"The body is always in relation to other beings and the world"
Jayna Brown, author of Babylon Girls and Black Utopias
“I will murder you if you cheat on me with a white woman,” she said jokingly, but something about her eyes told him it was a serious threat. After a brief pause, they both let out a boisterous laugh. “Just don’t do it.” Her laughter could not prevent the memory that boiled up alongside the joke.
When she was little, her favorite pastime was going to the beauty supply store with her mom. The smell of hair products and gels, the narrow aisle packed tight with bundles and jars and clips and … all of it. It was like a toy store to her. When she went inside, she came out with a vision of beauty.
Tackling her mane was always at the forefront of her mind because managing her crown was everything. But on one particular trip, she stumbled upon a section containing racks and racks of skin bleaching products. She was fascinated. She didn’t know it was a thing.
When she got home, she researched it. It was easy to change her complexion, she learned. All it took was about $10 and a dedicated routine. There were so many brands to choose from. The Caro White cream that you could apply nightly. Idole kojic acid soap bars. Lemonvate serums. If you didn’t have $10 dollars, YouTube offered plenty of home recipes, like scrubs made from turmeric and lemon. Still, she was hesitant to make them, for fear that her mother would eventually notice the missing ingredients.
So she decided to save up the money she got in her birthday cards, a few dollars here and there, and keep the change when her mother gave her $5 to go into the store and pick up something small. Money that would go unnoticed. It wasn’t much, but what else could a 10 year old muster?
Eventually she saved enough, she was giddy. She eagerly tucked the money into one of her play purses and waited for the next trip to the beauty store with her mom. Upon that next trip, she had a mission. She bolted towards that aisle chock-full of skin bleaching products. Within moments of them walking in the door she had grabbed one of the Caro White bars. She sneakily ran to the counter, paid for it, and stuck it into her purse. Her mother, who was shopping through the aisle for a new tub of Cantu, was oblivious.
When she got home, she immediately ran to the bathroom and turned on the shower, despite it being 3PM on a Saturday. As she waited for the water to get hot, she unboxed the soap. The sickly orange bar smelled sharp and acrid, with a hint of a flowery perfume. While she scrubbed her skin in the steaming hot shower the smell slowly filled the entire bathroom. When she got out of the shower, she scrutinized her skin. It was raw and red but didn’t appear lighter. No change, she thought to herself. But, she remembered, the box warned her it would take multiple usages to uncover her new, improved, and lighter self.
So she tucked the soap bar back behind a bottle of Dove body wash in the shower and resolved to use it daily, and to monitor how her skin changed over time. Every time she took a shower, she’d gently tuck it back into its hiding place.But what to do with the box? She panicked–if she were to put it in the trash, her mother might discover it, read its skin lightening promises, and pity her. Until she could take out the trash herself, she felt a strong urge to keep it, not only because it had instructions on it, but it had served as a reminder of what she had purchased. She took the box and buried it under a pile of stuffed animals in her room.
Every so often, she would check to make sure it was still there, until one day she forgot to check. It seemed to have just disappeared, alongside her memory of what possessed her to scrub her skin until that bar reached its bare bones. She hadn’t thought of that box in years. So while they laughed at her off-handed comment, her mind drifted towards its location. This was a memory no white girl could have.
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