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Why Was Skin Whitener in the Campus Bookstore?

By Janera Fedrick and Kai Christopher
Black College Wire

Editor's note: The product in question was removed after these opinions were published.

Janera Fedrick

Janera Fedrick: As African American women, we are often told to be more white. We are told to straighten our hair and hide our true identities under cosmetics.

Now at North Carolina Central University, historically black, I feel that I am being encouraged to lighten MY skin.

When I walked into the bookstore and saw skin whitener in the same section as relaxers, I was appalled. I couldn't believe that OUR university would sell this product.

When we use skin whitener, we ruin our own unique shade. The active ingredient in skin whitener, hydroquinone, can cause permanent disfigurement to our faces and bodies.

According to "The Emerging Skin Whitening Industry," a 2005 article by Anima Mire of the University of Toronto, toxic skin-whitening residue can accumunlate inside the skin when using these products.

Because of this, skin whitener has been banned in many African countries. It should also be banned from our university.

What kind of message does this send? Our hair is nappy and we need to be brighter?

It's hard enough for us to be comfortable in our own "naptural" beauty without the constant reminder that being white is the norm.

It's sad that we, as black women, are finding newer ways to strip ourselves of our Africanness. Instead of preserving our heritage, we are destroying it.

Kai Christopher

Kai Christopher: The media, older generations and my own peers remind me daily that who I am is unacceptable in today's society.

When I, a proud black man, walk into the bookstore of a black university and find skin whitening cream, not only does my blood boil, it makes me want to put on as much red, black and green as possible and blast Curtis Mayfield until my speakers blow.

What we have here is not simply the subliminal message that I still do not have the complexion for the connection, but that the insecurity of being black in a white world and the feeling of inferiority is still relevant even here, at a historically black university.

What we have is a lack of understanding and acceptance.

How surprised should we be that products that support Willie Lynch's theory that blacks should be stripped of their self-respect would eventually reach our school, our place of higher learning?

It is quite the double standard to become outraged that skin whitening cream has been placed for sale in the bookstore, but agree that if I am ever to be somebody in corporate America, I should cut my locks and invest hastily in Eurocentric menswear.

I have watched so many people defend stereotyping and prejudice with such Eurocentric attitudes that I would think whitening cream would be right up their alley.

Therefore, my question is not, "how do we get this out of the bookstore?" but, "do we have enough cream for all the "uppity Negroes" who will run to the bookstore when this information gets out?"

Janera Fedrick and Kai Christopher, students at North Carolina Central University, write for the Campus Echo.

Posted Oct. 10, 2006