The worldwide obsession with light skin color, considered to be beautiful, may have started because the nobles and the rich could afford to stay out of the sun. This developed into a form of racism when light-skinned Europeans started conquering peoples with darker skin.

Now millions of women spend absurd sums on skin-whitening treatments which in some cases are toxic.

Around the same time, ironically, rich Europeans and Americans started to get suntans from leisure and tourism, which launched the equally perverse idea that a suntan was beautiful. Now millions of whites expose themselves to skin cancer while making their skin into leather, in pursuit of a suntan.