Ká sá máa wò

YELLOW PAWPAW: When Your Skin Color Becomes Your Identity

“My color, my color,” called the thrift seller as she walked into the market.

It was not unusual for sellers to refer to potential buyers by such names, picking out the most obvious physical traits  to catch their attention. But for her, it had always been her complexion. And she found herself remembering the numerous times people had reduced her to the yellow pawpaw box.

There was the schoolteacher who had stepped into her class way back in Primary Four and, during the course of the lesson, had asked her what two times two equaled. She hadn’t known the answer, of course. Mathematics had always seemed like an unnecessary subject as far as she was concerned.

As she stood there, head bowed and dripping in shame, her young brain running up and down trying to locate the answer, the teacher had looked at her and said, “Hmm… beauty without brains.”

At ten, she wasn’t too young to understand that the teacher had just called her dumb. And that there was nothing particularly beautiful about her, except that yellow pawpaw skin.

That day was the day she came to dislike being called beautiful. She promised herself that never again would a person look at her and see nothing but beauty.

And in University she had lost a friendship to the yellow pawpaw phenomenon, boys would constantly troop around her and even though she hadn’t been interested her friend had felt threatened or how else would you explain the sudden nasty remarks, sayings like ‘its just because you are yellow, na your skin dey just like and upon say you yellow you no still fine’.

There has been only so much she could take so she let it die.

The men loved it, of course.

They would stare at her, dishing out compliments about the color of her skin. The few she allowed close to her would run their hands over it and comment on how soft it was, how smooth.

“You have the softest skin I have ever touched. It’s so smooth,” said one of her lovers.

She had laughed, finding it rather cliché, especially considering that he claimed she was the first woman he had ever been with.

She watched as ladies spent their time and money buying lightening products, bleaching their beautiful black skin in a bid to fit into the light skin equals beauty trend. She wondered why society chose to reduce such an infinite concept as beauty to the color of one’s skin.

Beauty did, after all, lie in the eyes of the beholder. People would see what you allowed them to see, fall in love with what you presented, and declare your imperfections perfect if you presented them perfectly.

This is not to say that she despised the color of her skin or being called yellow pawpaw. In fact, there were days when she lived for it.

Its perks ran high. Pretty girl privilege, abi wetin dem dey call am?

She remembered showing up at NYSC camp and the registrar at the gate pointing at her from all the way at the back, calling her forward to register.

“Yellow pawpaw like you no suppose dey stand under sun.”

She had smiled so brightly. She had just spent hours cramped inside a bus and was ready to sleep.

Or the days at work when she would pinch her skin to redden it so she could claim to be sick and be excused to go home.

Being yellow pawpaw wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

But still, she felt the negatives outweighed the positives.

At work, her bosses often underestimated her. The fine girl, fish brain tag was still there and so she had to work twice as hard. 

And then there was the annoying fragility of her skin. The smallest scratches left scars. Mosquito bites would swell and look like pimples, dotting her skin.

Guys she liked would often make comments about not wanting to date her because they couldn’t afford to buy cream.

One even went as far as telling her that dating her would be like planting corn by the roadside—anyone passing by could simply pluck and eat. 

Perhaps that was the real problem with being yellow pawpaw. It was never just about the color of her skin. It was about how quickly people decided who she was because of it.

To some, she was beautiful without brains. To others, she was soft skin, the shiny new toy to be acquired.

At work, she was the fine girl whose intelligence could be underestimated. To some men, she was too expensive to maintain. To others, she was simply a woman everyone else wanted to look at.

Different people, different assumptions, the same skin.

She sometimes wondered what it would feel like to walk into a room and not have her complexion arrive before she did.

To be intelligent without someone being surprised by it. To be beautiful without beauty being the first and only thing people saw. To be ordinary on some days, imperfect on others, and still completely enough.

Because skin color should never have been a résumé, a personality, a measure of intelligence, or a ticket to privilege.

And perhaps that little girl in Primary Four was right to make that promise.

She never wanted people to look at her and see nothing but beauty.

She wants them to look at her and see her.

Not the yellow pawpaw.

Just the woman underneath it.