Fear and Lovely

I was told to befriend fair and lovely creams. Told that bleaching my skin, only then would I win. Happiness? No. Health? Pff. But perhaps status, maybe respect, because only if I achieve fair skin, can I fit in.

Get white, get the guy. Scrub harder you’ll get the job. White face wash, bright body cleaner, fairness creams because I need to get clean. This brown skin has me drowning.

In the process of making friends with these brightening masks. I make enemies with my mind. Did my skin get darker because of the sun? We don’t want that, we don’t want people rejecting me like that aunty’s son. I should be watching Netflix and Twitter posts., but instead I’m reading what can get rid of these dark tones. My worth should not stop at my-no, my worth should not be my complexion. The scale that measures how light I am. I should be making history not be another girl who got caught up in this trickery.

This brown skin had me drowning, I was lost but these fairness creams found me.

Originally published at https://genzadvocates.substack.com.