A recent crackdown by the Rwandan government on the sale of skin lightening creams has highlighted the intense desire of nonwhites to look like whites—and the fact that more than half of the world’s nonwhite females use such lotions, even if many claim to be “proud to be black.” The Rwandan government crackdown—as revealed in recent media reports—has seen officials deployed across that... 

Accompanied by body-armor vested London police officers, Lambeth Senior Trading Standards Officer Ray Bouch walks into a beauty and cosmetics shop on Brixton’s Electric Avenue. Bouch works for the London borough’s Public Protection Unit, tasked with keeping everything from faulty condoms to illicit vodka off the streets. Today, he’s in search of contraband cosmetics: illegal skin...