Skin Bleaching and Global White Supremacy: By Way of Introduction Yaba Amgborale Blay, PhD Lafayette College Co-editor of this Special Issue of the Journal of Pan African Studies, Yaba Amgborale Blay (
[email protected]) is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Lafayette College where she also teaches courses in Women's & Gender Studies. Her research interests include African cultural aesthetics and aesthetic practices, the politics of embodiment and Black identities, transnational skin bleaching, African feminist theory, and critical media literacy. Dr. Blay is the recipient of a 2010 Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant through which she will publish The Other Side of Blackness, a portrait documentary exploring the intersection of skin color politics and negotiations of Black identity. Abstract The cosmetic use of chemical agents to lighten the complexion of one’s skin, also referred to as skin whitening, skin lightening, and/or skin bleaching, is currently a widespread global phenomenon. While the history of skin bleaching can be traced to the Elizabethan age of powder and paint, in its current manifestations, skin bleaching is practiced disproportionately within communities “of color” and exceedingly among people of African descent. While it is true that skin bleaching represents a multifaceted phenomenon, with a complexity of historical, cultural, sociopolitical, and psychological forces motivating the practice, the large majority of scholars who examine skin bleaching at the very least acknowledge the institutions