Colourism Is Alive and Thriving in Nigeria
Regardless of what the light-skinned British man of Nigerian descent says on Quora
A few days ago, I saw a question on Quora directed at people who live or had lived in Nigeria asking if colourism exists in the country. When I saw the top answer, I felt confusion, offence and irritation that snowballed into anger as I read the answer. It began with, “No. Not at all.” And went on to declare that there’s no difference between light and dark-skinned people in Nigeria because we’re all Black and no one cares about shade.
Obviously, as someone who has lived in Nigeria all my life, I was shocked by this answer. And when the person who provided the answer revealed that he’s “a light-skinned Black man of Nigerian descent” from Britain who probably hasn’t ever lived in Nigeria, I was even more irritated. He wrote his reply with so much conviction and left no space for opposing views, even though he stated he made his conclusions from ‘personal observations.’
I decided that out of the many things this man who is so qualified to give an answer to that question wrote, I only agree with one: Nigerians don’t know what colourism is. A large number, too large, aren’t aware that colourism is a genuine issue and believe there is nothing wrong with preferring and exalting light skin over dark skin. However, just because Nigerians don’t know what colourism is doesn’t mean they don’t practice it daily. Colourism is alive and thriving in Nigeria.
For anyone who is unaware, colourism, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “prejudice or discrimination especially within a racial or ethnic group favoring people with lighter skin over those with darker skin.”
This preference and glorification of light skin isn’t an unknown phenomenon to humanity. Centuries ago in Europe, pale skin was desirable because people associated it with wealth and status. Women who could afford the luxury of staying indoors had pale skin in contrast to their counterparts who worked outdoors and whose skins were affected by the effects of the sun.
As the inclination towards light skin isn’t new, so is the practice of digesting or rubbing in harmful substances to achieve this ideal skin type. In 16th and 19th century Europe, white lead and arsenic wafers — which are both extremely poisonous — were used to achieve a paler look.
The penchant for light skin found its way into the countries of Africa through colonialism. Although it is unknown if colourism existed in Africa pre-colonisation, it is safe to say colonialism widely propagated it to the extent where it became an internalised belief. Colonialism brought along with it the white supremacist ideology, which preached the superiority of all things white and the inferiority of all things Black, including dark skin, which was seen as dirty and ugly. Whereas having features closer to whiteness, including light skin, earned you certain privileges.
For example, in colonial Rwanda, privilege, power and opportunities were accorded to the Tutsi ethnic group because they had lighter skin, among other physical features that were closer to whiteness, while the Hutu ethnic group with darker skin were generally treated more poorly. The ‘white is right’ ideology was introduced and still continues to live on. And whether or not they realise it, Nigerians continue to perpetuate this belief in many ways, including colourism.
Colourism bares its head in so many social interactions. It has become standard and is braided into our everyday language, expressions, actions, and beliefs that it's easy to miss. It is executed so casually and with no hesitation.
For instance, it is normal in schools, expected even, for darker skinned children to be mocked and made the butt of the joke by other children just a shade or two lighter than them. They’re called names like ‘blackie’, ‘charcoal’ and ‘burnt offering’.
In my secondary school, there was this joke where the darkest skinned people were told that if not for the whites of their eyes and teeth, no one would know where they were at night because they blended with the darkness. These things were normal. No one, not even teachers or authority figures who sometimes joined in on the jokes, reproached these bullies.
And if the moderately dark kids weren’t making fun of the darker skinned kids, they were trying to prove that once upon a time, they were lighter than they presently are. Something we used to say, including myself, was, “This is not my real colour. I’m lighter than this but you know this sun is just too hot.” Then we’d bend our wrists and show everyone our ‘real colour’ and take pride at how light the skin there was. As if that small part of your body made you different from the rest and a little more worthy of respect.
Colourism also took to the stage in those weird student awards where categories like ‘cool, calm and collected’ or ‘best couple’ existed. In the category of ‘most beautiful’ (don’t even get me started on this category), light-skinned girls were always favoured because even if they don’t win, they are always nominated. Boys don’t fail to make it known that they believe light skinned girls are more attractive.
But children are not the only culprit. Let’s not forget how schools played their own part in perpetuating colourism too. There’s this memory from primary school that has stuck with me and I don’t know why. Maybe for the sole purpose of documenting it at this very moment. But I remember being in a class and getting interrupted by a group of people, photographers I think, who were taking a picture for a billboard ad for the school. They needed students to pose for the picture, so they came into the class, surveyed us like objects and picked the lightest boy and girl and walked out. When the school needed student representation for aesthetics and attraction, guess the two people to walk out of my class every single time?
It wasn’t just my school that was guilty of this. I also vaguely remember picking up on a trend when I was younger. I noticed how all the billboards advertising the best primary and secondary schools had at least one biracial student on them. They believed lighter skinned students just looked prettier and cleaner. Mind you, they did this with everything — trying to inject whiteness, like ‘look our school isn’t too Nigerian, we have mixed students’ and ‘our curriculum is also mixed, we add some British in there too’ because that’s what Nigerians like. Fela said it in his song and it’s manifesting in our preference for lighter skin too.
Colourism bares its head in so many social interactions. It has become standard and is braided into our everyday language, expressions, actions, and beliefs that it’s easy to miss.
While dark-skinned people are at the receiving end of nasty comments and nicknames, light-skinned people are showered with names like, ‘oyinbo pepper’, ‘yellow pawpaw’ and ‘fanta’ with a warm, admirable smile on the caller’s face.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. Dark-skinned people get rejected from jobs and employers don’t hide their reason. They tell them they won’t be able to attract customers with their dark skin or they are not the ‘company’s look.’ There are companies here who only hire light-skinned people.
When I found out one of the major banks in the country does this, I was amazed. It made little sense to me that things like that happened in a place where most of the population is dark-skinned. But when I walked into the bank, I could confirm that all the people you make first contact with, like the customer service personnel, are light-skinned, while the actual bankers who were hidden upstairs were given the pass to be dark-skinned. I guess the plan is to be inviting at first because light-skinned people help create a warm, friendly, not too Nigerian, not too aggressive atmosphere.
How can colourism not exist in a country that’s so focused on skin shade? History is evidence of how during Twitter wars with Ghanaians and Kenyans over jollof rice, music or something random, Nigerians always resort to mocking their darker skin. I mean, for God’s sake, I’ve even seen light-skinned babies get more attention, hugs, cuddles and called pretty but dark-skinned babies are just meh.
Even at home, no one is spared from this torture. Mothers, aunties, random people who aren’t related to you, will tell you about how you’d be prettier if you were lighter and screech in horror if you are getting darker, telling you how you need to take care of it.
Another thing that is thrown around so casually and irks me to my core is the “good skin” saying. Statements like: ‘Oh your family have good skin,’ ‘Her new child has good skin,’ ‘I wish I had good skin like you,’ perpetuate colourism because in case you haven’t caught on, good skin is light skin which means dark skin is bad skin.
Walk into any store in Nigeria from the small kiosk by the road to a branch of one of the big supermarkets and even on online stores, and you’ll be shocked by the number of skin-bleaching products disguised as ‘lightening, brightening, whitening or glow’ products that aim to reveal your true colour.
People are so obsessed with it to the extent where some of them turn to injections and pills to achieve lighter skin and some women bleach the skin of their babies and toddlers. It doesn’t matter that these products are extremely dangerous or that bleaching your skin damages it to the extent where you’re vulnerable to risky side effects including ochronosis — a condition where the skin takes on a blueish, purplish look. None of these things seem to matter.
It’s all deeply rooted and normalised in our lives, but in whatever way colourism disguises itself as simply a preference of one skin type over another or an offhand comment you shouldn’t take personally, it exists in Nigeria. It seems as if it doesn’t because we don’t talk about it or acknowledge our beliefs, actions and comments as colourist.
But not recognising its existence is so harmful to us as a society and we keep passing on the internalised colourism for generations. We need to recognise it exists, have conversations about it and decolonise our standards of beauty by accepting that dark skin is genuinely beautiful. It doesn’t have to be close to whiteness or conform to European beauty standards to be beautiful. And we can’t forget the need to address that on individual levels, we perpetuate colourism too.
But what can I say? These are just my personal observations.
