Despite the power of colourism, albinism contradicts the privileges of light skin, so when is it deemed too fair?
Albinos are renowned for their porcelain pale skin, golden blonde hair and luminous light eyes. On paper, this description is synonymous with the beauty standard that once dominated the Western world and then transcended the West to influence the South. Women of colour with dark features have constantly been fed beauty ideals revolving around light features, and those who won the genetic lottery and possess such have been privileged. So why are women with albinism excluded from this privilege and alienated for their features?
This paradox reflects how far behind we are in accepting rarity and disability.
Stigma to strength
“Identity crisis for me was like I was conflicted at a time because I didn’t know if I was a white woman or if I was black,” says Marvalyn Green, a 35-year-old albinism advocate from Birmingham who cultivated strength from her experience of being the only albino in her family.
Born in Jamaica and later raised in East London, Marvalyn embodies the dualities of different environments, which influenced her self-perception.
“The culture shock of trying to adjust and adapt to different environments. Staring on the road, people would look at you and think ‘oh my gosh’, you know people have their own perception of how you look.”
She said: “I remember one time when I was little, I remember filling out an application form, and I put black and white Caribbean, and I remember my grandfather said to me, ‘No, you are black, your parents are black, you’re just fairer than everybody else’, but at that time I didn’t know any better.”
“I wasn’t always confident in myself in my teenage years because I used to hate my blonde hair, I hated my skin, I hated everything about albinism in my teenage years, because of the bullying and the negative stigma,” says Marvalyn.
The negative experiences of women with albinism epitomise the irony of the conveyor belt system of beauty standards that sets people up to fail.
“When I was in my 20s, I started to look at myself in the mirror and say ‘woah why am I hating myself for something that I was born with’, so it was a part of a healing journey to learn to forgive myself for the things that I did not deserve.”
By definition, albinism is the inherited genetic condition that inhibits pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes due to a lack of melanin.
Marvalyn created her platform, yell4change, to shed light on its impact, converting her darkness into a light for other albinos.
She said: “You cannot allow yourself to be ridiculed, empower your beautiful skin. No matter what society thinks.”
Albinism is most common in people of African and Caribbean heritage, with estimates around 1 in 5,000.
Women like Marvalyn have felt ostracised by their communities despite being the definition of what women of colour have been encouraged to strive for.
Albinism advocates are now alchemising stigma into strength, guiding other albinos to become the authors of their definition of beauty.
The solution to ending prejudice isn’t to suddenly glorify albinos because they’ve ticked the boxes of this beauty standard all along but to eradicate these standards.
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The dark side of glamorisation
As a consequence of sensationalism, objectification and myths, the challenges surpass stigma. It’s a matter of life and death for some people with albinism.
Muluka-Anne Miti-Drummond, the 45-year-old United Nations Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with Albinism from Zambia, has touched the lives of people with albinism globally.
Her work addresses the numerous violations towards people with albinism, including abandonment, violence, and killings for ritual practices.
Muluka said: “In some parts of the world, people believe that if you have albinism, your body parts can provide some sort of wealth, good fortune or good luck, and therefore, persons with albinism are abducted, attacked, killed so that their body parts can be used in these ritual practices.
“The cases of attacks that I’ve seen and heard, children’s arms being amputated, people being killed.”
This highlights the need for normalisation rather than glamorisation centred around uniqueness.
She said: “I remember being in Madagascar and meeting a young girl with albinism who said she did not like to be called varira, the local term used for persons with albinism.
“I asked her, ‘what would you like to be called’ and she just said, ‘I’d like to be called by my name, simply ‘I would like to be called by my name’, and that stuck with me.
“When people are not exposed to things, it becomes very othered, and then it becomes dehumanised, so let’s have persons with albinism who are TV presenters, persons with albinism in soaps.”
To truly eliminate biases, we need an education that speaks for people with albinism so they don’t have to explain themselves repeatedly.
Muluka said: “When we did the research on education, what came out a lot was that even teachers would be bullying children with albinism.
“The callousness of people is quite disheartening or shocking.”
“Diversity is beautiful. Human rights is something that is part of everybody’s right; we all have that right to be included, to be part of society,” says Muluka.
The blind spot in beauty standards
Because of colourism, black and brown women who are closer in proximity to whiteness have long been the beauty standard in their ethnic communities. Light-skinned women have been considered the apex of beauty in their environment due to being fairer in comparison to their peers.
Studies have confirmed that lighter-skinned people of colour are more advantaged in relationships, employment, and even health.
However, women of colour with albinism, who are seemingly the blueprint, haven’t benefited from this standard.
A survey found that people with albinism had increased odds of feeling rejected by their community, with 75% of them witnessing the mistreatment of other albinos.
How can being just a couple of shades lighter have such an opposite impact on the trajectory of someone’s life?
Several albinos question where they sit on the spectrum with regard to colourism.
Right colour, wrong font?
Perhaps the combination of juxtaposing features and disability creates a clash which doesn’t appease beauty standards due to the contrast in ethnic features and pale skin.
The struggles of fair-skinned and dark-skinned women on opposite ends of the spectrum illustrate how the grass truly isn’t greener on either side.
Skin lightening remains an issue in ethnic communities, and the global market for skin whitening is estimated to reach around $16 billion by 2030.
On either side of the fence, there are darker-skinned women bleaching their skin and albino women wishing they could tan.
Regardless, people with albinism do not have the choice to opt out of the skin they are in.
Beyond the skin’s surface
Alongside the surface-level indicators of albinism, visual impairment and susceptibility to skin cancer are significant obstacles.
The intersectionality of this invisible disability, physical difference and health hindrance creates a multifaceted problem.
Philadelphia Motladiile-Kenneth, a 40-year-old from Botswana, is a human rights activist whose tribulations through albinism and skin cancer have been a source of power for her advocacy.
She said: “I had so many scars on my body because of skin cancers, I had surgeries, I did biopsies, I did chemotherapies, and all those things have happened in my life.
“I think my first operation, because of skin cancer, was when I was 29 years old and then from there, I did a biopsy and liquid nitrogen treatment. I’ve had so many surgeries.”
“I have to give myself an opportunity as a person to love myself, to love life, to love those around m,e and I’m not going to force them to love me.”
Philadelphia directs the Mr and Miss beauty with albinism pageant which was created to “bring a change of life for persons with albinism” exhibiting their beauty.
She said: “When you know that you’re a person with albinism, you already have a disability so you can’t cocoon forever, you have to burst out of that cocoon.”
In not conforming to boundaries, she has been a pioneer, guiding other women to unapologetically be themselves.
“Nothing is going to change my colour, whether it’s words from a person, whether it’s stigma or discrimination,” she says.
Marvalyn, Philadelphia and Muluka are the groundbreakers who are forming spaces where the next generation of albinos can navigate the world confidently.
Whilst dismantling colourist ideologies that suppress albinos, they are simultaneously laying down the groundwork for communities to embrace all complexions.
Albinos are curating their own ideology of beauty, not waiting on the revolving doors of beauty trends to let them in.
This can’t be done without dismantling the foundation of these standards because they lean on one another like dominoes. Through combatting colourism in all forms, these standards could each descend, and the system of suppression could cease to exist. In doing so, the next generation of albinos can live in liberation rather than alienation.
