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Skin Bleaching in Black Atlantic Zones

Shade Shifters

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Shirley Anne Tate

    1. University of Leeds, UK

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
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  2. Introduction: Skin

    • Shirley Anne Tate
    Pages 1-4

  3. A Brief Black/White/Light History of Skin Bleaching/ Lightening/Toning

    • Shirley Anne Tate
    Pages 5-36

  4. Self-Hate: An Old Debate Revisited

    • Shirley Anne Tate
    Pages 37-61

  5. The Political and Libidinal Economies of Skin Shade: The Poor Bleach, the Middle Class/Elite Tone/Lighten

    • Shirley Anne Tate
    Pages 62-86

  6. Nadinola and Glutathione: Refining and Advancing a Dangerous Practice

    • Shirley Anne Tate
    Pages 87-114

  7. Conclusion: Decolonizing Skin: Do Black People Have an Ethical Obligation Not to Bleach?

    • Shirley Anne Tate
    Pages 115-121

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 122-136
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Keywords

About this book

This book's discussion of skin bleaching, lightening and toning in Black Atlantic zones disengages with the usual tropes of Black Nationalism and global white supremacy such as 'the desire to be white', 'low self-esteem' and 'self-hatred' and instead engages with the global multi-billion dollar market in lighter skins with products from local cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies and entrepreneurs. This practice can be for short-term strategic purposes and the production of bleached lightness and new subjectivities through skin shades across Black Atlantic zones - the UK, USA, Caribbean, Latin America and the Africa continent- is also a simultaneous critique of continuing pigmentocracy and darker skin disadvantage. This book seeks to decolonize skin bleaching, lightening and toning by exploring its racialized gender political and libidinal economies in the Black Atlantic. In so doing it moves past the notion that global white supremacy dynamizes the practice to a position where the interaction of colourism and 'post-race' neo-liberal racialization aesthetics becomes the focus.

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Leeds, UK

    Shirley Anne Tate

About the author

Shirley Anne Tate is Associate Professor in Race and Culture and Director of the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies at the University of Leeds, UK and Visiting Professor and Research Fellow in the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice, University of the Free State, South Africa.

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