Whitenicious: The Cost of Respecting the Hustle

Nigerian social media was up in flames last week over a controversial event that happened this past weekend. For those of you who have been living under a bit of a rock and have no clue what this is about, our very own Dencia was promoting her line of skin lightening cream in a store in Lagos. Or was it Abuja? Frankly, the place doesn’t really matter. If anything the place here is just another classic conundrum of whether Jonas swallowed the whale or the whale swallowed Jonas.

Like the first musketeer, as she walked around the venue hosting her event, Dencia had in tow the two other musketeers who also were there to grace the event with their “radiant” personalities; an American socialite, Humpty, and a rather convenient and obviously obvious Nigerian Dumpty.

And who are they you ask? The Kardashian nemesis Blac Chyna (not to be confused with African China) and the Nigerian poster boy/poster girl for lightening cream and Snapchat filters, Bobrisky.

Osheeey? Baddest!

So while Dencia, Akata Humpty and a rather shy Naija Dumpty were doing what they came to do (selling whitenicious and introducing African, sorry… Blac Chyna’s own line of Skin lightening cream), the rest of us were arguing and throwing punches over the whole affair. Well, I mostly watched the ear pulling, name-calling and (to some extent) barely-veiled threats over social media. Some of the threats coming from her radiance-in-chief herself, Dencia, as she swung a series of Damocles of lawsuits on Twitter in her Azealia Banks-inspired manner.

Now, for the enlightened people of social media that we are (no pun intended) we have surely had a few brushes with other people over a number of facets on skin lightening products and Whitenecious in particular. Each different facets of our online skirmishes representing different aspects such as the safety of the products, the marketing, the price, Dencia’s own intellectual dishonesty/honesty (depending on which side of the fence's grass you decide to pee on) and just generally the social construct and discussions it has evoked in the community of women, and to an extent, men of colour.

And the social issues are many; colourism, self-worth, mental slavery, colonial legacy, the perpetration of stereotypes against black women, white supremacy… you name it.

Now, personally, my thoughts on the issue are fairly straightforward. If I were asked to give a final solution to the problem, I would take the Mad King from King’s Landings route. If you did not catch that 'Game of Thrones' reference, I am simply saying I would ask them to "burn it all."

One of the most interesting internet meme/saying I have come across recently just came to mind. It says “Work hard so hard they cannot start a family meeting without you.” It is a saying that in a very shrewd way says how far we as a people have put money and influence above our self-worth, moral compass and ethical weight scales. I’m sure it is the same in every society but I think it is worse here because not only are people actually poor here but many, even when not poor, have a poverty mindset.

That is why you will see that Eto’o, despite the fact that he hung a whole generation of young people out to dry, still has an army of green berets defending him; their eyes fixed on a prize called Rihanna.

To come back to Dencia, I see parallels of the same thing happening. I can identify those comments, those examples online, and those choices of words that show that people are more interested in the fact that she is a self-made woman than in the nature of what she did to be self-made. And don’t get me wrong, I am talking about Whitenecious here precisely.

This choir of praise-singers in Tchiromaesque harmony are belting out a litany of arguments and counter-arguments all bound in a hymnbook that has written on its cover....

“Respect her Hustle”

But the question I ask today is; how much do I have to ignore a product to respect someone’s hustle? How much of a blindfold do I have to wear to respect Dencia’s hustle? How long, as a person, do I have to stand by and participate in this unfortunate circus?

At this point, it’s not even a debate on whether or not Whitenecious is a bleaching cream. It definitely is if you ask me. It may be marketed as a “spots remover for dark skin” but it has all the familiar symptoms of a bleaching cream. We all know that it transforms coffee into milk.

And I have heard her arguments on the issue. Strong arguments actually. She says it does not have hydroquinone (you might want to google that) or mercury and so it is safer than the other bleaching products ‘qu’on trouve bon marché à gauche à droite’ in dingy, old stalls in Marché Mokolo.

She also says Whitenecious is approved by the Food and Drug Administration of the U.S.A. Well, so are the products of MONSANTO.

Let’s assume that hers is risk-free; what about the women who cannot afford Dencia's and then go to Mokolo instead and end up with the coca-fanta version (wink wink). Is she cast in some absolution spell so far as this is concerned? Or are her actions subsumed like the other manufacturers in perpetuating the image of the white-black woman and by default inspiring these Mokolo women to buy products which turn their skin into the coca-fanta canvas we take delight in deriding?

So the question I ask again is how much of the hustle should I have to respect. Should I just have to sit down and clap because my sister has made it and is able to live in a mansion and drive exotic cars, and close my eyes to my other sisters who are affected in different ways by the product she sells?

Should I have to sit quietly and not say anything because the moment I do so in the comment section someone would call me a hater and under their comment put the picture of a guy lying on a dirty mattress with the caption “These Are The Haters That Talk About You Online.”

Should I, because of my financial disposition which may be dwarfed by hers keep quiet because hers is not a table I am not fit to sit on and so I should not be allowed to “shake” that proverbial table?

It may seem strange coming from me, a man. But I had a conversation about this with my sister just yesterday. And she told me about the insecurities that her friends have when it concerns skin colour.

So I really want to know because I have a lot of things to say about Whitenecious. I have not even scratched the surface yet. But I want to know how far I have to respect her hustle before I can speak my mind. I am asking for a friend.

- Wandji Wilfred.

*If you are asking these same questions, don't forget to share.