I have been following the debate about who should be the next James Bond, and one name keeps popping up like an unwanted advertisement on YouTube. Idris Elba. Every few months somebody says, "He should be Bond!" Then somebody else says, "No, he shouldn't!"
Then a third person writes a twelve page essay explaining why the first two are wrong. Meanwhile poor Idris Elba probably wishes Bond would simply retire and take up gardening.
For years, Elba was one of the most popular choices to replace Daniel Craig. And why not? The man looks as though he could walk into a room, order a martini, stop a bank robbery, rescue a kitten, solve a diplomatic crisis and still be home in time for dinner.
Yet the discussion somehow stopped being about acting and became about skin colour.
Which is strange.
Imagine a secret agent who survives explosions, drives cars through walls, jumps from helicopters, escapes sharks, defeats international villains and saves the world before breakfast. Apparently, all that is believable.
But some people draw the line at a darker complexion.
"That's unrealistic!" they cry.
Really?
I have seen this colour obsession all my life.
In the corporate world, I have watched fair skinned candidates glide into jobs like luxury cars entering a five-star hotel. The board members smile. The HR department beams. Everybody nods approvingly.
Six months later the company is sinking faster than the Titanic and the dark-skinned fellow they rejected is running a successful business across the road.
Then there is the marriage market.
I love those advertisements.
Wanted. Fair skinned bride. As though they are purchasing paint for a living room wall.
Nobody says, "Wanted. Kind hearted bride who can tolerate a husband who loses his spectacles every day."
Nobody says, "Wanted. Intelligent bride who can balance a budget and stop me buying things I don't need."
No. Fair skinned.
I sometimes feel sorry for the poor girl. She may be able to run a company, fly an aircraft and perform brain surgery, but the marriage proposal, stands with a colour chart comparing shades.
Even a leading national leader seems nervous about skin colour. Have you noticed how some photographs make him look several shades lighter than they did the previous week whenever he goes abroad? By the time he returns he looks as though he has been whitewashed by the Public Works Department.
Personally, I think dark skin is beautiful. It has character. It has richness. It glows. In fact, when I meet people obsessed with fairness, I often want to ask, "If fair skin is such a guarantee of success, why do refrigerators not run the country?"
Perhaps the real problem is not black skin or white skin. Perhaps it is grey matter.
And unfortunately, that is something make up cannot fix…!
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