From Antebellum Light Skinned Slaves to the Globalization of Skin Whitening Biotechnology

From Antebellum Light Skinned Slaves to the Globalization of Skin Whitening Biotechnology takes historically grounded analysis and delineates how the skin whitening industry has become a contemporary site that facilitates commodification of unregulated whiteness on a global scale. Amina Mire investigates the extent to which antebellum South anti-miscegenation racial purity laws facilitated unofficial interracial reproduction of light skinned slaves, resulting primarily from a systemic rape of enslaved Black women by white slave masters. This is because while different in terms of historical context, what the unregulated globalization of the skin whitening industry and the antebellum unofficial reproduction and trade in light skinned slaves have in common is the unofficial and unregulated nature of the accumulation of economic, symbolic, and aesthetic investment in whiteness. The central argument of this book is that commodifiable whiteness is a form of racial capital with profound health, social, and political implications. Consequently, as long as whiteness remains a salient ideological force that shapes global understanding of standards of beauty and desirability, commodification of whiteness will continue to further entrench systems of racism and colorism. The author argues this requires taking seriously the resilience and malleability of white supremacy and its ability to rebrand itself endlessly.

Amina Mire is associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University.