Whites Are "Tanning," Blacks and Others Are Using Skin-Whiteners. What's Up?

What is it with people?

Why, please tell me, do we still suffer so much race-based antagonism, here in the U.S. and around the world, when, apparently, what many of us really want is to look exactly like our so-called “enemies” in those other races? Is confusion about, and lack of comfort with, our own skin color and racial identity “hard-wired” into our psychological makeup as human beings?

The other day I read in the Wall Street Journal that the federal government, as part of the recently passed health care reform legislation, will now begin to tax tanning salons, at 10 percent per customer usage. The government estimates that, at that rate, the country’s 20,000 tanning salons will generate an additional $2.7 billion for the IRS, over the next ten years.

This is clearly historical.

We have long complained in our community about the subtle ways in which African Americans are subjected to the “black tax,” i.e., higher insurance rates, higher neighborhood food costs, higher interest rates for loans, lower wages, etc. But, as I see it, this is the first time in the 223-year history of our great country that any of its citizens ever had to bear an additional financial burden simply because they were pale-skinned or white.

I have to admit that my first reaction was that the "tanning tax" was a clear case of things that “go around” finally “coming around.” But that was petty, and I stopped thinking like that, immediately.

On a more serious note, however, this development did make me curious about why whites in America – given this nation’s longstanding discomfort with people of darker skin – ever wanted to be “tanned," themselves, in the first place. Why, indeed, do they expose themselves to dangerous ultra-violent lamps in tanning beds and booths, even though such behavior has been proved to contribute to a 74 percent greater incidence of skin cancer?

A National Health Interview Survey, in 2005, disclosed that 20.4 percent of whites aged 18-29 and 13.6 percent of whites aged 30-49 were frequent users of indoor tanning facilities. The heaviest users were those who were younger, living in the Northeast or Midwest, who were female or Caucasian, and who had a higher level of education.

A more recent study by Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, found that, among tanning salon users, the average number of annual visits was 23.

According to the survey, there is more pressure for women and whites to tan for “appearance enhancement...while darker-skinned individuals do not perceive tanning as culturally appropriate.”

It's not just American whites who are interested in darkening their complexions, from time to time. A survey by the German Federal Office of Radiation Protection found that more than one fourth (28 percent) of the German population had used tanning beds at least once, and that 11 percent of the population can be defined as high-frequency users of tanning services (more than 10 times a year).

The German researchers found that, in their country, also, “tanned skin is considered socially desirable and attractive.” In fact, they discovered that survey respondents who felt that “tanning was attractive” were 75 percent more likely to use tanning beds.

Hm-m-m-m.

Back in the U.S., those who are concerned about the dangers of tanning salons have begun to explore other options for skin-darkening, including tanning sprays. According to one report, however, to be safe, tanning spray users are advised to prevent the “chemical mist from entering (their) blood stream, to wear goggles, to avoid getting any of the mist in (their) mouth and to be careful not to inhale the fumes.”

Wow!

Seems a lot of trouble to go through to look more like people you have long said were your cultural, intellectual and biological inferiors.

Another study by Cynthia Frisby at University of Missouri – Columbia revealed that people perceive a light brown skin tone to be more physically attractive than a pale or dark skin tone. An associate professor of advertising at the University, Frisby found that “without regard to physical features, people prefer light brown skin over dark brown skin or pale skin.”

Who knew?

Certainly not the late, great Michael Jackson... and, clearly, no one ever mentioned any of this to Sammy Sosa, the Dominican baseball legend of African descent, who recently subjected himself to a highly embarrassing round of media coverage because of his use of a skin-whitening product. According to a Chicago dermatologist, the "whitening cream" that Sosa used resulted in changing his original skin color by “at least six shades."

Surprisingly, at this late date, even in Africa, itself, people have been engaged in this curious behavior. Indeed, a study conducted in Pretoria, South Africa, found that 35.5 percent of the participants had used topical steroids to lighten their skin.

In Asia, four out of ten women, in places such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan, are also now using skin- lighteners. In Thailand, that government’s Food and Drug Administration recently published a list of 70 dangerous skin-lightening creams sold illegally, there. Similarly, 50 such products are banned in Indonesia, but are still briskly sold.

Most observers believe that the interest in skin-whitening on the part of Asians can be traced back to the long history of Asian countries being dominated and occupied by European and American invaders. Subjecting themselves to cancer-causing, skin-lightening chemicals is part of a lingering belief that the more they can look like those powerful invaders, the higher they will move up the social ladder in their own Asian countries, and the easier their lives will be.

Regrettably, even in the 21st century, in Thailand, most celebrities and movie stars are white-skinned, and the average citizen strives to look as much like them as possible.

In Japan, a country long known for its disdain of all things “foreign” and for foreigners, themselves, the international fashion coordinator at Vogue Nippon, the Japanese edition of the iconic American fashion magazine, has been quoted as saying:” Everybody (with few exceptions) basically wants white skin.”

It’s going to be interesting to see, with so much of the desire to have lighter, whiter skin traceable directly back to the perception of American/European military and economic invincibility, how the sale of skin whiteners will hold up here and abroad, given the emergence of the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and Middle Easterners as the new, world economic and military powers.

Will Indonesians, Taiwanese, Thais, and South Koreans still want so readily to assimilate into the old power structure, if the new big kid on the international block is actually Chinese?

Will black people here in our own country still be interested in being "less dark" when they begin to realize just how much potential, global economic clout Nigerians and Ghanaians now have?

Will people who are "mixed race" increasingly feel more comfortable in claiming the Latin American, Asian or black parts of their identities--not because society has forced them to do so as part of a Census count--but because, in this changing global environment, they believe it conveys increasing levels of cultural pride and a long-overdue recognition of their own self-worth?

I hope this all works out.

I hope whites in this country begin to feel more free to express a growing respect for darker skinned peoples, one that they can demonstrate by taking down the barriers to greater economic access for blacks and other people of color, throughout the society, at every level.

After all, the research informs us that Europeans and Americans believe that being tanned makes people more attractive. Now it’s time to move beyond that superficiality and to start doing serious work together, building an economy that will include, finally, severely underutilized black Americans, and others.

Hey, maybe the "tanning tax" will be just enough of an irritant to get our collective attention and become the first step in the world moving beyond the lingering effects of the "artificial hierarchy of race."

I can dream, can't I?


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