Is Kenya a colour struck society?

The color of fire in the middle of its escape, skin and eyes round and regal at once
You are beautiful, I am beautiful, the color of coffee with no cream
dark like the bittersweet chocolate of my dreams, caramel-coated coquette
honey dipped and full of vigor, full lipped and full bodied
full dark-skinned and exquisite, majestic even with your brown-black self!
Black is beautiful, You are beautiful
I am beautiful, We are beautiful
-Ode to a dark skinned girl 

Driving from the airport, through to Mombasa road, you will be struck by the many billboards featuring light-skinned biracial people. Thumb through our society magazines and the story profile pictures are of happy biracial couples/families, one will be forgiven for thinking they are in some islander nation with a mixed population. In fact, Kenya lies on the equator and is home to some of the darkest people on earth. Yet, we do not see these people smiling, looking healthy on the numerous billboards doting the big cities, begging the question, Are we a color struck society? Do we consciously or sub-consciously think lighter skin = beauty?
 

This girl is  likely to be on a Kenyan billboard or magazine

Typical Kenyan beauty

A close friend of mine was blessed with an adorable little girl 18 months ago, by her first birthday, the little munchkin had darkened a bit, presumably attaining her natural skin tone. The mum was not pleased by the turn of events, it's easy to judge her, but how many times do we gush at a light skinned baby calling her beautiful, while we offer the dark skinned baby a quick glance and mumble some inaudible compliment? 

What of that back-handed compliment,You are really pretty for a dark skinned girl, Ni msichana mweusi lakini ni mrembo! It is like we have this natural expectation that a dark woman cannot be pretty, so if we meet one, then she is a rare species and is given the tag "Black beauty".

I am of the opinion that colorism is stemmed from our colonial/slave heritage, listening to most old folk songs, the very darkest of skins was praised as a great mark of beauty, especially due to the stark contrast it provided to a beautiful white smile. In colonial Kenya, the brown skinned Indians and biracial people were treated much better than the black populations, they had certain privileges that the dark skinned did not enjoy. This stratification informed the relatively new attitude that lighter skin is more desirable.

The whole color debate is more pronounced within the Afro-American communities, with dark skinned men preferring to sire children with lighter skinned (sometimes white) women to "upgrade" their genes. Back home, the same scenario plays out albeit in a smaller scale. There has been a number of inter tribal marriages in Kenya between the western tribes and the eastern tribes. Curiously, the coupling is significantly skewed towards western males and eastern females and not vice versa. The western tribes which include the Luos, Luhyias, Kisiis are generally darker while the easterners mainly Kikuyu, Kamba, Meru are generally of lighter skin shades. I believe just like their Afro-American counterparts, the Western Kenya men are under the general illusion than the lighter Eastern Kenya women are more beautiful than their dark skinned sisters. 

 Thankfully, a new trend is slowly but steady growing... the love for all things African. The young generation is reverting back to African names, we are dancing again to the afro-beat, women are embracing their afro-kinks. It is my hope that we will once again truly love the skin of our ancestors, be awed by its beauty and symbolic power.