Negotiating and navigating colourism in Cuba and Ghana: Perspectives represented in the work of Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén and in Ghanaian TikTok and YouTube content

Abstract

There is a strong body of literature on colourism—discrimination among people of colour on the basis of darkness or lightness of skin tone—as it has manifested, and continues to manifest, among Black communities in the Americas and Africa. The phenomenon, with its roots in colonialism, is sufficiently powerful to produce a wide range of social, cultural, and economic effects and a wide range of responses, including skin-bleaching practices that can have severe health consequences. This study explores the dynamics of colourism in two national contexts, Cuba and Ghana, which are highly distinct from each other and at the same time both strongly marked by the sociocultural legacies of colonialism, including the phenomenon of colourism. The study examines Cuban colourism as it is explored and combatted in the 1930s poetry of Cuban writer Nicolás Guillén, and Ghanaian colourism as it is both promoted and critiqued in contemporary TikTok and YouTube social-media content.