Black and Yellow

So I was scrolling through the Internet like I love to and I stumbled on a picture of a recently married governor with his foreign wife. I zoomed in closer to get a good view of the lady and my conclusion was,

“this girl no fine, abeg, She's just yellow. I fine pass am”

Then I showed a colleague of mine the picture. My colleague is Igbo and she called the girl a name in her Igbo dialect 'ocha ka omaka' which means 'she's so fair that you think she's beautiful'.

You get my point, right?

The craze about being "yellow" doesn't seem like it will leave anytime soon. I mean, it has been around since my mother's mother's mother's great grandmother's time, so obviously it's a permanent trend. 

You see, being light-skinned aka yellow is actually enviable because it's a bright skin-tone especially in our clime. personally, it is most enviable if and only if it is spotless, geisha kind of stainless spotless skin. No knuckles, no funny spots. simply clean. 

From buying highly dangerous chemicals in the form of 'skin toning' products to consuming pills and most recently taking injections to bleach from the internal to the external is rising at an alarm rate. I really don't know how the latter works but people loyal to this therapy swear by it.

Aside bleaching the skin and reducing the natural melanin level of the skin, artificial peeling off the thick, protective shield on the skin, cancer is very real. I have no problem with women who bleach the skin due to sudden darkness caused by pregnancy, and there are safe products as well as natural products for that, it's those who feel that by bleaching their skin light will suddenly make them attractive and confident I have a problem with.

You will be amazed when you come across the various products people use in the bid to be yellow. I once heard some use toilet cleansers and I screamed. 

I attended a friend's wedding some weeks back and I met a few old friends from uni days. It is only normal to site a few changes in size, looks and and and but of all the significant changes, the change of skin colour was the most worthy of comment. I actually said to my friend

'O ga ju, you are not in this land with us o!  See as you yellow'  

and she replies

I kuku dey o, na ac life and no stress change my skin colour o. No more hustling.

Yes, in Nigeria, when someone suddenly becomes yellow from being ebony black, it is said the person is now fresh and is living large. hehehehe. Then I ask,

What does this actually mean?

Now, being fresh, classy, attractive and confident or being high maintenance has nothing to do with one's skin, absolutely nothing whatsoever. It's a natural trait, either innate or cultivated over the years. You have the power to be what you want to be,  and not even your skin colour can influence people's perception of you, Its way beyond superficial thinking.

Year in year out, I have come to love and appreciate my skin colour and I love to call a my sweet honey brown skin. A sweetheart of mine says it's caramel. Notice how the dark skin is associated with sweet things, why then should I change it?

Ostensibly, to be artificially light skinned is cheap, that is with an exception of naturally light skinned people, . Not matter what anyone tells me, it can be achieved. Can you buy the black skin? I don't think so. No technological advancement has innovated that. This makes me extremely proud of my colour, my unique black skin. The black skin is beautiful and strong. When I have scars, with little honey treatment, all the spots disappear.

I remember how my friends and I would fool around yabbing some old friends who had suddenly become brighter than the sun. The painful part is that some of them were actually very beautiful till they bleached.

The word on the street says men have also joined the movement and for these men. I have no words.  What for, I am yet to understand. Nonetheless, I'm sure most right-thinking ladies like myself will chose a dark chocolate men ten times over the ones bleaching.

In conclusion, I write this is to all the black and brown ladies and gentlemen world over. Love your skin, pamper it, cherish it, it is not cheap, its priceless, it cant be bought. #blackiseverything #blackisanattitude

Remember the saying once you go black you can never go back? That says a lot you know #thepowerofblack... my piece of cake.

To my natural yellow babies, treat your skin with love as well.

Live, love and learn.