Dark-skinned beauty queen lights hearts

Last weekend, the social media took a break from court files and armchair legal analyses and instead illumed on a dark skin. It is the weekend that a young beauty, Ms Sarah Pkyach, clinched Miss Tourism Kenya 2018 title.

Well, of course beauty has charmed mankind and enthused poets and poetic lines for ages.

So it was only natural, keeping with tradition, that folks drooled on the news of a new crown beauty in town.

But it is the fabled matter of colouration that appeared to have thrilled the Internet. It came, it seems, as a sweet surprise to most online commentators that the new beauty queen was not light-skinned – as generally expected – but tanned.

Indeed, a few online photos of Ms Pkyach are stunning. She is the new epitome of beauty — her ebony skin glows and oozes authenticity.

In one picture, Mr Ababu Namwamba seems to touch the gorgeous skin and gaze at her arm.

IMPERIALISM

Typically, society, thanks to movies, the fashion industry and commercials, has largely been conditioned, erroneously though, that beauty is in the lighter shade.

This perversion of truth amplified further by European colonialism where white skin is extolled as almighty, has pitilessly warped the psychological disposition of most, especially women.

For the light skin, the social construct of beauty, the colour has given them a psychological boost and even a sense of entitlement to some extent.

For the dark-skinned ones, it has produced an inferiority complex that is esteem shattering.

But, no, the skin complex issue is not just an Africa burden. In Asia, countries such as India and Pakistan, women are chasing the tube, the pill and the jab to whiten their skins.

VIEWS

Multinational cosmetic industries are registering thunderous business as a result.

Well, while beauty, as Margaret Wolfe rightly noted in Molly Bawn, is in the eye of the beholder, still, to some degree, beauty, we our perceptions have framed, is in the shade of the skin colour. And those trapped in melanin are panicking — for nothing.

That is why social and psychological complexities of skin colour have also manufactured an imbalanced society that is fairly prejudicial to the dark skin.

Lighter folks, wide-ranging research shows, enjoy preferential treatment.

They are perceived to be generally good-hearted, innocent, and they also are likely to get opportunities such as employment, pay rise, or promotion.

They are also likely to be given second chances as opposed to their darker counterparts.

STEREOTYPES

That is not enough. It is in the dating zone that the colour of skin seems to trouble most young women.

While the cliché goes that men can be “tall, dark and handsome”, whatever the latter two mean, it appears the light-skinned women get more attention.

Cultural products — movies, magazines, commercials also tell us that it is the light-skinned girl that gets most dated and is likely to be more successful.

And the stereotypes we have generated about skin tone feed the monster that is the multibillion-dollar skin-bleaching industry juggernaut.

A while ago, a report from Global Industry Analysts predicted that by 2020 skin lightening cosmetic industry would be worth a whooping $23 billion.

Interestingly, even though women lighten their skins due to perceived societal pressures, those who do that are quickly ridiculed.

Mr Wamanji is Public Relations and Communication adviser; [email protected]; twitter @manjis