{"id":58683,"date":"2019-08-15T18:12:15","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T18:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58683"},"modified":"2019-08-15T18:12:15","modified_gmt":"2019-08-15T18:12:15","slug":"mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-who-is-the-fairest-of-them-all-colourism-and-light-skinned-privilege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=58683","title":{"rendered":"Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Who is the Fairest of Them All? Colourism and light skinned privilege"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Who is the Fairest of Them All? Colourism and light skinned privilege<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Pin<\/a>
\n2018-02-11<\/p>\n

Elodie Silberstein<\/strong><\/a>, Artist & Scholar
\nBrooklyn, New York<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Mirror,<\/a>
\nImage Credit: Elodie Silberstein<\/a><\/small><\/em><\/p>\n

Footscray station<\/a>. Fifteen minutes by train from the city centre and here I am, in the multicultural melting pot of Melbourne<\/a>. I feel thrilled. I want to sense the buzzing atmosphere of the market, and to replenish the stock of hair products that I use to enhance my natural curls. Some friends advised me to look for the requisite articles in the numerous shops of the East African community. Being new to Australia<\/a>, I struggle to find products in mainstream stores that are suitable for my textured hair inherited from my Cameroonian father and French mother. The first beauty salon I encounter sets the scene. The flagship products in the window display immediately grab my attention: skin-lightening body lotions, whitening soaps\u2026 you name it, they have it. Smiley models display their charms all over the packaging promising to women of colour a lighter skin tone. A few applications, et voil\u00e0<\/a><\/em>! Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? Faced with this extravaganza of skin-whitening products I am suddenly brought back to my childhood in Cameroon<\/a>, and I cannot help but feel my heart sinking.<\/p>\n

Growing up mixed-race in Douala<\/a> was a peculiar experience. Interracial unions were rare in the 1970s. My parents were a bit of a curiosity. I became used to being called chocolat au lait<\/em><\/a> (milk chocolate) by my neighbours. It did not take me long to realise the obvious advantages that my lighter hue provided me over my dark chocolate counterparts in the white, but also in the black community…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It did not take me long to realise the obvious advantages that my lighter hue provided me over my dark chocolate counterparts in the white, but also in the black community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,1649,12,395,8,4405],"tags":[986,30116,240,30118,30117],"class_list":["post-58683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-media-archive","category-oceania","tag-australia","tag-cameroon","tag-colorism","tag-elodie-silberstein","tag-the-pin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58683"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58685,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58683\/revisions\/58685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}