Shaniera Akram says she wished to have brown skin while growing up

Activist turned actor Shaniera Akram penned down a thought-provoking note for girls with brown skin who wish to have white skin.

Taking to Instagram, she urged people to be happy underneath their skin especially girls with brown skin as many white girls aspire to have their skin colour.

Shaniera shared she was also one of those girls who once wished to have brown skin: “To all the girls with brown skin wishing they had white, I just want to let you know that there are a hell of a lot of white girls who grew up wishing they had dark skin too, I know I was one of them.”

“We thought that if our skin was brown we looked healthier, prettier and more attractive to boys. We would go to any length to change the colour of white to brown because that what was instilled in our minds, that brown was more beautiful,” she added.

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The socialite shared how she and other white girls tried to change their skin colour. “When I was growing up we rubbed harmful oil on our faces and bodies and lay out all day in the harsh UV sun and burn to a crisp, just so that in 3-4 days the red and extremely painful burn would die down and eventually we would have a brown tan!”

Apart from this, they would also “spend hours lying in a solarium which is fake sunlight machine risking skin cancers, skin disease, spots and adding years to our faces causing wrinkles and irreversible damage.”

They would also rub toxic stains and dyes into our skin everyday to give their skin 3-5 shades darker sun-kissed brown look when the sun wasn’t available.

White girls would also spend money on brown body paint that doesn’t wash off for days and spray it on their body. This would eventually leave their skin patchy, streaky and scaley.

Shaniera added that some girls have “synthetic hormones injected into their bodies to stimulate the pigment cells that produce melanin and actually change the colour of the skin from white to brown permanently.” She never tried it though.

She concluded that to not change who you are and be happy underneath your skin as your beauty is not interpreted by your skin colour.

“And just remember, to all the girls with brown skin who want white, you are the envy of half the women on this planet, women and girls all over the world that go to any extremes to have your colour skin, so that’s got to be something worth enjoying !”