AFRO-Americ@: Black or White: Dark


Darkness is loaded in negative stereotype. To be dark is to be ugly. "You can't HIDE skin ugliness forever. Start right today to BLEACH skin to new beauty." This very negative language is used to define what is a natural consequence. Black women like all women in the society were and are concerned about "beautifying" themselves but advertisers took the focus away from enhancing her natural qualities to transforming blackness to whiteness or ugliness to beauty.

Dark women were also the source of comic relief very openly and publicly humiliated by men. Consequently she is socially isolated and devoid of any sexual attraction.

Advertising copy further implied that darkness was simply a tan that could easily fade with an overnight application of a bleaching cream. Marketing strategies also misinformed consumers that their bleaching agents could cleanse the skin of dirt and discoloration as if blackness was a result of poor hygiene that could be washed right off.


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