After reading more of these responses it pains me that a very common, reasonable, and natural idea has been regarded as sick, silly, ridiculous, and ignorant.

While I understand where these feelings come from- I ask kindly that you all check your demeaning responses and understand who you are condemning in them.

If its the "White" man that we have to thank for these ideas- then it is apparently stupid Africans who fall for it.

I flatly deny the idea that my people are categorically gullible and I warn you that our people are capable of thinking such things well enough on their own and from the examples Ive given you must admit that they had good practical reasons to make these conclusions.

Im disappointed that despite the facts that precede our common knowledge of this condition- we allow ourselves to say that the "white" man had such a magnanimous power over our people that he fostered our very self-perception, we try to oppose this condition and its misrepresented origins in denouncing anything that it might engender- thinking to ourselves that light skinned women arent beautiful after all, we go above and beyond our own personal prefernces and respecting the preferences of others to ingratiate this poor notion of saying and thinking whats "right"- even when its based on claims that the "white" man did it and thats just not true.


My point is - say what you will about this product or its overtones but lets not make this an issue of racial oppression cuz the roots of these ideas are sprouting in our own back yard. Sure the "white" man, media, and industry capitalizes on our own insecuirty but its grossly negligent to conclude that they have fostered that insecurity- in any case it won amount to a solution.
If "White" people didnt do it- we'd do it to ourselves, I suggest we be more concerned about that.


K