What Is Colourism — And Why Every Nigerian Needs to Understand It
You have heard the comments. Maybe you have made them yourself, without thinking. "She is pretty for a dark girl." "Don't stay in the sun — you will get too dark." These are not innocent observations. They are colorism, and most Nigerians encounter it before they are old enough to have a word for it.
So, what exactly is colourism?
Colourism is the preferential treatment of people with lighter skin tones over those with darker skin tones, usually within the same racial or ethnic group. It is not the same as racism, which is discrimination between racial groups. Colourism operates within communities. It is the discrimination that happens inside the same family, the same school, the same industry, the same culture.
The term was coined by the Black American writer Alice Walker in 1983, but the reality it describes is far older, and far more widespread than any one country or community. In Nigeria, colourism is woven into the fabric of everyday life. It shapes who gets compliments and who gets ignored. Who gets cast in music videos and who gets passed over. Who gets marriage proposals and who waits. Who walks into a room and is immediately taken seriously, and who has to work twice as hard to be seen.
Where did it come from?
Colourism in Nigeria did not emerge from nowhere. It has roots in colonialism, a period during which British colonial structures explicitly and implicitly elevated lighter skin as more civilised, more intelligent, more worthy of opportunity and trust. The closer you were to whiteness, the more doors opened for you. That message was absorbed, internalised, and passed down through generations long after the colonisers left.
It was reinforced by global beauty industries that flooded Nigerian markets with products promising lighter skin. It was amplified by media that consistently presented light-skinned women as the standard of beauty and desirability. It was deepened by everyday social practices in homes, in schools, in churches and mosques that rewarded lighter skin with warmth and darker skin with correction. Over time, these messages stopped feeling like external impositions. They began to feel like truth.
What does colourism look like in Nigeria today?
Colourism in Nigeria shows up in many forms, some obvious, some subtle.
In families, where lighter-skinned children are praised more, favoured more, and held up as the beauty standard against which darker siblings are measured.
In schools, where dark-skinned children absorb messages about their appearance that follow them into adulthood.
In the entertainment industry, where casting decisions, branding deals, and promotional imagery consistently favour lighter skin, sending a message about who is considered beautiful, marketable, and deserving of visibility.
In the workplace, where studies across Africa show that skin tone can influence hiring decisions, promotions, and perceptions of competence.
In the marriage market, where lighter skin is frequently treated as a desirable quality in ways that darker skin is not.
And in the skin-bleaching epidemic where Nigeria leads all of Africa, with 77% of Nigerian women using skin-lightening products regularly, according to the World Health Organization. That number is not a coincidence. It is the measurable consequence of a society that has consistently told dark-skinned people that their natural appearance is a problem to be solved.
Why does it matter?
Because colourism has real consequences for individual self-worth, for mental health, for professional opportunity, and for public health. The women and girls absorbing these messages are not weak. They are human beings responding to a social environment that was designed, over many years, to make them feel inadequate.
And because the problem cannot be solved if we cannot name it. For too long, colourism in Nigeria has been treated as a personal issue, a matter of individual insecurity or vanity, rather than what it actually is: a structural problem with deep historical roots and very real material effects. Naming it is the first step. Understanding it is the second. And choosing, collectively, to dismantle it in our homes, industries, media, everyday language is the work.
That is why The Shade Initiative exists.
We believe that skin tone should never determine dignity, opportunity, visibility, or belonging. We believe that dark skin is not a flaw, a disadvantage, or a problem to be corrected. And we believe that change is possible, but only when we are honest about what we are actually dealing with. This is colourism. Now that you know what to call it, you will start to see it everywhere. And when you do, we hope you will join us in doing something about it