‘Instead, your beauty should consist of your true ‘Inner-self,’ the ageless beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of the greatest value in God’s sight,’ 1Peter 3:4.
Beauty in a man or a woman is moral excellence.
It is made up of three things: integrity (honesty), self-confidence (applied faith in God and in yourself) and a pleasant personality (positive mental attitude).
Integrity comes from a Latin word integritas for purity or moral uprightness.
For example, in March 1963, in the USA, the founder of Ebony Magazine, African-American John Johnson, used the boxing rising star at that time – Muhammad Ali – then known as Cassius Marcellus Clay, to show to others as an example of beauty.
He wrote ‘Cassius Marcellus Clay is a blast furnace of racial pride. He is a pride that would never mask itself with skin-lightening creams and processed hair, with memories of a million little burns’.
What John Johnson called skin-lightening creams and processed hair in 1963 has seriously challenged the concept of beauty in Africa and its Diaspora today in the 21st Century.
There is even a new term coined, ‘Afro-peans,’ when in fact beauty is supposed to be better understood than it was 52 years ago in1963.
In South Africa in 2012, the University of Cape Town conducted a research study in which it was found that 30 per cent of the people who participated in the study used skin-lightening creams because they wanted ‘white skin’.
Dr Davids, the senior researcher of the research team said the dangers of some skin-lightening creams included blood cancers such as leukemia and cancers of the liver and kidneys as well as a severe skin condition called Ochronosis, a form of hyper-pigmentation which causes the skin to turn a dark purple shade.
He also added that, ‘Very few people in South Africa and Africa know the concentration of the toxic compounds that are contained in the products on the black market, and that is concerning. We need to do more to educate people about these dangerous products…I am getting patients from all over Africa needing help with treating their Ochronosis. There is very little we can do to reverse the damage and yet people are still in denial about the side effects of these products’.
In the Caribbean Islands, Dr Neil Persadsingh, a leading Jamaican dermatologist and author of the book Acne in Black Women, observes that ‘Some of these creams work by killing melanin, the substance that lends its pigmentation and protects the skin from the cancer-causing ultraviolet rays of the sun…The preparations contain large amounts of hydroquinone—a white crystalline de-pigmenting agent that is fatal in large concentrations. Victims will suffer from nausea, shortness of breath, convulsions and delirium.
‘Damage to the skin-wrinkles, severe acne, marks—may be permanent after prolonged use. Some of the products contain steroids and hydroquinone which are mutagenic. This means they can cause changes in the body that lead to cancer.
‘Many users find their skin gradually becoming darker when they stop using the chemicals, and some develop a scaly layer on their skin. Few return to their original skin color once they have used skin-lighters…The prolonged and continued use of these creams will lead to a face looking like a crater…
‘When we are faced with this type of damage, there is nothing that we can do except to advise the patient to live with their condition.’
In Zambia in 2012, Dr Aggrey Mweemba, the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) Head of Renal Unit and Ministry of Health Focal Point Person for kidney diseases in Zambia said ‘The longer one uses skin-lightening products, the more likely the adverse effects would manifest…The wrong belief and perception that light skin is associated with success, prestige, beauty, and envy may attract individuals to start using lightening products, especially young women.’
On the cause of this distorted belief about beauty in Africa and its Diaspora, psychologists say reasons why people bleach their skin include low self-esteem and self-hate.
Research studies in Africa and its Diaspora have found that the origin of this belief is linked to Africa’s colonial and slave history where white skin was presented as the epitome of beauty.
In his book The Africans, David Lamb says ‘The colonialists left behind some schools and roads, some post offices and bureaucrats. But their cruelest legacy on the African continent was a lingering inferiority complex, a confused sense of identity.
‘After all, when people are told for a century that they are not as clever as their masters, they eventually start to believe it’.
Remember, you can only change that which you recognise.
The mind does not differentiate between what is real and what is imagined, or between what is true and what is false as long as it is mixed with your emotions of belief and conviction.
The mind will diligently proceed to transform it into its equivalent physical reality in your life. For instance, a lie that is accepted ultimately becomes the truth.
Dr Phil McGraw in his outstanding book Self Matters: Creating Yourself from the Inside Out writes ‘Given enough time, we soon treat a profoundly faulty perception as normal. Pound people with enough data, enough input, and you can convince almost anybody of almost anything. We have seen dramatic examples of this throughout history: brainwashing in prisoner camps, indoctrination into cults… People young and old, smart and dumb, sophisticated or not, have had their views, their realities, their values altered by a relentless deluge of data…The most powerful “brain-washer” you will ever encounter is you’.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle a long time ago said ‘We are what we repeatedly do’.
Anthony Robbins writes ‘You and I can condition any behavior within ourselves if we do it with enough repetition and emotional intensity’.
To re-introduce beauty in Africa and its Diaspora, one must first know who one really is.
A child of the Almighty God created in his image and likeness.
That is, God and you share the same DNA.
If God is an ocean of water, you are a cup of water and both of you contain the same chemical properties of water of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen.
The only difference between God and you is size or volume.
Therefore, you have within you divine power with which to overcome any challenge in your life and become who you were really created to be.
This divine power within you is your divinity (providence good will); genius (mind knowledge); creativity (seeing similarities between and among different things): talent (the best for which you were created); and application (action).
Imitation is limitation
Mahatma Gandhi said ‘Imitation is the sincerest flattery…The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity’.
African-American and life-coach Lisa Nichols of USA inspires many people in Africa and its Diaspora when she says ‘I got into many relationships expecting my partner to show me beauty, because I did not see my own beauty. When I was growing up, my heroes or my she-roes were the Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman, and Charlie Angels. And while they are wonderful, they did not look like me. It was not until I fell in love with Lisa—I fell in love with my black skin, my full lips, my round hips, my curly black hair—it was not until that happened that the rest of the world was able to fall in love with me as well’.
Knowing your own identity creates a foundation for your personality.
It is far much easier to accept who you really are than to deny it.
In both Africa and its Diaspora, so much damage in the mind has been done for so much a long time and inherited that now it demands a major attitudinal and behavioral shift of so much magnitude.
The good news is that it is so much possible through so much carefully-targeted and creative positive mind-set change strategies.
You must first put yourself in order before you can expect to succeed in your life.
Research evidence on beauty and self-esteem indicates that beautiful people, men and women, with integrity, self-confidence and attractive and pleasant personality are more likely to succeed in life than other people.
Live your divine-self and let your natural beauty shine from within you to succeed in your life. The author is a motivational mentor and consultant in positive mind-set change. Email: positivemindpower1511@yahoo.com.