People with darker skin tones are known to age more gracefully than those of lighter skin tones. The saying “black don’t crack” is the adage that summarizes this “truth.” It wasn’t until I saw Bill Burr’s bit on using lotionthat I realized that this myth is harmful. In his special, You People Are All The Same, he says:
“you don’t need a face lift. Lay off the booze, do some cardio, moisturize…Don’t believe in these myths. ‘Black don’t crack’ its bullshit. They all put lotion on every 20 minutes during the day.”
He is totally right. “Black don’t crack” is indeed bullshit because it implies that there is something inherent in black skin that prevents the visible effects of aging. This adage is dangerous because it reinforces the idea that black skin is somehow thicker, stronger, and more resilient than other skin tones—thus, implying that black skin needs less care while lasting longer. It is true that melanin provides more protection from the sun which delays signs of aging. And at the same time, this phrase obfuscates the time, effort and care that black women have put into the maintenance of their skin.
I worry about phrases that celebrate blackness on the surface, but in reality isolate blackness or melanin from the body. “Black don’t crack,” “melanin rich,” “highly melaninated,” and yes even “black is beautiful,” are other phrases that concern me. In general, when we isolate a part of ourselves, we risk turning those parts into objects. To unpack this further, I want to turn to something Glennon Doyle said on her podcast, We Can Do Hard Things. In the episode titled “Don’t tell Glennon to Love Her Body” she says,
“loving my body presupposes that my body is not me. It is other than me. It is the object. If I am loving my body, if I am having a relationship with my body, I am already objectifying my body. I am the subject. My body is the object.”
Glennon has essentially described how we objectify ourselves. The moment we separate our bodies from ourselves, we turn our bodies into objects that become the recipients of feelings. The same is true when we isolate our blackness from ourselves. When we isolate our blackness using words like “melanin” we turn our blackness into an object that is outside of ourselves. This isolation reifies a very old, belief that inferiority and blackness are inextricable from one another. In her book Venus Noir, Dr. Robin Mitchel writes that
“nineteenth-century science emphasized race itself as the cause of black inferiority. Moreover, because race was biologically determined, inferiority was an inherent characteristic.”
Although the language of “melanin” and “blackness” is meant to be celebratory, they are unintentionally validating the idea that there is something inherently inferior in blackness that then needs to be celebrated and reclaimed.
While I understand these sayings are created as a form of self-empowerment and function as a restoration of dignity — one must never forget that dignity is closely tied to the experience of humiliation. In an ethnographic study of Cape Town, Steffen Jensen explores the role of dignity in poor communities. He writes,
“Dignity only becomes an issue in the moment of humiliation, and it did not exist independently of humiliation” (10).
He points out that dignity is a response to humiliation. Being dignified cannot exist outside of being humiliated. The fact that we isolate blackness and explicitly celebrate it, tells me that we are unconsciously trying to dignify a part of ourselves that has been the basis of humiliation. Indeed, black women have been humiliated on the basis of our skin color and gender. One needs to look no further than the imagery created of Sara Bartman to see the seeds of this humiliation.
Okay — I know it may seem like I’ve gone on a tangent. What I am trying to explain is that I understand the need to celebrate the very thing that has been used to humiliate us. I understand the desire to revel in being black. But I also want to caution ourselves away from reaffirming harmful ideologies. A-Beauty becomes a unique place to practice the restoration of dignity through skincare without objectifying our blackness through harmful langue. Naming our skincare practices and explaining them allows us to share our culture. A-Beauty gives us an opportunity to celebrate ourselves and invites others to celebrate our culture with us.
What are you thoughts on A-Beauty? Let me know!
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