Stop favouring colorism!
A dark skinned person, especially a girl easily becomes a victim of lot of stereotypes and prejudices around skin colour and beauty right from childhood. Everyday one has to face three kinds of people in today’s society. First, the set of people who believe being dark is ugly (or even sin)/being light skinned is beautiful consciously; the next, those who believe the same unconsciously and the last, those who have realised beauty and colour are not related and everyone is beautiful. All of these people have a lot of impact on how dark skinned people think of themselves.
My experiences because of my skin color (brown):
I was 9 and wanted to join my school dance team. I didn’t know how to dance but I liked dancing. I went for audition, tried one/two steps and I totally sucked at it. I knew I was going to be rejected and I was all cool until when the teacher told me, “I’m looking for girls who are fair and chubby. You are dark and lean and do not fit the club”. This was the first ever time I felt the burn for being born as a dark skinned girl. I didn’t understand what she meant but I was hurt. I silently walked away. Every time I saw the dance club, I felt bad.
When I was in my 8th standard, people started calling me “crow”. Many a times when I cross, someone from somewhere used to scream “kha kha” and used to convey me in someway I was ugly. They were not cruel people. They were all not even mature enough to think whether what they were doing was right but already were influenced enough to believe dark was ugly and it is okay to mock dark skinned people.
I’m from a Tamil Brahmin family where most of the people are light skinned. In any family gathering I always hear “Karupa irundhalum kalaya eruka” which means, “Though you are dark, you are beautiful”. This is a very common statement uttered with zero thoughts put in. Another very common statement which people make is, “Hey, you have become fairer. You look beautiful only now. Earlier you used to look like an African”. Do you people think it’s a compliment and do you expect me to blush? It’s horse shit. (BTW, Africans are beautiful!).
When people unconsciously favour colorism:
My grandma has told me stories of how men would not come and visit their new born kids for first few days if they were born dark, stories of how men kept their wives away if they were dark, stories of how parents favoured the light skinned child. I was under assumption that such things happened in the past because of the lack of education and awareness and that people are more broad minded now. But some incidents in my life proved me wrong. Whenever I ask my friends what kind of a partner they expect, by default, many people tell me they want a beautiful and a fair skinned life partner. One guy told me he would never marry a dark skinned girl because only light skin is sexy and a dark skinned kid in future would upset him. One girl told me she is fair skinned and she deserves a fair skinned life partner (She felt a sense of supremacy then). I came across relationships where people felt insecure and low about themselves because they were comparatively darker than their partner.
Some people shamelessly boast about themselves for being modern enough to marry their sons/daughters to dark skinned people. Once someone commented on my 2 days old nephew, “She looks beautiful but the only concern is that she is dark”. Once my cousin felt bad because his kid was the darkest of all the kids in the family but he soon realised that he was thinking wrong.
There are many more instances like this which as an individual I have come across in life and not listing them for the sake of length of the article.
Everyone is beautiful!
Not everyone is ignorant and influenced. There is always that third set of people who know beauty is not related to colour and everyone is beautiful after all. Though some people have bullied me for my colour all through my life, I always knew they were wrong. I always was sensible enough to not succumb to their stupidity. I always knew no one was lesser attractive/inferior because of their skin colour. Just because someone told me I’m not beautiful enough, just because someone told me I can not wear light colour clothes, just because someone told me I should not pick that job which requires me standing in sunlight, just because someone told me dark skinned girls look like devil with make up or just because someone chooses to ditch me because I’m dark, I can not get broken.
To all those people who believe dark is ugly or unconsciously agree to it:
You people are wrong. You people are the most ugly ones based on my belief that real beauty lies in what kind of a human you are from within. You have done enough wrong already to the society and it is high time you wake up from your sleep. What each one of us says without thinking is affecting the society. Let us act responsible.
To all those people who feel low about themselves:
It is not worth it. Your skin colour has nothing to do with beauty. You lose when your confidence reduces. You are what you see yourself as. What other people say doesn’t matter. You are as beautiful as you think you are. You can choose to put yourself down for the stupidity of others or you can raise up, show them you don’t really care about what they think and you are not so small to get carried away with their stupidity. It’s your life. It’s your face which you have to see everyday and only what you think about yourself matters.
Final thoughts:
More than consciously favouring colorism, we do it unconsciously. It has sedimented so deep within the construct of the society and into us that we are not even aware of it. If we all choose to sit and think, we may realise we are all doing it in someway. Solution to this has to start from us. From what we think.
