The dark bleach while the white tan.

I spoke to an educated brother of mine.
We spoke about the future, marriage being the main topic.
He told me how he would never marry a dark woman. He said never.
He said he preferred his women light skinned because it was more beautiful.
He did not dismiss cocoa sisters or chocolate women.
But he just preferred them caramel going on golden.

Astonished at his words, I couldn’t help but find his thoughts primitive for someone so young. His opinion made me reflect on a number of things, myself being one of them and my grandmother whose hands and neck are a few shades darker than her face being another. Her years of wanting to look as flawless as Cynthia Chaka and as “fair” as Yvonne Chaka Chaka eventually caught up with her. Cheap skin lightening creams ruined her once perfect complexion. Her facial pigmentation has been irreversibly scared by creams sold at every corner in Johannesburg CBD for R20 by Congolese women who use their own faces as an advertising tool.

Memeza, Kekez or Ambi where like cocaine to dark skinned Africans from other countries trying to get work in South Africa in the old days. Dark is what ugly looks like. Light is just always better.
Growing up I was a dark child, today I’m in between. While I was dark I wasn’t considered cute or beautiful. In fact they thought maybe I was dirty so I’d get scrubbed but the helper every Friday after school. My young uncle being “coloured” and living with me didn’t help me in looking brighter. It instead just deepened the contrast between us. I blame this colour idea on the hidden sins of apartheid. Before you dismiss me and log off, remember that back then a lighter skin meant more opportunities. It meant you were that much closer to being liked by madam. That much closer at looking like madam. If you were lucky you could even “try for white” that’s if you passed the “pencil test”. As long as you were not dark you would not scare the kids and the neighbour’s dogs wouldn’t hate you. Raw but true. Apartheid and its sins both hidden and obvious messed us up, it messed the black nation up real good. We tried to change our skin to look whiter, the language we spoke to sound whiter and our hair to feel whiter.

Whether you want a light, bright, dark or black partner is irrelevant. Its 2011!?!Her heart, its shape, colour and size is more relevant don’t you think? But my message to you is to love the coat you have on now because it’s all you’re gonna get its yours and its beautiful.