Wanting to get darker. Or wanting to get lighter..aren't they birds of a feather...

Let me explain my reasoning further. Like many African/black people I always found it curious how white people would want to lie down in the burning sun for the express purpose of changing their skin tone. It implies someone wrong with it in the first place.


So I find the same activity in Black people curious. With the same implications. I can understand liking a nice dark tone.. the last time I went to a hot country for any length of time my complexion got darker and I was quite chuffed. But lie down in the burning sun? Sorry just see that as an adoption of madness..

Oh come on BT,do we really have to have this discussion,I mean REALLY???

A black person permanently disfiguring their skins with bleach to become lighter is not "birds of a feather" with a Black person who just wants to get tan as say a badge of honour or to say look how dark I can get etc,etc...I personally like going a couple of shades darker coz it makes my teeth look even whiter,there is no other sinister motivation than that.

As for white folks tanning obsessions,we know the reasons behind this,which we can discuss ad nauseum,ad infintum...suffice it to say, as I said earlier in the thread,the fake tanning business is a billion dollar industry.

I didn't know that about SPF. I guess that makes sense. I wear it everyday even if I'm only outside for a few minutes out of habit and paranoia.
At the beach I tend to use SPF 30 since I will be in direct sunlight for a longer period of time.

as for that last part...nahhhhh.... yall aint pulling me in this one

actually, tanning superficially improves ones complexion, no matter the original skin color so that's one motivation for it. I personally like the reddish undertones I get when I get darker from the sun...my skin is even-toned and it gives my face the same contours naturally that would take a careful hand a few minutes with foundation, bronzer, and blush to get. I look, overall, more healthy.

Also, I rarely am in the sun, except when I'm walking to my car, and driving in my car to get to work. Maybe it's a psychological thing, or a physical improvement (Vit. D absorption/synthesis) but I just feel better after I get to be in the sun for a while.

Hah ha haaaa! You have way too much sense for a mutt,I guess you aren't sub-human after all,welcome to the race.

PMSL!!

Indeed. The brightness isn't just phenotypical.

lol. anyways.

So why is it less strange for black people to tan than for white people? Its still artificially inducing and speeding up a natural process by effectively cooking the skin. Is it not the same pathology as the bleacher? Lets be honest here.The only other people to indulge in this behaviour are Europeans. If they are to be reviled for it why not us? Its only black people who live around YT that I hear coming with this talk.
Lying down in the sun for an hour or two/ especially in the tropics / is not natural behaviour. There is no way I can be convinced that lying down in the sun is good for your skin either. Black or white. And I dont suppose its coinicidence that most people run from the sun in those countries and do not purposely stay in it for long periods. For good reason. So in the scheme of things it just as foolhardy as applying Ambi cream. Forcing the skin into crisis mode as someone said earlier cannot be healthy. Or is it because its black skin it makes it ok.
Black people sunbathing/ black people going to tanning shops and lying down on sunbed// soon it will be fake tan cream for black people as well. Which ever way you look at it its adopted behaviour.

Hmm....interesting ideas. But in an attempt to see it from a P.O.V. NOT including white ideals I think the fact that most of us live in a Western society of concrete jungles and central air-conditioning, some of us living in places that aren't "tropical", it's natural for us to act differently from Africans living in different circumstances (ex: living in hot weather, working in hot weather, traveling in hot weather). We have no need to "run" for cover from the sun. It's either not there, or the most time we spend in it is walking to and from our air-conditioned cars and homes. Just because we have to "purposely" alott time to be in the sun doesn't mean the outcome is any less natural than someone who naturally just happens to always be in the sun.
For many Africans living in non-tropical places an afternoon under a hot sun is a luxury, as much of a luxury as it is to non-Africans.

As for speeding up a natural process (turning darker from the sun), that's the key difference b/t getting darker (via laying out in the sun) and using lightening chemicals on your skin is that one IS a natural process. Getting drastically lighter, especially through the use of chemicals is in no way natural, neither the getting lighter, nor the chemical part.

I have not and would never use skin-darkening creams (using a cream to appear darker w/out the use of UV rays) or lie in a tanning bed...not matter how yellow, green, white I got. It's not that serious nor is it just about "coloring. "
Many African people just love the sun and how it feels to lay in it once in a while....hell even animals "sunbathe", are they copying Europeans? I think it's natural to seek it if you don't get enough of it.
I spend 90% of my life indoors and will get depressed, lethargic, moody, if I go too long without being in the sun at least a little bit.
Getting darker is a side-effect, one I enjoy even if it's not necessarily my intention. I don't use tanning oil to speed the process of getting darker up. I use protective creams and protect my hair with a cloth to keep it from becoming lighter.

What do you think of black people who avoid the sun like the plague because of a fear of "getting darker?"

Say if you go on a two week holiday to Spain and do a package holiday with your children. A lot of people go on holiday to relax and unwind. Yes you can do the sightseeing but there are days as well when you will want to relax by the beach. Your kids will want to play in the water and you can either go and sit in the shade or you can relax on the beach and unwind.
Either way on those type of holidays there is only some much you can do normally.

Edited to add:
If you go to some beaches in Africa you will see some people chilling out and having fun on the beach and not in the shade.