The Reverse Tan

If you're of a certain age, I'm sure you can agree that one of the most surreal pop culture moments of the 1980's had to be the release of Michael Jackson's 'BAD'. Prior to it dropping there had been rampant speculation that Jackson had decided to retire young, but that was obviously untrue. He was back in the game and staring at us from the cover of his latest album - albeit with a new and different look.

I was just a kid at the time, so it was really hard for me to make sense of exactly what the fuck was going on. Who was this beautiful white woman on the cover of 'BAD' and what did she have to do with Michael?

Looking back now, I feel sorry for my parents. I'm sure they never signed up for having to explain that shit to me. Eventually I came to understand that Michael WAS the beautiful white woman and that magic was real. To this day there are no definitive answers about what exactly Michael did to alter his appearance over the years, though now that he's dead it seems everyone has decided to agree he had vitiligo and we should let everything questionable about his life slide.

So, the King is dead - but LONG LIVE THE MOTHERFUCKING KING! Check this shit out:

North American music fans most likely know Vybz Kartel for his collaborative efforts with Diplo and Switch on their Major Lazer project. What you probably didn't know is that Kartel, who is naturally a negro of the darkest hue, has been bleaching his skin to achieve the grayish living-dead effect pictured above. Here's a statement he made to the press explaining his new look:

 Dancehall singer Vybz Kartel has significantly lightened his skin…a move he equates to white people going tanning! “This is my new image,” Kartel said in a recent interview. “You can expect the unexpected. I feel comfortable with black people lightening their skin. They want a different look. It’s tantamount to white people getting a sun tan.” (from: here)

Kartel's defense is interesting; 'It's tantamount to white people getting a sun tan'. Okay, but if that's the case then why all the outrage from the Black Community™? The most common explanation goes as follows:

When white people go to get a tan their goal is to darken their complexion, but this does not mean that they actually want to be black. No one in their sane, white mind would hop on to a tanning bed if they thought that when they hopped off they would come out looking like Bernie Mac (RIP). The only thing white people are hoping to accomplish by tanning is a slight modification to their complexion, not their racial identity.

On the flip, it has been argued that any attempt by a person of colour to lighten their complexion necessarily means that they want to disassociate themselves from their race. As such Kartel is viewed as a race traitor - someone who doesn't want to be black anymore.

There are more complex, old-school explanations of this existential phenomenon available from the likes of Frantz Fanon, but discussing them here would give me such severe 4th year university flashbacks I would have an anxiety attack that could only be cured by spending the remainder of my day sucking on a very tightly packed bong.

If you feel like you have something enlightening to contribute (attn: iwontslowdown; show us all the light), please do so in the comments.

Does bleaching your skin mean that you hate yourself?
Does bleaching necessarily mean that you don't want to be black anymore?
Does bleaching affect your ability to dunk?

I would be especially eager to hear from the 5 black people who read StreetCarnage on whether or not it is in fact possible to 'reverse tan'.