Amira Adawe has a radio show, Beauty-Wellness Talk, which is a platform where the Somali community can talk openly about skin lightening without fear of being outed or stigmatized.Nancy Rosenbaum for NPR
Amira Adawe has just arrived at a Somali-American community radio station in Minneapolis where she hosts a weekly call-in show called Beauty-Wellness Talk. After peeling off her winter jacket, Adawe slides a pair of headphones over her crown of dark, short curls. “Hello? As-Salaam-Alaikum,” she says into the foam mouth of her studio microphone. An anonymous stream of listeners starts calling in to confide about a subject that is deeply personal and also taboo — skin bleaching.
Adawe is a Minnesota-based public health researcher and educator who works as a manager in Gov. Mark Dayton’s Children’s Cabinet. In 2011, while a graduate student and health educator with St. Paul-Ramsey County Public Health, Adawe proposed a study to investigate how Somali women use skin bleaching creams in their daily lives. Growing up in Mogadishu and Minneapolis, Adawe knew that skin lightening was widespread in her community.
“A lot of it ties to colonization,” Adawe says. “Certain skin colors were more accepted in the society. But through the years, it became so embedded in the culture to where it’s become normal. If you’re light-skinned, you’re more accepted,” she says.
