The Gift I Thought I Wanted: Lighter Skin & My Journey Toward Self-Acceptance

Colourism is a topic I’ve often written about but have never published. I think this was because I was scared to confront my own experiences — those that would indirectly call out the people who made me feel like the colour of my skin was bad.

I’d ask myself if I should write about things that happened in the past when I never confronted or stood up for myself in the moment. These people had probably forgotten the comments they made, so I shouldn’t take them seriously if they didn’t take them seriously. Yet, another part of me internalized and believed what they said — that I should scrub my face harder in the shower, stay out of the sun, or that, in general, I was “too dark.”

The Canadian Race Relations Foundation defines colourism as “prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group. This definition and my own lived experiences mean colourism exists in Nigeria, the country with the highest Black population on earth and the place where I spent my formative years.

This is also evident with the country’s skin bleaching epidemic, in which the World Health Organization says 77% of Nigerian women use skin-lightening products and the unconscious bias towards fairer-skinned people. Colourism is well and thriving around me, even though I didn’t know its name. 

Like other social issues, measures have been implemented to confront skin bleaching. For instance, in 2019, Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drugs banned cosmetics containing bleaching agents like mercury. However, these attempts don’t eradicate the issue and instead are taken underground. They also barely touch its mother — colourism, which in Nigeria originates from internalized colonialism. 

So in 2019, when social media outwardly celebrated dark skin, especially with songs like Beyonce’s “Brown Skin Girl,” which amplifies this message, internalized colonialism and the colourist status quo remained.

People would tell me that I was dark at random points of a conversation, stating the obvious but in a way that showed they were worried for me and I should do something quickly to remedy the “situation.”

People would also call me Black. In an African country with little racial diversity, they were not referring to race; it usually meant that your skin is the colour of pencil lead, the colour of coal and even the colour of this font. The intent was often derogatory, hinting and hurting the recipient that their complexion was undesirable. 

Witnessing and hearing people demean dark skin not only affected my self-esteem but also resulted in an unhealthy obsession with trying to lighten my complexion. I would drown in blog posts about natural and organic ways to “tone,” “brighten,” or “even out” my skin because I was determined to avoid skin bleaching. Ironically, people who bleach their skin are often stigmatized by the same society that drove them to do so. 

So, instead, I began to put the things I was supposed to put in my body on my face. Lemons, limes, potatoes, tomatoes, and anything written on the internet that I saw would help me not be dark anymore. 

The closest I can trace my obsession ending was going to a new school where the people around me were nicer, and complexion wasn’t used as an insult to jab someone. It wasn’t mentioned at all, nor was it attached to beauty.

Joining social media also helped; I remember seeing vlogs and realizing people didn’t harshly scrub their faces, and I loved seeing other dark-skinned people do things like makeup and skincare, showing their complexions didn’t hold them back. 

Now I can look straight and confidently in the mirror, I love to take pictures in the sun that makes my skin glow, and I now use sunscreen and dermatologically tested products to heal the scars from my past mistakes, making my skin healthier and not lighter. While I still remember the words people said to me, they no longer hold any weight because I know I and my skin are beautiful. 

Five years ago, the best gift anyone could have given me would have been fair skin. Now, I wouldn’t change my complexion for anything in the world. 

• Black
• colour
• colourism
• complexion
• dark
• self-love
• skin
• woman