||How do you tell your teenage self to stop drinking those bottles of bleach?||
The lacerations left behind by Dove’s latest racist ad campaign
Slices its way through layers of caramel and chocolate skin.
And apologies may be made,
We did not endeavour hate
But this nation knows all too well of e m p t y apologies to
People of Colour.
‘The diversity of real beauty is core to our beliefs’
But this core is only skin deep
This core is the rotten apples laced with poisoned tongues
Words washed away with the same soap used to
Scrub away atour skin.Have you heard of ‘Nulla Nulla’ soap
It was‘Australia’s white hope’
Soap scrubbed the black from this nation’s skin
Through ethnic cleansing we’ve killed our kin.
The white dove sneers at us as though we’re pigeons
Claims‘This is diversity’
When all we feel is adversity
Dove’s corporate cousin Fair and lovely
Stocks supermarket shelves across the globe.There is nothing
fairin genocide nothingfairin the racial barometer that determines
who is worthy and who is not nothingfairin claims to crack through coconut husk skin to
ooze the white that lies inside nothingfairin the hands that tan in the sun squeezing the
bottles of bleach upon our skin.Sun kissed s e a s of the Philippines
Cascade every colour under the sun
Yet every billboard on every road
Lacks the magandang morena girl
So I ask youWhat the Beckery is this shit?
How are we so complacent to this?
Leaving the white prints on our face
From those who tried to slap us into place
This skin is not mud splashed on our faces
From the stomping feet of the conquistador
This skin is not yours to fetishise
This skin is not yours to demoralise
We will decolonise and moisturiseThis Skin Does Not Come Off
And I am tired of always being a dark cascade to a sea of twinkling white stars.
But there’s no market for your type your face and words are all the same
I’m sure we did all we could do to try and acknowledge youYet somehow,
When Rihanna released 40 shades in her foundation collection
New faces entered Sephora’s reflections
Hoping to get a better inspection
Of colours that matched to our complexion
After years of beauty counter retrospection
Scanning colour palettes with circumspection
Hand and product made no connection
Hearts pumped blood laced with dejection
Of an entire industry’s outright rejection
Of usIt feels like colour correction
When you are shade twenty-one
Instead of the only one
Who wriggles their way
Into whatever shade of tan they have available that day.
It feels like antiseptic for the lacerations that seek to drain
The melanin from our skin.It feels like hands r e a c h i n g out to teenage girls
Pulling the white masks off of their faces
And crying,My darling,
You are magandang morena,
A beautiful brown skinned girl
You need not drink
Those bottles of bleach
Anymore.
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones