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