Ah, summer time. The season for lengthy days, sweltering warmth, cookouts — and white individuals blathering that if they’re out within the solar lengthy sufficient, they are often as tan as any Black particular person. Or fretting that they resemble lobsters as a result of their pasty complexions can’t deal with the solar.
No, I don’t take into account such ridiculous musings compliments. A pastime that white individuals take into account innocent is extremely sophisticated for me.
Tanning is sophisticated if you happen to aren’t white.
As somebody reared in a predominantly white neighborhood, each summer time with out fail, I contended with not less than one white child who proclaimed that they regarded like me with their tan and not less than one different white child who lamented their ghostly, pale complexion and wished they may tan.
Don’t get me began on these white individuals who frequent tanning salons. From my vantage level, it’s insane how a lot they’re prepared to pay to cook dinner and submerge themselves with dangerous chemical substances within the hopes that they find yourself two shades lighter than my Beyonce shade of Black.
All through my life, I’ve recognized different Black individuals, in addition to different individuals of shade, who had been taught to treat the solar as an enemy.
They had been informed to remain out of the solar in order that they wouldn’t get “too darkish.” To this present day, some BIPOC, notably ladies, purchase skin-bleaching lotions within the hope that their pores and skin will seem lighter.
Summer time for these folx couldn’t be the carefree season that different individuals loved as a result of their pores and skin shade was thought to be a curse.
My points with tanning: As an grownup, I by no means fail to see the audacity of those that disparage my pores and skin shade within the winter however covet it in the summertime. I additionally take into consideration the irony of those that seem like me going to nice lengths to keep away from tanning due to the pervasive anti-blackness in our society.
White individuals fetishizing Black pores and skin is extremely offensive as a result of I do know it’s not valued for its personal sake.
For white individuals, our pores and skin tones are a cool aesthetic that they’ll placed on and off on a whim. Tanning permits them to expertise the advantages of melanin with out the racism that comes with it. They’ll attempt on Black magnificence with out the Black trauma I’ve skilled for practically 54 years of my life.
White ladies stay cushioned of their racial privilege, however tanning permits them to have some “spice” of “unique” ladies. They’re nonetheless recognizable as white ladies, however they benefit from my tortured melanin.
One other situation I’ve with white individuals coveting tans is that they deal with them as disposable, notably the sort they spray on.
They’ve the privilege to decide on once they need to look white, and once they don’t. It’s triggering to me that they’ll scrub their pretend tans off within the bathe as a result of as a baby, I needed that I might scrub off my Beyonce tan. I didn’t see my pores and skin shade as one thing to be pleased with. I regarded it as a supply of disgrace.
In distinction to white individuals who covet my pores and skin tone this time of 12 months, my tan is everlasting and runs the danger of getting me killed. Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, and Sandra Bland are simply a number of of the quite a few Black individuals whose existence so threatened white individuals, in addition to white legislation enforcement, that they had been murdered.
How Black and brown pores and skin is commodified: White individuals are inclined to get defensive about tanning as a result of they regard it as a innocent technique to change up their seems to be. However subconsciously, going to nice lengths to alter their pores and skin shade is an indication of insecurity and self-hatred. Nonetheless, they aren’t informed such issues on account of their privilege.
On the identical time, a Black lady shopping for Porcelana to lighten her pores and skin tone is shamed and informed that doing so is the peak of self-hatred. In brief, white individuals reserve the proper to alter their pores and skin tone whereas BIPOC don’t as a result of Black and brown pores and skin is just acceptable on white our bodies.
The male-dominated magnificence business has commodified Black and brown pores and skin — pores and skin tones that traditionally have been demonized — and created insecurities in white ladies about their pale pores and skin. Then the business bought them the commodified pores and skin to repair the white lady’s downside that they created within the first place.
One solely wants to take a look at white celebrities like Ariana Grande and Kylie Jenner who’ve primarily based their careers on tanning to look “unique” to see how pervasive tanning has turn out to be. It’s extra profitable to faux to be Black or brown than to be Black or brown.
I take into account my Black pores and skin lovely at present, but it surely additionally harbors plenty of ache — one thing that no white particular person ever has to expertise.
Earlier than a white particular person goes to the seaside, the tanning salon, or sprays chemical substances on their pores and skin for a tan, I want they’d take into account how coveting and fetishizing Black and brown pores and skin impacts BIPOC.
They should sit on the truth that they’re supporting an business that commodifies and exploits my pores and skin tone — the identical one which these identical individuals vilify. In addition they want to think about that tanning reinforces the poisonous concept that your pores and skin shade must be modified to be acceptable.
Maybe, if we begin rejecting the concept our pores and skin shade must be modified, it’d go a great distance towards mitigating self-hatred in everybody.
Vena Moore is a author who lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her articles have been featured in Medium and The Good Males Mission.
This text was initially revealed at Medium. Reprinted with permission from the writer.
