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developed” (See www.blackskinlightening.com). Ads use copy such as, “reveal your natural beauty” (See www.fixderma.com/face.html) to appeal to consumers’ need to feel like their achieved light skin is theirs by birthright. One of the most controversial celebrity endorsements came in 2007 when mega-successful Bollywood actor, Shah Rukh Khan endorsed the skin-lightening product, “Fair and Handsome.” Created by the British company, Unilever, and marketed as the masculine companion product to best-selling Fair and Lovely, Fair and Handsome became the first major skin-lightening product mass-marketed exclusively to men. Khan’s endorsement was read by the Indian public as an endorsement of skin-bleaching itself and as an endorsement of a strongly colorbased system of privilege in India (Parameswaran & Cardoza, 2009). Similarly, U.S. baseball star Sammy Sosa, originally of the Dominican Republic, recently attracted international media attention when he appeared at the Latin Grammy Awards with notably lighter skin than he had during his career in Major League Baseball (Mitchell, 2009). Sosa has suggested that he is negotiating an endorsement deal with the cosmetic company that manufactured his skinlightening cream (which he has refused to name in public) (Mitchell, 2009). His de facto celebrity endorsement of skin-bleaching elicited significant feedback including a televised ridiculing from former NBA basketball star, Charles Barkley. Despite the media furor, Sosa’s actions reinforce the idea that skinbleaching is a mainstream route to building racial capital. Skin-bleaching products are marketed in a number of ways and with a variety of different product names. In some countries “bleaching” carries a negative stigma so products are marketed instead as skin-evening creams, skinlighteners, skin-brighteners, skin-whiteners, skin-toners, fading creams, or fairness creams. Despite these euphemisms, the names of the products themselves are often overt and clear about the intended outcomes. The following is a small sampling of skin-whitening products marketed around the globe at a variety of price ranges: Porcelana’s Skin-Lightening Cream, Cosmetic Surgeon in a Jar’s Illuminator Brightening Complexion, Darphin’s Clear White Brightening and Soothing Serum, Sekkisei’s White Powder Wash, Fair and White’s So White! Skin Perfector Brightening Cream, Clinique’s DermaWhite, Shisheido’s White Lucent, Loreal’s White Perfect, Ambi Fade Cream, and India’s best-selling Fair & Lovely (for women) and Fair & Handsome (for men) are all readily available in shops around the globe. 149 The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol. 4, no. 4, June 2011 The names of these products reveal the racial hierarchies in which they are situated. The majority of skin-lightening products use the word “white” in their name. This practice reveals the strong desire by consumers to achieve aesthetic whiteness, if not a white identity. The racial capital of whiteness is now something consumers can buy. It is not necessarily the case that consumers of skin-whitening products want to be white per se, but the huge demand for these products suggests that many people want to look white, or at least light, relative to other people in their racial or ethnic group. Scholars have established that there are many motivating factors for bleaching, including trying to attract a spouse, increased job market competitiveness, higher self-esteem, and even fashion (Blay, 2009; Fokuo, 2009; Charles, 2009b). Although skin-bleachers’ motivations cannot summarily be characterized as “wanting to be white,” much of the motivation to whiten takes places in a larger context of white supremacy. It is the global context of white supremacy that I am investigating in this article and how it shapes a growing market for the purchase of racial capital. The global context of white supremacy is so insidious that many bleaching creams are marketed with the word “white” in their names or product descriptions. Products are also available in a variety of price ranges from a few cents per ounce to over one hundred U.S. dollars per ounce. In addition to these more expensive products created by multinational cosmetics companies, many small mom-and-pop vendors offer local products in informal markets throughout the Global South and in smaller markets catering to immigrant communities in the West. These products, often created and sold outside of formal regulatory channels, frequently contain active ingredients illegal in many nations, or legal chemicals in illegal doses (Mire, 2005). Many skin-whitening products with dangerous chemical ingredients are manufactured in Europe or the United States, sent to Nigeria, and then distributed throughout Africa in both formal and informal markets (Barnett & Smith, 2005). The bleaching products often make their way back to Europe and the United States for sale to the African and Asian immigrant communities there (Barnett & Smith, 2005). The Public Health Discourse: A Missed Opportunity In response to the growing numbers of women and men using skinbleaching creams in Africa and throughout the Diaspora, many governments have spoken out through their ministers of health to dissuade people from using the products. Often leading government officials will release a formal statement, hold 150
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