Hey there peeps, it’s me again! Hope all of you are well and in good spirits.
As usual I am just making my way around this 2 by 4 island of ours and making my observations, like no one else can.


So there I was, in a boutique in town, looking at which accessories to buy from the display. To my left I saw a few jars of what I thought was regular, old lotion. Boy, was I wrong. When I enquired about the product, girlfriend allowed me to know that they were all bleaching creams! Not lotion, not body butter or such like, but bleaching cream! It’s only then, that I really looked at her, and then that song “Let those monkeys out” by Lexxus, jumped in my mind, like it was playing right there in the damn store.

She proceeded to explain to me the differences among these brands like she was explaining the difference between peach and orange. I guess the puzzled look on my face made her realize that I was a total virgin to this whole bleaching thing, ‘cause she then said “Girl where you living?! Everybody does bleach!” Everybody except me. That was two years ago.

Since then, this bleaching thing is on a totally different level. Even men are doing it now, including a well known Jamaican music artist (hint hint). But why do people bleach anyway?

Sigh...well let’s go all the way back to the year 1712, when a man of intelligence by the name of Willie Lynch, used that intelligence in a most devious way - to help other slave owners like himself control blacks, or slaves- at the time. I know that some of you may hate me for using the word “intelligence” to describe the man, but let’s face it, he was intelligent, because what he prescribed for slave owners then, is still in effect to this day, even though that type of slavery is a thing of the past.

It is as though we have a little chip placed in our brains at the time of birth. Willie Lynch was a white slave owner in the 1700s, who had a plantation in the west indies, with black slaves, and he used a number of “methods” to control his slaves. These methods worked so well for him, he was invited to Virginia U.S.A. in 1712, to share these methods with slave owners there, who had trouble controlling their slaves. He told his counterparts, that if they “installed” these methods properly, he guaranteed that they would be able to control slaves for the next 300 years, or even longer. Wow.

He went on to tell them, that they can control them based on intelligence, whether they have fine hair or coarse hair, and their colour or shade, among other things. With regards to the colour or shade aspect, he told them they must use the light skin slaves vs. dark skin slaves idea. From this came the idea for slaves with light skin working indoors on the plantation with some privileges, while darker skin slaves worked in the fields.

Willie Lynch told his fellow slave owners that his methods would work so well, that this indoctrination will self-refuel, and self-generate for hundreds or even thousands of years. My, my.

Since then, our ancestors would have done some self-altering things as a means of survival, and to get better paying jobs. Relaxing their hair, for example. I once heard a friend of mine from NYC say to me, “when black people relax their hair, white people relax”. It was meant to be a joke, andat the time it was, but there is still a sense of seriousness behind that little snicker.

Our ancestors pressed, and relaxed their hair as a means of survival, but now I think some of us just do it because we think we look prettier, and some of us don’t like the nappy hair look, but trust me, we will keep our hair natural on purpose, if its soft and curly, because we want the WHOLE WORLD to know we have soft hair. Hmmmmm.


Now, it isn’t just our hair we’re altering, it’s our skin that some of us despise so much. Blacks would have experimented with bleaching since the 50s and 60s, maybe even before that, but these days, it seems to be more in-your-face, to say the least. Some dark skin girls believe they never get any play if there’s a “brown skinned” girl with soft hair within a half mile radius. I ‘m not even sure if we can blame the brotha, chances are in this type of scenario, he has a “willie lynch chip” in his brain somewhere.

All jokes aside, I have even seen this light-skin, dark skin scenario when I was in primary school, so serious. Watching from the sidelines, I would see the light-skin, soft hair child get such gentle words and affection from the class teacher, while the dark child, with coarse hair, receive some unnecessary harsh words. Now why is it, that at that tender age, I somehow knew the difference in the way these two children were treated had something to do with their appearances? Was that intelligence on my part, or a chip in my brain too? I don’t even know.

People in many places around the world go into beauty stores to buy bleaching products, and no, not only blacks sweetie, indians too, for them I’m sure it has to do with their caste system.

I seriously don’t quite get why in the hell we would want to change our many complexions? I mean, look around you, as you sit in your office, or your living room or bedroom with your children, look at your parents, or your partner. I bet you these other individuals are black, but different shades. Damn! We really are different, but beautiful at the same time. Black is truly beautiful, with sooo many different shades, like we have our own personal rainbow going on.

Trust me, we have our own flavour that the other races want. From the way we talk, and look too. They want our butts, our lips, they even want some of our colour too. Just look at them on the beach, sweating bad, just to get darker, or according to them a “tan”, looking like damn fools. Yeah, I said it, looking super-stupid. They want our food, and even our men, which some of them do get, and some of the black men, MUST let you know they have a non-black woman, as though they have the best thing next to winning a million dollars. Don’t get me wrong, do whatever rocks your boat, love, but in the meantime, don’t do it to make your black sisters feel like crap – not nice.

The most important lesson of all, give God the respect he deserves, and love yourself, after all, those of us who are God-fearing do believe that He doesn’t make any mistakes. Shake off the many haters and love all that you are. Dark, light skin, skinny, thick, big nose, long or short hair – LOVE YOURSELF!!!!

That’s it for me, until next time peeps, stay safe, and sweet, see ya!!