Skin Bleaching Essay

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Name: Abigail Fraser I.D #: 620032344 Course Code: Course Title: Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Caribbean. Lecture: Dr. Micheal Barnett Lecture time: Tuesday 3-4 Question 6: why do you think that the practice of skin bleaching is o predominant in Jamaica today? Please utilize theories of Race and Ethnicity in answering this question. This incorporates what has been written about skin bleaching in scholarly Journal Articles as well as the Mervyn Alleyne Text. Skin bleaching is very controversial and emotive issue in Jamaica. This is evident in the contending views as to why backs bleach and the varied reasons the bleachers give for altering their physicality. Skin bleaching refers to people's use of home-made cosmetics or dermatological products overtime to remove the melanin from the skin (Charles, 2012). Skin bleaching has become prevalent within our society today and the influence of this can be traced back to slavery and colonialism. Slavery and colonialism promoted the idea of white superiority and black inferiority. Outside labour were dark skinned and those who were light skinned assumed jobs inside the plantation masters' homes. Women bleach then because if colorism. Colorism is the concept use to describe a mechanism in which light skinned people of colour find favour over dark skinned people (Hunter, 2002). Alleyne allege that "In Jamaica, "brown" has become the more active pole of opposition and antithesis to black". This rifted was reflected in Marcus Garvey's judgment of mulattoes. He stated that (mixed race Jamaicans) trained themselves to believe that in the slightest shade the colored men is above the black men and so it runs up to white. Contrary to Garvey's assertion, mixed race citizens are not training rather are subjected to pervasive and prevailing systems which favors fair skin (Gabriel, 2007 as cited in
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