Embracing Authenticity in the Face of Colorism
the summer before my third grade
my family and i took a trip to india
which is where my family is originally
from
excited and eager to learn more about my
culture
eat a lot of incredible food and most
importantly to me
meet some of my family members i still
remember
jumping up and down on my way to meet an
uncle
and a few cousins who i never met before
being the amiable eight-year-old i was i
immediately ran up to greet my new found
uncle
and so i was a little bit confused when
he
didn’t meet me with the same level of
enthusiasm
rather his eyes widened at the side of
me
as he turned to my mom and asked wow
was she rolling around in the mud or
something
i was confused everyone laughed
and i felt my smile drop for just a
second
what did he mean by that of course
in time i would come to realize that my
uncle was referring to my skin
or more specifically the darkness of my
skin
in india and many other asian countries
being fair-skinned is a sign of beauty
and in comparison to my lighter-skinned
sisters and cousins
i was simply ugly
as an eight-year-old i could not
understand why i was treated differently
because of the color of my skin but i
could understand the shame that i felt
because of it and this shame stayed with
me for the rest of my life
making me feel reluctant to embrace
myself authentically
for years to come i don’t blame my uncle
or my aunt or the countless other people
i heard comments and snickers about
because of my skin the fact of the
matter is
their perspectives were shaped by their
culture and societal upbringing
but that does not change the fact that
these beliefs were detrimental to the
productivity
and development of people both young and
old
the eight-year-old girl who loved to
spend all her time out in the sun
soon became one who refused to go
outside without lathering herself in
sunscreen
and wearing an ungodly large hat
growing up i always assumed that my skin
was the first thing that anyone noticed
about me
that they were judging me and
determining my value and my worth
based on this one arbitrary feature over
which i had absolutely no control
even today when i’m giving presentations
at school
when i’m offering contributions around
the heartless table
even when i’m engaging in something as
simple as peer-to-peer conversation
i’m overly concerned with how i’m being
perceived
based on my hyper awareness of how
darker skin is treated
both historically and systemically
now to be fair my hyper awareness of how
darker skin is treated
is not totally unwarranted referred to
as colorism
this is a practice of discrimination
where people with lighter skin
are treated more favorably than people
with darker skin
although this is a global practice in
the united states specifically
as a product of racism and slavery
a prime example of this practice is the
paperback test
a popular hiring practice employed in
the 19th and 20th centuries
essentially if a candidate applying for
a job was the same skin tone or lighter
than a brown paper bag they were
eligible to be considered for the
position
while if they were any darker than a
brown paper bag they would automatically
be taken
out of consideration even today
according to a study conducted by the
university of georgia
darker skinned african-americans face a
distinct disadvantage
when applying for job positions in
comparison to lighter skin applicants
even with less education and job
experience the lighter skinned candidate
was statistically proven
to be hired more frequently but the
darker candidate thought to be
menacing i remember once for a birthday
a great aunt of mine very excitedly came
up to me
and handed me this moisturizer and on
first glance i was very excited about it
too
up until i saw the name fair and lovely
as its name suggests it’s a skin
lightening cream
one that over 27 million people in india
alone use on a daily basis
as she handed it to me she said tessia i
should be your favorite aunt
you’re going to be so beautiful now
hurt and it still hurts as i share it
with you
all today there is a multi-billion
dollar industry
profiting off of the beauty standards
and prejudiced ideals of
people like my great aunt who believe
that the only way to be beautiful
and by proxy successful is by ascribing
to a euro-centric standard of beauty
how could i ever appreciate myself for
myself
and stay true to my authenticity when i
was taught to feel uncomfortable in my
own skin
i’m not sure exactly when i decided to
stop feeling pity on myself
for this supposed genetic curse
i think it may have been as recently as
a couple summers ago
when i had the chance to travel to
tanzania as part of a school travel trip
there the girls that i was living with
called my dark skin
beautiful and were in contrast alarmed
by some of my peers with lighter
complexions
i don’t bring up this experience to
validate my beauty
but rather to show how subjective the
standard is
if we quantify our value and our worth
as humans
based on what others perceive and what
others say
we are doomed to fail from the start
so yes people will judge and make
assumptions
about our value and our worth for the
very things that we are insecure about
because these norms are so ingrained in
our society
but if we let that insecurity hold us
back
then we really have no chance of
attaining success
now it would be naive of me to pretend
that self-love
and embracing myself authentically would
wipe away
the racism colorism and discrimination
that my predecessors
and i have faced and will likely
continue to face
but as soon as we do start embracing
ourselves authentically
we release the hold that others have on
us
so to my uncle and to my great aunt
both of whom i love and to everyone else
who seeks to define me
and all of us based on superficial
socially constructed standards
i say i am beautiful
i am intelligent and like everyone else
i am human and because i am human
we are all more alike than we are
different
i hope that we can all learn to embrace
ourselves authentically
and grow comfortable in our own skin in
a world that makes it so hard
to do so thank you so much for your time