How Skin Whitening Products Entrench Racialism - Report Example

Name: Instructor: Course: Date: Abstract Racism tends to be advantageous for persons with lighter skin tones. Light-skinned Latinos for instance make $5,000 higher than darker-skinned counterparts on average. Studies reveal that for over twelve thousand Afro-American women imprisoned in North Carolina, light-skinned black women were given lesser sentences than darker-skinned women. Studies by psychologists reveal that darker-skinned black defendants are twice as likely to receive death sentences because of crimes that involve whites than their lighter-skinned black counterparts. Racism does not only manifest in employments or in the judiciary processes but in the romantic fronts as well. This is due to the belief that light skin connotes beauty and high status. Therefore, darker-skinned black people, according to some reports, are less likely to be married than their lighter-skinned black counterparts. Lighter skins are therefore liked so much that whitening products are becoming the best products in the market especially in United States, Asia and Africa. Women of Mexican origin in Texas, California and Arizona have succumbed to mercury intoxication after using whitening products to change their bodies. The most pronounced skin bleaching lines in India focus on both men and women with darker skin tones. The fact that skin-bleaching products have shown persistence for a long time shows the enduring legacy racialism has. Introduction Racial/Ethnic identity is defined as the way a person perceives himself as one of the members of the ethnic group he belongs to. It is an individual’s sense of self as a cultural being. It is also a person’s sense of belonging in the spirit of his culture. Ethnic identity is usually influenced by the dominating culture. Race is a social construction that signifies and symbolizes the conflicts as well as interests in the society by alluding to different typologies of human skin color. It is a socially built system of categorizing people in accordance to certain phenotypical traits that are determined genetically but not necessarily consistent (Eriksen 47). Skin-whitening is defined as a practice of using various products that make the skin look white. In the US, women of white race as well those from southern Europe are using skin-whitening products so that they look 'white' like 'Anglo-Saxon' whites. In the US, women of color have also been practicing skin-whitening. This paper extensively covers how skin whitening products and related commodities influence racial identity. How Skin Whitening Products Entrench Racialism Most ancient commodities that bleach the skin like Nodinalina bleaching cream, comprised 10% of mercury which usually is very toxic substance and with devastating medical contra-indications. In the 1930s, a survey discovered doing adverts for over two hundred distinct brands of products that bleach the skin promoted in major editorials especially to white ladies’ customers in USA. Jablonski argues that if the black eastern or the southern Europeans could qualify to be whites by applying products that bleach the skin, then the ones having an adequate white skin but are by law classified as being blacks by blood can also qualify for white as well (90). Appearing white seems to be the basis to access exclusive cultural and economic privileges the whites are entitled to. Since looking white is the fashion, there is no other basis apart from appearance on which to secure whiteness as a racially superior (Quesne 83). Studies demonstrate that whitening the body is facilitating "racial passing" of some black ladies who come from East as well as South Europe. Therefore in this regard, this action has been alluded to in the history of discrimination on the basis of race and racial “passing” in US. Lee, Kelley, and Jeff rule out the chances of Americans of African descent who have white skins qualifying for whites after using products that whiten the skin, as they claim that eastern as well as women from south Europe who have "dark skin tones" can do it, tacitly parades skin-whitening as only being justified if done by 'white' people and as illegal and devastating for blacks (46). Using these whitening creams with toxic chemicals also pose medical and health risks (Hiscock, Jane, and Frances 97). Although white women have been using them in order to achieve a white appearance for decades now, whenever it comes to raising the red flag to the consumers about the side effects connected with skin whitening, it is usually terribly distorted skins of blacks that are shown in illustrations. Most of the health publications by medical experts from the west as well as dermatology journals for example provide black women as being the victimized because of the uncalled for desire to whiteness that seems elusive. This is reinforced with horrible showcasing of the distorted skins black women due to use of cheap skin-whitening creams that contain toxic chemicals such like hydroquinone, ammoniated mercury and corticosteroids (Quesne 83). So much focus on these dangers has prompted the manufacture and marketing of new, supposedly safer, but costly skin-whitening products around the world. The upcoming high level skin-whitening products get sold to rich Asian ladies in order to lighten their skin tone. They are as well marketed to white women as an anti-aging therapy (Stellman 35). Racial dynamics in a big way therefore informs the strategies of marketing of the emerging skin-whitening corporate fashion (Hiscock, Jane, and Frances 89). The whitening of dark skins literally continues to condition the rhetoric for advertising these skin-bleaching stuffs. When it comes to African context, the induced whitening of the skin is traditionally associated with the oppression of Africans by the colonial regime. Africans condemn those who practice skin-whitening, as self-hating, and also as people who suffer from inferiority complex. In this part of the world, those who engage in this practice in most cases do so covertly (Hiscock, Jane, and Frances 89). Currently, most African countries do not allow commercial trafficking of products that whiten the skin. However, these products, including those that contain heavily toxic chemicals, are being marketed aggressively to white skinned ladies in the US to serve as an "anti-aging therapy" (Quesne 83). One of the commonly known skin-whitening cream is Lustra. It contains 4% hydroquinone. It is manufactured by a US- based pharmaceutical corporation. In the United States, Lustra is aggressively promoted on the beauty salons, internet shops and in the dermatology offices (Hiscock, Jane, and Frances 79). The targeted customers of this product are middle-class white women. International biotechnology, cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies are currently researching and developing as well as the looking for markets for a variety of new products that whiten the skin that could whiten the darker skins of people of color and could get rid of corporeal traces of the aging processes and the general contamination from the bodies of whites (Quesne 37).  In America, particularly the north as well as in European countries, the upcoming high level products that whiten the skin are being promoted as new therapies that can clean, regenerate and purify' and an aging skin. In these continents, these products are usually sold out under the disguise of anti-aging therapy. Elsewhere, the products are promoted to lighten the darker skins of blacks (Hiscock, Jane, and Frances 112). This business is a booming one whose access is highly enhanced by the internet as a key media for publicizing of adverts for these products and similar inventions. Most popular international companies in this business own sophisticated e-business websites. These corporations often establish domains and the electronic shops in particular states like Singapore, China, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, among others. Large scale internet use by these companies allow them preclude unhealthy political implications as well as the legal regulatory challenges that would face them if they promoted skin-whitening products openly in North America as well as in the European countries (Quesne 13).  The 'ethnic' skin-whitening market in many parts of the globe is decentralized and highly secretive. This is for the reason that a plethora of these commodities which are aimed to reach the economically unstable people, specifically black ladies, even those that live in North America or even in Europe, are comparatively cheap but they often contain heavily toxic chemicals like mercury, corticosteroids and hydroquinone (Hiscock, Jane, and Frances 85). On the basis of the mass of advertising already available about the new skin whitening commodities on the internet by international companies, the products claim they can better both the looks and the health of consumers. The products contain strong pharmaceutical characteristics. They enter into the dermis and hamper the production of melanin that is responsible for the dark pigment. This in the long term affects the health of the user negatively (Hiscock, Jane, and Frances 89). Conclusion A demonstration of the emerging skin-whitening business as a lucrative economic venture in the world with profound health and social implications has been made. Companies’ advertising for skin-whitening products serve to reinforce and consolidate the global conception of the supremacy of the white race. Work Cited Eriksen, Thomas H. Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives. London: Pluto, 2002. Print. Hiscock, Jane, and Frances Lovett. Beauty Therapy. Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 2004. Print. Jablonski, Nina G. Skin: A Natural History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. Internet resource. Le, Quesne S. E. The Make-Up Book: The Official Guide to Make-Up at Levels 2 and 3. London: Thomson Learning, 2005. Print. Lee, Kelley, and Jeff Collin. Global Change and Health. Maidenhead, Berkshire, England: Open University Press, 2005. Internet resource. Stellman, Jeanne M. Enclyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1998. Print. Read More