Ian Thomson

Time to lighten up

Her much-hyped Brit(ish) is in many ways an admirable guide to our mixed-race nation. But it’s a penance to read

issue 10 February 2018

In parts of Africa and the West Indies women are so anxious to ‘whiten up’ that they use skin-lightening creams. The British writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch sees this as a regrettable consequence of the aristocracy of skin colour as instituted by British merchant-capitalists during slavery. (Skin must first be bleached before it can be considered beautiful.)

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