Fair is the only lovely and beautiful. The rampant about black live matters refuel up the fairness skin debate in India.
Women are always judged for their dark skin color. From being a Social taboo, white is the only beauty standards, the obsession of fairness products, matrimonial who categorized profiles on the basis of colors as well as apps that provide beauty filters.
These things have increased India obsession with fair skin tone. As if being dark is a crime or fault in our stars.
Growing up as dark, dusty, wheatish in an Indian household isn’t easy. You will find yourself caught up in someone’s ‘stare’ or ‘sympathy. Here dark means compromise and adjustments.
When a dark skin baby is born, two theories are followed. If it’s baby boy, they say, “No issue, this color suits to man.”
If its baby girl, they say, “Start preparing for her marriage from now, you should plan to give more dowries to compensate her color.”
I mean like literary, is Black color a curse? No matter how successful you are, how educated you are, how broad-minded, humble, loving, and honest you are. If you are dark skin you must have faced discrimination from school, to college to the workplace and last but not the least until you get married.
It only glows when it’s DARK
How do you feel when Rishta wali aunty does a virtual postmortem of your personality? She justifies her fees with your dark complexion.
A close friend of mine, face several matrimonial rejections because of her dark skin. I still remember the mental trauma she has gone through. No doubt this taboo is draining oneself mentally and emotionally. Bad thing is that you can’t do anything about this, and get yourself lost in this maze.
Fairness creams have always been a bottle of discrimination. They first demean your skin color, then convince that you can change this and become happy. Finally, offer their products that don’t even work in the first place!
According to the WHO, the fairness products industry amount to about $500 million in India alone.
https://www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/WHO-CED-PHE-EPE-19.13
The beauty filters apps give the option to lighten skin tone, driving youth crazy. Some of the leading matrimonial sites provide the option to filter the bride on the basis of color.
Fairness products as providing shade cards to track skin lighting after its use. Who claims they may contain harmful bleaching ingredients that can cause skin damage on long term usage.
The skin lightening treatments like multivitamins pills including intravenous can damage liver or kidney on long term usage.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5787082/
With the death of George Floyd, the voices against racial injustice echoed around the world. Indian supporting black lives matters despite having so many prejudices raised the outrage. Especially against celebrities who endorse fairness products.
Celebrities like Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra, Disha Patani, and Sonam Kapoor express their outrage on social media. But instead, their act shows some impact they are being judged for endorsing the fairness products in the past.
In India, the caste system and its practices are deeply rotted. And lighter color resembles the higher caste. Here marriages are majorly arranged, and dark skin complexion has to pay off the higher dowry.
According to one of the charity Foundation, “Fair skin obsession didn’t come from fairness products it’s coming from the cultural bias mentality that equates being fair as being superior.”
Colorism has vexed India for a long time and it has been exacerbated by the cultural practices, regional differences, and mainstream media platforms like Bollywood who cast heroes with fair skin tones excluding some exceptions.
Is the Narrative really changing?
With the profound Black Lives Matter movement, the welcomed decision has taken place. Indian government proposes the law to make it illegal for the false claims by the skin lightening products.
Unilever has changed the name of its popular product Fair & Lovely to Glow & lovely. However, this won’t make any difference unless they completely overhaul the communication.
Shaadi(dot)com one of the leading matrimonial sites in Asia removes the skin tone filter.
Many celebrities are coming forward and voicing their opinions. Some even turn down the lucrative endorsements of fairness brands.
The road is less traveled, but we can bring the change by changing mindset. Education should start at the grass-root level and parents should inculcate respect and equality for all towards the younger generation. Hope we would learn to embrace the dark skin and India obsession with fair skin will come to an end.
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This is a much needed discussion. Until those who have dark skin tone stop feeling insecure this comparison will not stop. There is no need to be fair by skin tone but have a heart which has negative feelings. Any person is beautiful with the values they hold.
yes this is sad truth of our society, where people are obsessed with fair colour skin and many women face various problems due to their skin tone. this is good news that now things are changing for better, and many celebrities are coming forward to fight against this discrimination. hope whole society change their mind and we have a better respectful community for women.
I think you will win the contest. Totally loved your post and the depth you have gone to while writing about the subject
This taboo is very difficult to get rid off. You are always been judged and assessed based on your appearance, which is not fair but that is a cruel reality. But it is high time that people understand and through away this bias outlook.
As an Influencer myself, I make sure I don’t do products that are supposed to make someone ‘fair and lovely’. I used to think about this when I was young. Aren’t dark people lovely too?
This is a bad reality that’s prevailing in our society and hope it’s get better with changing time…I personally never believed in dark or light colour
Every skin color is beautiful but yes, I agree these matrimony ads really adds so much pressure on girls and the society need to understand!!
Well we all news to accept person as they are and not as they can be modified. I am sure we all will overcome of the color complexion soon in our lives. What one needs is being fit and have healthy life..that’s all.
The narrative is changing slightly but not completely. It is also present till now, in our society for marriages bride colour should be fair. It is not like that she has to face many rejections only because of skin colour.
I loved reading them.. funny thing now for me is…. my kids and husband have a fairer complexion while I’m wheatish and I’ve actually had people telling me “thank god bache tere pe nahi gaye…. baap ka rang aaya” and I am like what….seriously…. is that so important….
It’ll take a lot of time to change the mindset of people but the campaign did bring out the unfairness behind it. Personally, I feel every shade a beauty of it’s own.
Sorry but I dont find the narrative changing a bit. Darker skin and fairer skin discrimination starts from very childhood in India. In schools and colleges too prefer good looking fairer skin kids to be featured in their school magazines and college prospectus. Unless they want to highlight that they have all national kids coming to get education in their organization. Fair and lovely gimmick we all know..
iTS GOOD TO KNOW that many big brand have removed the tag of fairness on their products. But I feel education on this should begin at home.
Yes its happening still. A girl with dark complexion still face difficulties in her life. And I really dont know why brands promote fairness cream or lotion still? Coz your own complexion is your own and a healthy skin is imp not its color.
Honestly this was the one question that came to my mind too when I saw the Black Lives Matter movement happen. It’s about time India appreciates Indians by their skin colour and stop the fad of fairer skin.
I think this issue is deep within the whole crux of any society in the world, just not India but anywhere in the world. We need to get this eradicated from basic text if life.