The influence the media has on the use of skin lightening products on normal people in their everyday lives is something that is not spoken about enough and it is something that affects people in the black community. The media industry is extremely influential in the society we live in.
#ShadesOfBlack is a Twitter hashtag that has been used as a research tool to allow women of colour who experience colourism in their relationships, careers and everyday life. There is a conversation happening but I believe it has not been given the right amount of publicity that it deserves. Black women face these problems on a day to day basis and it needs to be a topic of conversation, it has been touched on but not nearly enough spoken about. Colourism is a form of discrimination and should be treated the same way. Some of the stories within this hashtag include:
“I so wanted to scream, “This is not true in Kenya.” But I ran a small survey of my male friends, clients, acquaintances, siblings & alas they all preferred bleached out yellow yellow kind of girl. #shadesofblack though my dad went for a beautiful black queen.” @gaciru on twitter
“I am not the darkest-skinned person I know; I teeter between brown and deep brown. In my opinion, I am not “tragically colored”, to cite the great journalist Zora Neale Hurston – I can say that, finally, with some decade’s worth of therapy behind me. But I frequently have moments of uncertainty.” Sewell & Silverstone