In the classic and unforgettable song, ‘Ebony and Ivory’, written by Paul McCartney and sung in duet in McCartney and Stevie Wonder, an extremely sensitive question is put in the forefront: if ebony and ivory, the black and white reeds can coexist in piano keyboard “in harmony” why doesn’t it happen in our case? The song became public in 1982 but the question remains a nagging one in human civilization even today. Why do we play the superior-inferior game on the basis of the colour of skin? It is especially intriguing. Science has proved beyond doubt that it is not caused by anything else but by the varying degree of melanin in our skin. Those who among us have lightly pigmented skin types possess approximately half as much epidermal melanin than those most darkly pigmented. There is no better or worse DNA involved to make one group inherently superior at the cost of another.
But societal ideas defy scientific rules. Nowhere perhaps it is more evident than in the distinction between black and white. The US just recently has witnessed the eruption of protests following the killing of George Floyd, a middle aged Afro American, by a white policeman. When he cried and appealed to the policeman who had his knee on Floyd’s neck, saying “”I cannot breathe”, it fell into deaf ears. Within a couple of days after this horrific incident another black man was shot and killed by a white officer in Atlanta. President Trump seeks to solve the problem on his own style by promising some revisions of policing standards. But everyone knows that the solution is too superficial to tackle the problem. The roots of the problem lie much deeper into our minds and it is engraved in society and in our everyday life.
One need not romanticize the black cause. But as the leading slogan of the recent protests asserts “Black Lives Matter”. In fact, any life matters. It is also good to see the number of white participants in the protests, who are equally conscious of the terrible outcome of such distinction based on colour. South Africa had long been a warning to the world in having practiced apartheid. One can even argue that the world got a great leader like Gandhi, partly due to the fact that he was thrown out of a train in that country despite being a ticket holder but daring to travel in upper class. Officially apartheid is no longer there in South Africa after the blacks gained power. But in most parts of the world the same attitude remain unofficially. In various European countries too, like America, which are otherwise admired for proclaiming liberty, freedom, rights and equality for all, behind the constitutional provisions such discriminations remain. More alarming is the latent racist bias. The skin colour plays a vital role in determining the degree of opportunities, social and economic positions and status in society. The fight must go on. Martin Luther King, Jr., the iconic leader of civil rights movement in the US and a disciple of Gandhi, made this remark: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
An Indian cannot rest assured that we are far removed from such incidents. Any Indian committed to the welfare of our society also know that we are not immune from the same disease. Recently, in West Bengal one headmistress and one teacher of a government-aided school were suspended for teaching from a textbook which has the picture of a black man as ‘ugly’ and a white man as ‘uncle’. We all know that ‘colour sensitivity’ is a pan Indian phenomenon. Despite the fact that our skin colour in general gains the white tag many of us are extremely obsessed with being fair at least. Fairness creams and solutions have a wide market. Despite being banned from advertising proxy advertising goes on unabated. The horrific television commercials of a girl using such cream before the first date or before facing the interview board may be a thing of the past thanks to large scale protests by social activists. But our perception of ‘fair is beautiful’ has hardly changed. The matrimonial columns of all newspapers prove the colour obsession of Indians of all varieties.
It is not a crime to be black. Nor is it a crime to be white. The gravest crime is to assess human beings on the basis of colour. Rightly the piano provides a valuable guide in this regard.
Eduindex News 