Skin bleaching

My topic is 'Becoming White', and am talking about the practice of skin bleaching by using chemicals. This is a practice done by 'people of color' in order to become lighter because light is perceived as more beautiful, more acceptable. I am looking into the deeper reasons as to why this pratice is being carried out, so for instance why is lighter skin, perceived as more beautiful and acceptable? is there perhaps any thing to do with the psychology of the people practicing skin bleaching that could give clues as to the reasons why? what about white priviledge? slavery? and all of this in the context of 2010.

This topic is of interest to me because, we live in 2010, you would think people by now accept the fact that beauty and notions of what is acceptable are really relative, there is no absolute, but reality shows the contrast, as individuals, we tend to not like the way we look, whatever we look like, we are constantly altering it somehow, and some people will willingly go just a bit extreme at it.