Gravity write up moved to the 10th. Mandela gets the 9th.
The usual caveat: curious, welcome; not, meet you at the bend.
Jaime
Madiba on 'Net Blankes' White Only
Our title was once a common sign in South Africa where legal segregation called Apartheid was in force. In the summer of '67, after watching Fiddler on the Roof in downtown Chicago, I walked my Pea Eye cousin's former exchange student host sister to the train station for her suburban home when a Caucasian grabbed my arm and in a slurring wino voice, thundered: "what are you doing with a white girl, boy?" Not as harsh as being chased by German shepherds in the deep South, segregation no longer official U.S. policy then, but the practice, as is still is in many quarters, of racial discrimination was deeply embedded and evident in the American psyche and behavior.
Nelson Mandela's life was a gracious and compassionate response to this reality, still a plague in South Africa, but no longer the official stance of its government. At 95, Mandela died this week. U.S. President Obama, himself a product of humanity's turning tide, eulogized: "He no longer belongs to us, he belongs to the ages . . ." It is never polite to comment on a President's solemn declaration, especially one we support, but Mandela becoming a part of us has a long way to go.
One of my Chinese students took a two-week trip this term to the United States with her family. As a condition to my permission for excused absences from class, she had to make a five-minute report in English of her trip when she returned.
Items in her report included a day in Waikiki when she and her mother went to the beach, each holding an umbrella. They were shielding themselves from the sun. The rest of the crowd at the beach were eagerly tanning themselves to get brown under the sun! Her notion of beauty was just being lily white. No tint of yellow, please.
African students at the International Education College of Shenyang Aerospace University often relate how they are treated with their dark skins. "The girls will date us, and even marry us, as long as we take them away from China. Any of our children are not Chinese even if their mother's genes are more dominant. Chinese men do not date African girls at all."
Farmers and countryside folks worldwide protect themselves from the sun in the field, and though there is harshness in the wind, shields are primarily to avoid getting sun-tanned. China, Korea, and Japan (and also the mestizo/a in Southeast Asia), often rate one's social status by the fairness of one's skin!
The skin whitener lotion has become more than a fad in India. It is big business. Movie stars and well-known personalities promote the product. Not that it should come as a surprise. On our journey to Delhi-Mumbai-Pune-Aurangabad (the last three are cities in the State of Maharashtra) in the 70s, I was unprepared to witness the distinction between north and south India as primarily racial. The northern Indo-Aryan was a socially favored status-wise over the darker Dravidian. The same held true in a teaching trek to Jamaica, Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela in the 80s.
When I worked at the Southwest Bankcard Association in the 60s in Texas, I was stunned to hear a mixed Caucasian-Afro-American girlrefer to her colleague as a "black nigger" in a rather pejorative manner. We were surprised earlier at the social pecking order in a Chicago camera factory summertime job when my fair Puerto Rican brunette co-worker referred to her fellow workers from Tejas-Mejico as "niggers'.
For the record, the top 20 global beauty companies totaled a whopping $104 billion in sales in 2005. All directly or indirectly promote fair skin products registering increased sales in China, Korea, and Japan. The list includes: Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, L’Oréal, France,Unilever, UK/Netherlands, Estée Lauder, NYC, Avon, NYC, Shiseido, Japan, Beiersdorf, Germany, Johnson & Johnson, NJ, Alberto-Culver, IL, Henkel, Germany, Coty, NYC, Limited Brands, Columbus, LVMH (Dior, Givenchy, Guerlain, et al), France, Colgate-Palmolive, NYC, Kao, Japan, Mary Kay, TX, Yves Rocher, France, Kosé, Japan, Access Business Group (Satanique), MI, and Revlon,NYC.
Ads in China promote blonde and blue-eyed models in lily-white environments. With such formidable global force delicately trained in the glitzy art of Avenue des Champs- Elyssees, Park Avenue, Ginza, and Soho, in the assault on the planetary mind, people of color stand a slim chance of affirming the givenness of their skin color and tone.
The sign 'Net Blankes' White Only is not only a historical one of South Africa. It is in internal and external neon lights across many of humanity's current psychological frames and societal practices, touting the virtues of Slavic-Teutonic skin fairness.
Nelson Mandela's demonstrated message was simple. Yes, we need to watch the official policies, and, yes, pay attention to the quality of our commercial consumption, but it finally redounds to one's relationship and ownership to one's own skin.
In my class at the University, I wear beautiful brown.
As SA President Jacob Suma said in his address in declaring the nation's flag to be at half-mast: "What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human, we saw in him what we seek in ourselves."
Thanks, Madiba, for making your presence known!
