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Proud negritude is turned into an obsession to whiten in several parts of Africa, especially Central Africa, and among black women in the Western parts of the United States. According to the BBC, half of the feminine population of Mali is using creams to bleach their skin. The phenomenon affects all social classes. Also poor women in Mali are set to use these "miracle creams", and if they do not have the means to afford products holding international standards, they buy creams burning the skin whiter and significantly increasing the risks of skin cancer. Legally, these "beauty" products obligatory should be marked with "guaranteed without hydroquinon" as this chemical product caused a health scandal some years ago for its damage to the human skin, more concrete, it was proven to cause cancer. Hydroquinon is still allowed in Europe, if used in a concentration below 2 percent, but is totally prohibited in many countries, such as in Southern Africa. The Malian government has been directing campaigns against this undesired expression of modernity, spreading "like an epidemic", but has been unable to influence the country's women, turning more and more to the bleaching creams to raise their social status. The practice has become so normal that women not bleaching their skin are exposed to criticism or even discriminated, demonstrating the strong, globalised message that "the white is good (beauty, power, status ...), the black is not". Especially in Sahelian countries such as Mali and Mauritania, skin colour is connected to status or even to the more ancient notion of free and slave. Bleaching their skin, women can climb the social ladder based on these traditions. However, European influence, through colonialism, modern class differences and not the least marketing, has made the black-white / failure-success division broader. This is noted even stronger by black women outside Africa, where discrimination can be far more outspoken and aggressive. Other explanations to the hunger for
bleaching creams are that it is simply a trend of beauty. Like many
American and European women are obsessed by their weight or wrinkles, an
obsession in Central and West Africa is skin colour. "The trend may
have started through racist ideas, but I do not think most women are
conscious about that," Yamira Demba told afrol News.
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