Experts routinely issue warnings, via newspapers and the electronic media, but it is as if some people do not read or listen to anything that is beneficial to themselves and those close to them.
People have a natural tendency towards self-destruction, according to psychologists. This maxim is amply demonstrated by the way some of our people use products that are known to be a threat to their health.
Experts routinely issue warnings, via newspapers and the electronic media, but it is as if some people do not read or listen to anything that is beneficial to themselves and those close to them.
That skin lightening creams are so dangerous that they can even lead to liver damage is information that has being trumpeted since the 1960s. In those days, many women--and a few men, mainly the art and fashion industries--considered a light complexion the epitome of beauty. The craze is still with us and even among the educated elite, who should know better.
What baffles the anti-skin lightening camp is the fact that there are people in our midst with ruined faces which everybody, excluding the blind, should be able to attribute to bleaching. Yet the dangerous “beauty” products remain popular. Who says seeing is believing?
This is why we consider futile the efforts of our drugs control agency, the Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA). Over the years, the agency has seized and destroyed counterfeit and dangerous products. But crooked traders continue to import cosmetics and even high risk foods that they peddle to unsuspecting buyers. We could put it this way: They are fooling the government, which has banned the products, and they even get to make a profit. But who are the users of the deadly merchandise fooling?
“Beauty” fanatics
What disturbs us is that, even when--thanks to TFDA--the dangerous cosmetics get scarce, creative “white is beauty” fanatics concoct their own creams using corrosive materials, including caustic soda and acid. There are people out there who will do anything to get rid of their beautiful black skin.
We appreciate the efforts TFDA is making to inspect pharmacies and shops and seize and destroy dangerous cosmetics, but we need to spend more energy educating the people on the dangers of the products they take for granted.
It will not be easy since it has become clear that many of our people are ready to do anything, irrespective of the dangers, to attain the skin colour of their dream. As they put it, damn the consequences!
Why do we not revisit the catchphrases of the late 1960s to the 1970s that were popularised by American musicians like James Brown, to reclaim black pride?
Let’s hear our Bongo Flava artistes offer home-grown renditions of the 1968 hit song, “Say it loud, I’m black and proud!”
In neighbouring Kenya, they are using Lupita Nyong’o, Oscar winner of Best Supporting for her role in the 2013 Film 12 Years a Slave, to encourage people to stop using skin lighteners.
Ms Nyong’o, who is as dark as they come, was voted the Most Beautiful Woman in 2014 by the American magazine “People”.
We have our Tanzanian international models, Miriam Odemba and Flavian Matata, plus music diva Lady Jaydee, who are also dark and beautiful. Let’s challenge them to set up a major crusade against lightening creams.
