Black Skin Still Needs Sunscreen—Here’s Why

Every summer, Tiktok feeds are flooded with one message to the Black community that seems to be on an ever-repeating loop: Yes, Black people do need sunscreen.

The idea of sunscreen was not always elusive to me, but felt rather exclusive. Growing up around mainly white peers, I was familiar with the product—they needed it so their skin wouldn’t turn red and feel painful. I remember the slight feeling of confusion sitting in my fifth grade classroom and watching my peers put it on but somehow thinking it did not apply to me. 

Fast forward to when I was seventeen and decided to be a camp counselor. While we were sitting on the grass in a hot field, I looked at my skin and immediately felt the difference with sunscreen applied. Sunscreen would become a part of my normal summer routine—keys, check, wallet check, sunscreen, check. But I remember my mom and my brother laughing at me for using it, and my brother saying ‘you’re black, you don’t need sunscreen.’

Sunscreen and stigma

“It has been passed down from generation to generation that “black don’t crack” which has created a narrative that black skin has enough melanin to protect it from the dangers of ultraviolet exposure,” says board-certified dermatologist Tiffany Clay-Ramsey, MD, FAAD. “Because we never saw our elders do it and ‘they turned out just fine’, we aren’t privy to the risk of skin cancer or how exposed skin ages faster and looks darker and sags more in skin of color.”

The stigma around sunscreen in the Black community has been perpetuated, leading to declining and high-risk skin conditions. According to a 2012 study from the Center for Disease Control, about 13 percent of Black women and nearly nine percent of Black men experience sunburn at least once a year. While skin cancer is less prominent in Black skin (averaging one to two percent of cancers diagnosed), when it is contracted, a Black person has a much lower five-year survival rate average.

Emmy-nominated makeup artist Jessica Smalls grew up just as I did, without realizing the importance of sunscreen or protecting her skin from the sun. But her life came to a screeching halt during her freshman year of college when she learned of her Mycosis Fungoides diagnosis, a rare skin cancer that occurs when white blood cells and T-cells become cancerous. She was understandably devastated. “We didn’t talk about sunburn prevention in my home, nor did I ever hear it in conversations within my community,” she says. “There are many misconceptions surrounding darker skin tones. All I heard was that ‘Black people don’t get skin cancer’ and at 18 I was a walking contradiction of that.”

Sunscreen and racial identity

The idea that Black people don’t need sunscreen is often rooted in Antebellum slavery times, but has deeper ties to complex identity narratives. Slaves were known to work fourteen hours in the brutal, southern sun, but somehow they survived (or at least their skin did) so that means ours should too, right? 

“From a young age, we’ve been told that sunscreen isn’t necessary, especially if we come from regions like Africa where previous generations didn’t use it,” explains Eniye Okah, founder of Beame SPF, a sunscreen geared towards communities of color. “Essentially, the misconception arises because we don’t burn as visibly as our white counterparts, leading some to assume we’re immune to sun damage.”

Melanin is a polymer, which is a substance made up of molecules, that gives color to the skin, hair, and eyes in humans and animals. Melanin does work to protect against UV rays—it absorbs the sun before it can damage the DNA of the cells—but just like everything else in the world, even melanin has its limits.

“Using sunscreen is seen as something that challenges people’s Black identities because it’s become tied up in this false equivalence of having (enough) melanin,” says Tina Lasisi, assistant anthropology professor at the University of Michigan. “There’s a misconception that Black people have melanin and melanin protects you from the sun, therefore if you’re Black, you don’t need protection from the sun,” Lasisi continues. “But, everyone, regardless of racial identity or genetic ancestry has meanocytes (melanin cells) that create melanin. The difference between people is just how much melanin they make. But because it’s not a question of presence or absence, it conflicts with the categories many people have for their racial identities.”

The crosshairs of racial identity and sunscreen intertwine in colorism, and refer back to the social construct of ‘lighter is better.’ A 2022 study found that the Black people who did apply sunscreen did it not out of informed medical choices and to protect the skin, but rather because they didn’t want to become darker. An ideology that dates back to slavery, simply put the lighter your skin color, the more favorable you were. The terms “high yellow” and “redbone” that are still frequented today are an everlasting reminder of the colorism that festers in the community. As they were once designed as slurs, they still represented something pertinent: lighter skin and closer proximity to whiteness.

While I never consciously thought about it, I almost felt drawn to sunscreen because I possessed some of the features of the women advertised. I had lighter skin and while my natural hair is tight and oily, a combination of water and hair dye helped loosen my curl pattern to liken that of a ‘desired’ 3c or 4a. I felt like I fit the category of women that the advertisements were geared towards, the ones with pale, fair, or lighter skin and curly hair—all Eurocentric features viewed to be ‘desirable’ and closer to being white.

“We rarely see black people represented, reinforcing the notion that sun damage isn’t relevant to us,” says Okah. “When images and narratives about sun protection predominantly feature white individuals, it reinforces the idea that sunscreen isn’t relevant to black people.”

Protect Your #MelaninMagic and #BlackBoyJoy

I will always advocate for sunscreen in the Black community. Adjusting to stares or stifled giggles from others who look like me while I’m applying sunscreen to myself at the beach or pool is just par for the course, but it’s one I’ve learned to accommodate.

As a community, we often discriminate and gatekeep ourselves, and it’s proven time and time again to not work out in a favor. Sunscreen isn’t a ‘white people thing’, and it doesn’t mean you liken yourself to being white—it’s simply a risk that many of us should be less willing to take. 

In the words of Smalls, “I wish I had known that skin cancer doesn’t discriminate, and affects all melanated skin tones.