly selling harmful and or banned products to the thousands of Africans customers in South London.
who bought their products. To add insult to injury,-they are also committed Christians!. In response to this incident, Sherry Dixon -Editor of the Pride was interviewed on BBC London news on Thursday 04/01/07. It would have been better if she did not appear at all! Because, she handled the subject in such very matter of fact/trivial way. She seemed to hint- bleaching of the skin is the act of a few misguided Africans (Black people). She squandered the opportunity to link this practice with psychological slavery and an outcome or ritual associated with the Post traumatic slave/colonial syndrome. It is a destructive ritual practiced by peoples with large volumes of melanin in their blood stream. This practice has the potential to cause skins damage, increased skin cancer figure and predispose people to liver and kidney failure. Banning creams might interfere with the supply side of the lucrative
business but, unless the psychological repair does not happen, this very destructive practice will continue to plague the African communities. The other amazing thing to note is this, the NEW NATION Monday 05th January edition page 2 printed the news item-�Skin Bleaching pair fined�. However, on page 38 of the same edition there is an advertisement which reads-� The Grace Line Body, new. Natural skylan skin lightening cream, that removes all the dark patches, for example eye, face, neck area and all over the body to give you “clear complexion� Cheques and postal can be sent to a Dorset address. Now, is the New Nation so desperate that, it would contradict it’s own itself. What message is it actually sending out to it readers? That, it is okay to be used as a means to
put people in contact with sellers of products, which might banned or dangerous to people’s health. Is this a sick joke or what. Is this responsible journalism?
Explanation.
When the word African is used-The writer is referring to peoples from the peoples from the Caribbean,
Continental Africa, USA, UK and mainland Europe. The peoples who normally refer to themselves as “black
people�. As if-black is an ethnicity! The practice of lightening is also widespread in Asia as, the Southerners try to get just as pale as the northerners in India. The writer will not be discussing the Asians in this essay. Many of my better informed friends always ask, why do you think skin lightening use is on the increase? The answers to that question is quite complicated and varied and sometimes, it can get very emotive, especially if people are involved in the practice When I use the term pigmentocracy, it meansrule by a particular shade or tone of complexion. The
object of this essay is to throw up some ideas for abigger debate /discussion sometimes.
CONTEXT
The wide spread use of bleaching cream is not only used by Africans but, by most people who have large pools of melanin. Nevertheless, in this essay, the writer would be concentrating on the African communities. The other thing is this, the use of bleaching cream cannot be discussed in isolation from parenting practice, history, the impact of
Europe/African relationships or without mentioning the expansion within the cosmetic capitalist industries. As far back 1930-there were 232 different brands of bleaching cream on the market in the USA at the height of the depression years. In the case of the Mainland Africa-the cosmetic capitalists are following a path/mind already prepared for� whitening�. In the post slave/neo societies- people continue to practice colour discrimination or pigmentocracy- a word coined by Marita Golden (2004). Most of come from such societies move from destructive phase from poor parenting- to mis-education then fighting amongst each other for the few jobs. It is also not surprising, the cosmetic capitalist has decided to exploit the psychologically damaged for profit maximisation. The whitening industry is a lucrative and expanding industry. L’Oreal, Max Factor, Helena Rubenstien, Estee Laudee and Maybelline involved in the industry face stiff competition amongst themselves, which forces each to head hunt the rich and famous to front their products. These advertising contracts are worth millions for the lucky
model/actress/ singer or idle rich. Off course-the word bleaching is not used openly . Nowadays-it is “anti-aging “ a euphemism for bleaching cream. If you check the labels for the declared ingredients- you might find highly toxic chemicals like hydroquinone, kojic acid, and sodium hydroxide- all with the potential to cause diseases like liver, skin and kidney cancer. Some of the cheaper brands may also have up to 3% mercury-can poison the brain.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
In the year 1807, the Slave “Trade� was abolished bythe British for their own capitalistic and industrial developmental reasons. After which, many planters and master had to use their own initiative to replace old or dead slaves. The answer; miscegenation. Within the 10 years of the abolition, a new race of lighter skinned children were being born through rape and or consensual sex. These children were often sold and they even fetched higher prices. So people like Frederick Douglas and Booker T Washington did not even know their fathers-they were sold along with their mothers. Without a birth certificate identifying the father and mother by names, these mix race children could not even claim their inheritance. For many female slaves-this miscegenation took on religious status as, they wholeheartedly believed and or linked prosperity, a good quality of life, wellbeing, respectability with lighter skin. European American fathers like Thomas Jefferson who fathered countless
children with his female slaves and, who went to become one of the writers of the US Constitution, also sold of his mix race children, whenever he was over stretched financially. What started of as a remedy for a labour problem on
the parts of the planters in the Caribbean and the Americas, became an end for the female slaves. I mention female slaves but, sex between mistress and male slaves were always treated as rape and those children were sold off even faster, as their husbands did not want to get too close or nurture these “slave children� less, they build a relationship with them. On the other hand, female slaves cherished these children who, they viewed as a means of getting respect, better treatment, a chance to work in the “Big house, eat better food and have probably better accommodation. So began the phenomenon of aspiring to have lighter skin. There was no bleaching cream concocted in the laboratory just yet so, sexual intercourse with a European master or overseer had to do to have similar outcome., without posing a healthhazard except for possible catching venereal disease.
No condoms around then. Following miscegenation= genetic engineering, pigmentocracy and colour- sightedness/ consciousness, which is the oppose of colour blindness. What also started seeping into the vocabulary of the neo/post slave societies were words and phrases eg Don’t go inthe sun-if you want to find a good husband�, why don’t you add a little milk to your coffee�, he/she is so black-think about the colour of your children�, you cannot even see him or her in the night�. Also, black and ugly were being used in the same line or at least, close to each other. The writers of the dictionary also did their bit by associating the colour black with negatives eg Black market, black sheep, blackball-to exclude someone from a group. Black mass,
Black spots, where accidents frequently happens. Black spots on the face, black magic, blackmail .Golden M(2004)
From forced miscegenation/ social engineering to choosing miscegenation as a means of avoiding colour
discriminations more acceptable. The capitalists jumped on the women’s magazines as a means of
capturing the imagination of the women. Off course- using only Europeans models with the “Nordic� look.
Nevertheless, many deeply hued women supported this universal concept of beauty by buying and aspiring to
“to be like them� with the help of dangerous chemicals. The magazines captured and colonised their
imaginations, helped along by peer pressure and poor parenting. Poor parenting in the homes ,where parents
avoid the subject of colour discrimination or maintain the ideas by using terms like-black and ugly in the sentence or calling a child stupid because he well hued and or chastising children for playing in the sun are damaging to a small child’s self- perception and confidence. Clark R and Clark M (1958) have already studied young
children under 5 and their anti colour attitudes. They carried out the Blond Doll Experiment. During this experiment, children were given European and African dolls- What Clark found was quite revealing in that, he found 75% of 3 year olds were conscious of the difference between white and colour. By age 7-the percentage rose to 100%. The disturbing thing in this study is this, the majority of African-American children between the ages of 3-7 totally rejected the African dolls. In addition-another survey carried in NY, USA amongst African American children between the ages of 5-18 found more alarming figures. When asked the question-What did your parents tell you about being black and, when did your parents tell you about being black? 2 children found out through their own
self-looking in the mirror. Only parent felt confident enough to tell the child-� As a black person, we originally came from Africa-our mother country(Continent)� Harrison-Ross P/ Wyden P (1973). Also found in Wilson AM (1978) book-The Developmental Psychology of the African/Black Child.

The role of the PARENTING AFRICAN CHILDREN
The role of parenting African children in either the Core Capitalist countries like Europe mainland. UK.USA
and Canada is just as difficult as parenting children in the peripheral capitalist countries like the Caribbean and Africa. Often parents in the neo colonial societies posing as “democratic societies� are actually pigmentocratic societies producing large colonies of self haters, self mutilators who have no confidence in their African heritages so practices such as straightening hair. Bleaching cream, forgetting and or rejecting the ancestors for the Eurocentric looking Jesus. WoodsonC.G (1937) would also argue that, the “mis-education system reinforces and or prepares the minds for a life of dependence on various aspects of Pan-Europeanism. Mis education whether it is faith-based or secular curriculum is actually an irrelevant curriculum, which is further
maintained by parents at home who refuse to provide an alternative relevant curriculum or invest in their
child’s education, rather than continuously building churches and giving their money to “GOD. If we in the Africans communities continue to ignore the importance of a relevant curriculum for the generation of children, which has to be Afrocentric in it’s foundation-we are ignoring re-construction. We will be facing destruction in the face. If we fail to invest and take full control of schools, we are failing in our parenting duties and preparing the next generation of psychologically abused or damaged children who will continue self-hating, self mutilating, self harming and self destructing at their own hands. Do not expect the European structures and their systems to liberate us or suddenly make us love our selves. Capitalism and other Europeans systems including their curricula and the Eurocentric Jesus are benefit them not our diverse communities. It is as Cress-Welsing explained in her book,� it is not by accident that, the majority of Africans worldwide unquestionably support Eurocentrity either partially or wholly. This creates alienation from self and people behave almost as if ,�they do not have a
mirror�. We are as Africans engulfed in what Cress-Welsing( 1992) “the Global system of White supremacy via capitalism, mis education, politics-colour based/nationalistic , a minority held ownerships of entertainment, wars and sexualisation of every aspect of life. So, her argument is this, whether we sell Watch Tower and Awake magazines or we bleach our skin or surround ourselves with the Eurocentric Jesus or keep IPC-London in business by buying their all white magazines, and we not teaching our children our languages at home and we use our
money to BMW, Mercedes Benz and Toyota in business, we are self-hating, dependent, unthinking /walking dead people, going nowhere but unto the road of madness and self destruction.

Cress-Welsing (1992) also talks about the fascination of European women with tanning and the bronze look,
which has become a £14 m business in the UK in 2006. However figures for skin bleaching is not so easy to
gather, especially if there is denial or a shame felt amongst the African communities. So, whilst figures
are available widely, figures for skin bleaching are not up to date or accurate. The task doing a skin
bleaching cream surveillance is the job of a committed, reliable, robust sociologist with a robust
personality and financial support to carry out such a survey. It would mean comparing figures between
Nigeria and the USA./ Brazil. Brazil and the USA have the largest population outside the African mainland.
Nigeria, because it is the highest population in Africa although, not one of the 5largest countries within Africa eg The Congos, Algeria, Sudan, Ethiopia and South-Africa. Imagined reasons given for using bleaching Cream.

African women have given a plethora of reasons why they use it. Initially, they denied the use but, when
one sees the “Fanta face-colour hands look“ They then often up some very vague reasons laden with myths and fiction Here are the common ones- respectability, acceptability, class mobility, to enhance beauty, to
be attractive, to find a husband,. Others say, they use it to get a job. Others to be seen as fashionable and to be part of social practise of their friends. If their mothers, friends and or relatives use it, they are more likely to ape those practices. The writer has already shown how the cosmetic capitalists have commoditised and packaged beauty in a bottle and are making billions, with the help of mass media and the so called “beautiful people- under weight, over paid, idle rich European women on side. One Ghanian man said-�it is to do with the length of time since the countries were given “independence� Most people do not talk about the part their parents or education or the media played to arriving at this outlook. If you are brought up in a household where such as
this Jamaican lady who wants to remain anonymous said,� when I was 7 years old. I went to see my
grandmother who said to her,� You look lovely, it’s a shame your skin is so dark!!�. Quotation from a story in January issue of the Grazzia women’s magazine. She went to say, “I know I am risking my life for lighter skin but she does not mind� she continues, “In October, I gave birth to my little boy. He has pale
skin, closer to his European father’s colouring than mine. I was beside myself with delight. Perhaps. Because of his colour of his face, he will have a happier life?, the life I have always wanted� This
girl is a 29 year old solicitor originally from Jamaica. The writer is certain-she played with “blond dolls�


Real Reasons for using Bleaching Cream

Fanon F (1967), Cress-Welsing (1992), Akbar (1992), Leary J (2004) all say similar things. The practice of skin bleaching is just another aspect of self hating alongside the worshipping of the Eurocentric Jesus of the ancient history book(bible) of middle eastern peoples ,including the Jews, the hair straightening, choosing miscegenation/ social engineering, or marrying into races who have historically joined up with the Europeans to rip us off and help oppress us eg the Asians in Uganda/Kenya. The Jewish capitalist who monopolise the Diamond industry. These writers are saying these practices arise out the psychologically damaged or the accepted insane. Accepted insane are the people who are not institutionalised or have been to a psychiatrist or psychotherapist or are not taking
prescribed medicines for depression or mood swings etc. but who, continue to self-mutilate, or deliberately self harm themselves with either bleaching cream or hair straigtheners or install green or blue eye lenses, which increases the risk of eye infection. Or the people who wilfully starve their brains of stimulation by spending long hours either seated at the hairdressers or in a church pews or aping every word/idea uttered by the Europeans.

Given the kind of over-exposure of people like Beyounce(USA) , Halle Berry and Jaden Pickett, Michael Jackson (USA) plus Thandie Newton-Actress, Naomi Campbell, Angela Griffith, Corinne Bailey-Rae UK, and Stella Olasagun- now deceased wife of The President of Nigeria and the other lighter skinned models, is it any wonder why people a questioning the role of the magazines and the skin whitening industrialists as the two main factors fuelling the increased sales. Off course-it does help the industry that, their groups ideas are the ruling ideas. It does help that-they are just simply building on the self-hating legacies already prepared by their ancestors in Africa,
Americas and in The Caribbean. Magazines such as ASPIRE/ PRIDE/NOIR in the UK, and Ebony and Essence
and O in the USA often promote and sustain pigmentocratic leanings. So people like Alek Wek, India Arie, Tracy Chapman, Kola Boof are underexposed. Artist like Michael Jackson, George Benson both -Jehovah’s witnesses, Stephanie Mills and Pattie Labelle have all altered the natural shape of their noses, to make it more “aquiline� and in line with the Eurocentric version of beautiful. Michael’s extreme pigmentocratic antics have become acceptable and quite mainstreamed. In response to Michael Jackson’s and Be ounce’s
pigmentocratic antics-Koka Boof- the Sudanese writer/ poet and storyteller says� Black women come from
African blood.. So most of us do not have naturally long, straight and flowing hair like women in the movies, television, commercials, and the women on the NBA-long flowing hair isn’t a biological characteristic of the majority of African women. Inaddition, there has NEVER been a single pre-colonial society in Africa, where long, flowing hair was the standard for beauty not until the arrivals of the first European female missionaries in around 1900 in Africa. Quotation from Kola Boof (2005). These missionaries imposed themselves upon existing cultures, with the aim to destroy and get people to develop a hate for all things Africans. Artist/poet/playwright and writer Jane Musoke-Nteyafas is encouraging us , “to re-huemanise ourselves, re-learn to appreciate our African cultures and to also challenge some of not so useful practices, to make, write and read our own history from an areocentric perspective. She is also saying like others before-there is no universal concept of beauty especially a concept which only describes a minority group such as the Europeans whose population is minuscule, in comparison with say the populations of people of colours distributed in China. India and Africa.

In the preceding paragraphs the writer has showed that, the use of bleaching cream is not an isolated
practice done on it’s own for fashionable reasons. It is part of a self hating, self mutilating routine,
which have historical roots in or around the 1880’s. The skin bleaching and hair straightening is actually
an extension of self -hating learnt in the earliest part of the master/slave relationships. That miscegenation which was used after 1907 to solve a labour shortage, have taken on almost quasi religious slant in Africans communities worldwide. With the increasing competition within the various cosmetic capitalist-there is a sense of ruthlessness and taking an unhealthy interest in the “body� as a sellable product� albeit in a “whiter form�-the whiter the better. Suddenly, we all want to like “ghost or shrouds�, which undermines all this talk of diversity
and appreciating differences- including different skin tones.

A TIME TO MOVE FROM BEING PIGMENTOCRATS TO MERITOCRATS

In order for us to move from mental bondage which creates pigmentocrats and under-developers, we must
take head of Hilliard AG (1976) warnings seriously which goes something like this,� Mental bondage is
invisible violence. Formal physical slavery has ended in the USA (but not in Mauritania, Sudan ). Mental
slavery continues to this present day. This slavery affects the minds our people and, in one way, it is worse than physical slavery alone. That is, the person who is in mental bondage will be will be self-contained/ manageable and controllable. Not only will that person fail to challenge beliefs and patterns of thought which control him/her/them, he will defend and protect those beliefs and patterns of thought virtually with his last dying efforts� Taken from the foreword in the book Stolen legacy (1976) We need to agree that, mental slavery leads to psychological damaging, which disables us from taking charge of our destiny, from loving ourselves and reuniting with the various African families. Our own slave mindedness continues to under-develops us . We are now approaching 200 since slave labour ended in the Americas and the Caribbean yet, the mental slavery and colonialism lives on. We also need to move from mis-education to education. We need to cease aping the Eurocentricity and replace it with Afrocentricity thinking and practice. We have to drop pigmemtocracy and adapt meritocracy e.g. let the liberated mind rule, rather than, “the light skinned�. Remember the words of Kwame Ture and Bantu Biko-� Black is beautiful� We need to move from being repeating stations for Eurocentrism to challenging the reasons behind some of our destructive routines and sincerely want to change into heumans once more, who love themselves for the mind. We have to become people who want to embrace knowledge, relevant information and a healthy lifestyle. It is pointless up keeping other commercial ethnic groups whilst, under-developing our own communities. It is pointless talking about diversities and appreciating differences, when we practise the very opposite. It is pointless giving our hard-earned money to� god- corrupt and self-serving pastors�. We would do far better if we invested that money into Afrocentric Early Years education running alongside re-education Parenting programme.

Conclusion

If we hope to conquer the bleaching cream use and other destructive practices within African communities
worldwide, we need to invest our own money into a structured Early years programme which must be build
on a Afrocentric foundation. Also, we must write our own curricula and manage our own schools and provide a
relevant education in the middle and later years. The curriculum must be afrocentric and must prepare our
children to face all the challenges that capitalistic and racist societies would throw at them in the future. We must stop under-developing our children and denying them mental stimulation. We must learn how to communicate with children of different age groups. This is one of the basic ways of addressing the existing psychological damage within our communities. We must invest in pre-natal and parenting education, which must be informed by up to date and relevant information. If we continue to neglect those areas-, our communities will always be blighted these self-hating, self mutilating practices. We must be committed, more disciplined, more reliable paying more attention to a structured Afrocentirc strategies to address mental slavery at the earliest stage in our life. We must stop producing performers, preachers and pigmentocrats ,our survival depends on these changes.