Tag: colourism

Not Fair But Still Lovely

Image Source: google.com

India’s obsession to fair skin is not new. Fairness does not define beauty and racism harms everybody. Colourism is the bias against dark skinned tone that views white skin as the ultimate benchmark. It is a persistent social force in India, and many South Asian countries.

George Floyd’s killing in police custody in U.S has led to the ‘Black lives matter’ across the globe. Undoubtedly, there is power in protest. But the question lies when we think, does this really bring a change and do people really mean it. The protests happening through social media has advantages as well as disadvantages. According to many, the notion of beauty lies in skin colour which is absolutely wrong. 

‘Fair and lovely’ has been criticized for years as they promote the idea of being fair to be an achiever. Chandana Hirana, a 22-year-old, Mumbai girl started a petition against the brand before the name was changed to ‘Glow and lovely’. Changing the brand’s name turned out to be an utter failure as there is no change in ingredients. Also, Loreal and many other brands are also removing words like ‘whitening’ or ‘fair’ from their products. Sure, it is a welcome move but it is a high time to ban the prevailing mindset of people that equate fair skin not just to beauty but also to rich and upper caste.

As anti-racism protest erupted across the globe, many celebrities like Sonam Kapoor, Disha Patani, Yami Gautham etc came forward in support of ‘Black lives matter’ who were latter trolled massively as they were already promoting fairness products. Priyanka Chopra in an interview said that she regretted promoting such products. 

Last year, Nandita Das, founder of Dark is beautiful campaign did a rap video to fight skin-tone discrimination. She also added that she is fed up of people commenting on her skin tone. Hassan Minhaj, an American comedian on his popular show ‘Patriot act’ on Netflix said that ‘it is bad to be black in Desi culture’ and I couldn’t agree more. We shouldn’t assume a particular race to be superior than others. Even filters and photo editing apps are focussing now how to make you fairer.

Matrimonial ads are the best example to see how things are uglier in the world. People search for wheatish skin girls. It is surprising to know that most of the matrimony sites have filter option to select the skin tone.

In ‘my experiments with truth’ Gandhiji tells how he was embarrassed because of his dark skin tone against white skinned people around him. Even after Britishers have left India, racism still exist here. We should learn that all shades are lovely. We are all in different shades for many reasons. Embrace your shade instead of hating it. Let us not give space for racism to exist in our mind. No shade is superior or inferior than any shade. It is of no doubt that racism will take a mental toll on people. Stop racism. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Colourism in India

Colourism entered the Indian society through British rule. The British people would often prefer light skin Indians as candidates for important roles. Even the European or the Mughals were relatively light-skinned people. This made Indians start looking at light skin as a sign of superiority.

Even today the obsession with white skin tone continues. A lot of girls from a young age have to go through things like:

“you should apply turmeric and saffron paste to make your skin fair”

“you should do a particular type of wax which removes tan”

“he married her despite her being dark”

“you should use light skin makeup to look fair”

Well, these are a few of the thousands of sentences that a person with dark skin goes through. Growing up sentences like these make the person feel insecure about their colour. Nobody is born with insecurities; a child will never differentiate between a skin tone. It’s the people around us that make us like a particular skin tone.

The media never fails to make money out of the beliefs of people. People consider white skin good, so they decided to bring products like fair & lovely. There are so many more products and creams which say things like natural fairness, or natural white to attract consumers. Many young men and women use these products daily. What they don’t realise is that these products contain bleach, steroids, and other harmful ingredients that lead to skin cancer and liver damage in the long term.

After #blacklivesmatter, products like fair and lovely were trolled so they decided to change the name into glow & lovely. But it is still the same product that was built to support light skin.

A lot of other brands also did initiatives like Johnson & Johnson stopped their line of skin lightening products. They also told how they will include all shades of skin colour in their band-aids.

 Changing the name of the product doesn’t mean that people won’t buy it and use it as a fairness cream. But, let’s still appreciate the little changes the multinational companies made. But, there is still a long way to go.

 Another thing you must have noticed is the matrimonial ads in your newspaper. If I got money every time I saw the word “fair” I would be a billionaire.  

What people fail to understand is that our skin tone depends on the geographic conditions, that is how exposed we are to direct sunlight. In places that are sun-soaked people have a dark skin tone. This is because their skin is rich in the pigment melanin. Melanin creates a shield from the radiation of the sun.

This is why when light-skinned people visit places with a lot of sunlight they experience sunburn because they don’t have enough melanin to protect them from the sun.

Our skin colour solely depends on how far we are from the equator. So, I don’t really understand why light-skinned people are given superiority when clearly this isn’t something we can control. Our skins are built of a certain tone to protect us from the environment we live in.

Next time if someone around you shames you or anyone for their skin colour make sure to correct them scientifically and also tell them how much money white people spend on tanning regularly. White people tan for hours, buy lotions, get spray tans to get the colour that we have. I am not stating this to hate on them, I just want to point out how they spend money on tanning while we bleach out our tan.

Un-Fair and Un-Lovely.

How empowering was it to watch Indians hold the “BLACK LIVES MATTER” placard in one hand supporting the protests in the United States and with the other hand applying a cream of poisonous chemicals to their naturally gifted skin. In this black and white world why do we hate brown? From the soil that gives birth to plants to the earthen pots which store our precious waters to the wood that burns into the flames of tomorrow’s ashes -brown is everywhere.

“Beta dhoop me mat khelo, tan ho jaaoge!”, yells the Indian parent while some family in the Europe takes their sons and daughters to play on the beach and get some tan. A land that prays Lord Krishna who is described to be as dark as the thunderous rain clouds and yet portrays him blue because anything is better than black anything is better than brown anything is better than dark.

Etymologically speaking, the Sanskrit word ‘Krishna’ means black or dark. At times, it is also translated as “all attractive”. According to Vedas, Lord Krishna is a dark-skinned God. Even in traditional patta chitras (cloth art) in Odisha, Lord Krishna and Vishnu are always shown having black skin. 

50,000 years ago when our ancestors migrated from the North to the African and Asian continents, they were exposed to the UV rays of the Sun which is saturated at the equator and the tropic of Capricorn. Those days’ sunscreens were not invented hence due to evolution and the wonderful science of human body’s biology it produced melanin under the skin which acted as a natural sun screen. Skin creating its own protective layers, how cool is that?

But we as Indians would rather prefer skin burns and skin cancers than having a healthy skin. When my mother read the matrimony classified newspapers for my elder sibling’s marriage, her face falls down as she looks at those advertisements. No no-hold your horses, it’s not what you are thinking, everybody is progressive nowadays, nobody is asking for dowry. All they ask is – “seeking a fair bride for my son”, “fair and handsome boy with a fit body”, “girl should be white toned and open minded”, “boy should not be dark and not restrict our daughter from wearing her choice of clothing.” (no dowry).

To parents who are afraid because – log kya kahenge? Maa lets not look for brides or grooms who are fair, let’s look for individuals who treat people fairly. Let’s not buy besan (gram flour) for face masks rather let’s lather some potatoes in them and fry it in oil as we watch the fair besan turn into a beautiful crispy brown tasty pakodas (fritters). Fairness creams or home remedies for instant glow neither teach us to be a human with a clean heart, a heart free from the ignorance. Instead of handing a tube of glow and lovely to your loved one’s let’s make them stand in front of the mirror holding their head high because any shade is beautiful any shape is beautiful any scar is beautiful. Before teaching to love others let’s start by loving ourselves. It’s time we realise love comes in all shapes and shades, it’s time we loved all shapes and shades.

Forget snow white, I’m chocolate brown, I will write my own fairy-tale. A tale of every brown Indian girl and boy who is torn apart by the expectations of society and yet stands proud with a personality and smile beautiful than any white skinned magazine covers. To every Bollywood song that calls the actress “Gori” I would like to say – “Gore Rang Pe Na itna Gumaan kar. Gora Rang Do Din mein Dhal Jaayega” – don’t show such pride of your fair skin, the fairness will fade in time. What will remain is the virtues, beliefs, kindness and opinions .

Changing the name from fair to glow will not enlighten the young minds but it will give light to the years of colourism and discrimination to continue its course in every generation to come. Brown is beautiful and so is every colour ever discovered.