“Later, I took arsenic – tablets that I swallowed to keep me fair, bleached white as stone.” – pg. 20
This particular quote struck a chord with me the first time I read it and it still does as I type it. The sentiment that black women are only valid if they have lighter skin is still present in today’s society and is taken to lengths that are almost as extreme. Skin bleaching is common in darker skinned women in Jamaica and darker skin women are seen as less desirable, even by men of the same skin tone. There are even Photoshop apps that allow one to lighten one’s skin. It’s sickening.
Although, light skin isn’t made a spectacle or fetishized as openly as it was in the time Ophelia was written, but it shows how humanity hasn’t changed much in all this time. The times have changed to be more accepting, yes. But there’s still the inherent urge to place one higher than the other. In the beginning of the collection, Ophelia compares herself to the darker skinned black women, and it’s a common theme throughout the book that lighter skin is better than darker. People even go as far as trying to find the dark skin underneath the light of all the workers in the brothel.
There’s not much more I can say on the topic without being more repetitive than I feel I have been.