June 21, 2009

Skin Bleaching Products Retake

Well that didn't take long. In a surprising twist, in my previous post someone didn't get it. It's a LIGHTNING ROUND, I ask the questions not you. I don't even feel like giving AR anymore of my abundant free time but I thought at least some of what was said deserved a semi serious answer, but why the fuck am I even explaining this? If you don't feel clueless, continue to play along!

So AR tries the lightning round and doesn't do too good. Comment in Italics, mine are regular.

Why do you seem to be upset at the store?

I don't recall being angry at the store. I'm angry at the product and the fact that it exists and the reasons why it exists. Please keep in mind for the duration of this post that I'm on the darker spectrum of blackness. And that I'm black.

If it is a bad idea to stock this, the store will find out soon enough.

See above comment. Also, they're probably already finding out considering that the section looked like it hadn't been touched except when I took a larger box of skin bleach and messed the section up because I like to do that. Yes I know I'm petty and I'm making someone's job hard.

Retailers keep track of per-item sales so closely that if nobody is buying these products, they'll be gone within a few weeks at the most.

*looks at nails, thinks about filing them* Oh did you say something? Oh...

If you go back in a month and it's still there, then you'll know somebody thinks they're worth something, in which case a store can hardly be faulted for providing the community what it wants.

You don't seem to be getting why "the community" might want these products in the first place. You sound clueless, are you clueless?

Let me shine a wee bit of light on this, from my perspective. The reason perms exist, for instance, for black hair, is to "relax" our natural hair and make it straight, thus aspiring to whiteness. The reason these skin bleaching products exist, ALL OVER THE WORLD, and APPEAL TO DARK COMPLECTED PEOPLE, is to make them FAIRER SKINNED. You can take that as a class issue, you can take that as a race issue, you can take it as both. Now maybe some folks do use them to even out their skin, I can relate as I have pretty uneven skin tone myself. And I'm sure that some folks also use tanning beds to cure acne.

Please note however that these are generalizations.

Also please add in that these products (skin bleaching) are harmful. They are not good for you and can fuck your shit up on a physical level, such as cancer, uh, burning your skin away, rashes, nice thing like that. All in the name of BLANCURA!

I'd expect nothing less from the retailers I deal with.

See above comment.

You do realize that the people who ultimately decide what gets put on store shelves is you, right?

Really I've just exhausted myself at this point, I just think you're funny. I'm sure you mean well and assume to teach the young whippersnapper a lesson but you're obviously new in my place.

Companies don't casually stock whatever they feel like; it's all a numbers game based on what people are actually moving from shelf to checkout counter.

Okay now I just want you to be quiet.

Why was this is in the black hair care aisle, in a store in a mostly black (upper middle class) neighborhood?


A better question might be, why is there even a black hair care aisle in a mostly black community? Wouldn't black hair care in that context just be "hair care?"

Because I said mostly black, not all black. Think on it...think on it--okay okay there's white people in this neighborhood too.

AR you gave it a good go but your answers were just inadequate.

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