We went to a GP, they put me on antihistamines, the reaction came down and I said to myself: “Brenda, you need to stop.” My family didn’t encourage skin bleaching. My mum sent me to a shop, a kid turned around to me and said, “Mum, is that a monster?” It was terrible, the worst experience of my life. My mum was like “Brenda, what happened to your face? Did you have an allergic reaction?” The bullying reached new levels.
“Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer”, that’s what they called me. So I was burnt black with an orange nose. The only thing that was light on my face was my nose. At the end of the month, I woke up one morning and I’d had the biggest breakout overnight: moon craters on my face. I was absent mindedly out in the playground all day and I used to sit by the window at school because the outside inspired me. I didn’t know that when you’re bleaching your skin, you are supposed to stay out of the sun unless you’ve got the highest SPF on. I would put loads on at night and before I headed out when my mum told me to cream my face. When everyone was sleeping, I put some on my face very quickly. To my nine-year-old self, this was a lightbulb moment, a call from God. My auntie was unpacking and she pulled out a cream that said ‘skin light’. I was nine when I did it (at the peak of the bullying). Skin bleaching is the use of a very invasive, unregulated product to change and alter your skin complexion to make it lighter. He often tells me “I don’t know what the issue was with those girls but they are rude.” It’s crazy how we were dealing with colourism so intensely at that young age. We even talk about it now because we’re still friends. Don’t listen to what anyone says about you.” I will never ever forget that letter. It said: “No matter your skin tone, no matter how dark you are, I still think you are the most beautiful girl in the world. It got so bad, they cornered me and were like, “you think you’re this and that.” and I never had the balls to tell them to shut the fuck up. They were like: “How can he like you, you’re so dark?” and “your teeth are like little bunny teeth!” because I had a little overbite. I had a chicken pox mark in the middle of my forehead that I still have and I was called “the dark skin bindi girl.” A cool, lighter skin boy liked me and caused a lot of hate in my direction. Bullying about my skin tone probably started at nine years old and it was actually by the lighter-skinned black girls at school. I’m from Ghana and I grew up in Hackney around a lot of aunties which exposed me to beauty and skin stuff. Here, London-based musician Bree Runway pens a first-person piece reflecting on her difficulties with being a dark-skinned black woman growing up and her experiences with colourism and skin bleaching.
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