Experiences of colorism

let me ask you a question

what skin shade do you prefer

if you had an answer to that question

you could simply be the problem

when i was a young girl i was told that

the sun was my enemy i was told that i

didn’t wash effectively because soap was

supposedly gonna remove my dark skin

color away

when i was in kindergarten i was the

only dark skin in the room not the only

indian in the room but the only

dark skin in the room this made me feel

as if i

shouldn’t answer any questions if i

should be chosen last if

i should hide my arms and legs because i

needed to be lighter to be noticed i

would hide inside during recess because

the sun would make me darker

because i was told dark was ugly light

was pretty

one day we were supposed to do this fun

activity in class where we had to

draw everybody in our classroom i drew

myself

way too many shades later just to not be

noticed as dark

but as i looked around the classroom i

could easily spot myself

the dark brown girl that activity was

not

fun for me one day in swim class

this guy asked me who was the same age

as me

why i was so dark because all he knew

were light-skinned indians

when i first visited india i wasn’t

greeted with

how are you but how the heck did you

become so dark

when i had the courage to speak up and

say that i think my skin’s fine

i will shut down with you shouldn’t

disrespect your elders

last month i was having a conversation

with my own friends

who were sending pictures of girls and

commenting on their skin color

they were saying how dark skins can

never be pretty and justifying that by

saying

it was their preference when i asked

them why

a preference was necessary they replied

with

and i quote dark skins don’t get me hard

that’s why maybe i was being over

sensitive during kindergarten maybe i

overthought that fun activity

maybe the kid in swim class wasn’t

actually trying to hurt me

that’s what we get told if we talk about

colorism

but no one asks why do you feel that way

in every bollywood movie that i watch

the mom

the dad the cool grandma the rebel

daughter the millionaire’s son

are all very fair-skinned while the maid

or the villain they’re very dark-skinned

asap rocky said that only fair-skinned

women

can pull off red lipstick and black

women are too sentimental when they’re

ridiculed about their looks

young boys and girls like me can easily

get brainwashed into thinking what the

rest of society says

light skin desirable dark skin

undesirable

there’s no one there to tell these young

kids that their skin color is beautiful

but you know the hypocritical part of

this though is that the people that told

me

my skin was ugly were actually dark

skinned themselves i know what you’re

thinking

a dark skin bringing down another dark

skin

however it’s just a cycle dark skins

were taught to hate their skin color and

pass the hay

onto other dark skins while actually we

should strive to break this cycle

before we strive to fix racism where all

races

are equal cholesterol needs to be fixed

how are you going to strive to fix

racism when your own race

bashes the darker skinned ones within

your own community

and preference the lame excuse as to

why they like a certain skid color more

ask anybody

why they have a preference no valid

answer

because it shouldn’t be a preference

when you’re willing to give

every skin color a chance there’s no

preference needed

facial features face structure

personality yes that’s our preference

not skin skin shouldn’t and isn’t a

preference

it’s preference to you because it was

socially constructed

by generations take for example the

willy lynch letters

a speech written by a slave owner to

other slave owners

he said i have a full proof method

into trying to control black slaves and

turn them against each other for the

next 300 years

at least one of his methods was to keep

the lighter skin slaves in the house

and gave them some education while the

darker skinned slaves

always had to work in the fields and got

no education

i think his methods worked tremendously

into dividing people within their own

community based on beauty standards

we have literally been brainwashed since

the times

of slavery you know what’s crazy though

99 of my family friends from mutuals

have a preference on skin color they say

it’s just what they like

they say they can’t control it

but i really want to get to the bottom

of this so i concluded that

these sole problem is that people

don’t recognize having a preference on a

skin color is the problem

the problem is that they have an opinion

on which skin shade is better

i know it sounds like i’m stripping them

out of their freedom of opinion but

let’s go deeper

conformity conformity is the adherence

to group

norms by group members in this case

following the crowd

by choosing the wrong answer there’s

huge negative consequences to this right

like

smoking or drinking people conform

because they want to be liked they want

to be right

or they want to feel as some sort of

group

conformity is so immense that is proven

to be more powerful

than obeying authority but you know

what’s better though

non-conformity violating the norm and

being the disturbance to the system

but let me ask you one more question why

not what skin tree do you prefer but why

if your answer to the question what skin

should do you prefers anything except

i do not have a preference then ask

yourself why because you could just

be believing what society has made up

for you from generations

you could be conforming and you can make

up lame excuses as to

why you like certain skin shade better

but if you don’t understand

the problem of this question you could

simply be the problem

don’t worry though you’re not the only

one the majority of the population does

it’s really hard having an opinion for

ourselves if there is a clear majority

it’s very easy just to conform with them

however

when you realize that the majority

opinion is not always the right opinion

then you can start thinking for

yourselves you don’t have to be

dark-skinned to realize that colorism

exists in the world today

however if you follow in the footsteps

of generations behind

you’re only holding back the better

future that this world can achieve