Before and after pictures of Ghana's Most Beautiful pageant winner (2009) Miriam Abdul Rauf, popularly known as Nasara. She says she sees nothing wrong with bleaching her skin.

I must have been about 10 years old when I first became aware of different shades of Black. I remember my mum asking me, “Why do you have so many half-caste  friends?” From that moment my younger self started to become aware that some of my friends were fair.
“Ei! Obaa K⊃k⊃⊃” said Paa Kwesi to me as he took a seat on my left hand side.  He was referring to my friend who sat on my right hand side. She is of Ghanaian, Italian and African American heritage. Obaa K⊃k⊃⊃, a light skinned woman. Paa Kwesi was saying so little yet so much. I could hear the admiration thick in his voice. On that occasion, my friend and I were attending a business-networking event at the Movenpick Hotel. Paa Kwesi and I were regulars at that event so I knew him well.  On another occasion I went to Luscious Temptations at the A & C mall in Accra with the same friend. A man at the bar kept trying to get her attention. “Tcheww. He’s only trying to get my attention because I’m mixed race and he thinks I’m cheap,” she said.

I must have been about 10 years old when I first became aware of different shades of Black. I remember my mum asking me, “Why do you have so many half-caste (1) friends?” From that moment my younger self started to become aware that some of my friends were fair (2). The difference in how ‘fair’ girls are perceived did not dawn on me until my 20s when I lived in London. I noticed that on night outs, the light-skinned girls tended to attract [sometimes unwanted] male attention more frequently than their dark-skinned sisters. Around the same time that as this realisation, my [male] flat mate explained his attraction to light-skinned women, “they are bright, you can see them from a distance.” * cue awkward silence*

Even today in my 30s I still remember that question my mum asked me so many years ago. Sometimes I mentally tally up my friends and count how many dark-skinned and light skinned friends I have. I think back to how my friendships with my light skinned friends developed? I ask myself, who initiated the friendship? I’m relieved when I remember that it’s almost always the other party. I want to be sure that I’m not unconsciously the colour struck child I may have been.  Despite this, I never speak about colour. The politics of colourism never comes up even with those sisters with whom I discuss the politics of everything under the sun. For a fleeting moment I wondered if it was an ‘African thing’, perhaps we are more aware and accepting of the diversity of Black skin. But I know that’s just me living in Utopia.