India's Obsession With Fair Skin - Understanding and Battling The Problem

Do you ever look at dark chocolate and feel uncomfortable? Do you feel the need to sprinkle some baking powder on it to make it attractive so that you can consume it? No, right? You accept it the way it is because you like it for the flavour it possesses. Then I wonder why there is this obsession with fair skin and unfair discrimination based on human skin colour in the world, especially in India. Shouldn't the people be accepted the way they are, irrespective of their skin colour? Shouldn't people be judged by their character, their skill sets, the humanity they possess rather than the colour of their skin? India definitely faces this problem of fair skin obsession. Most people here believe in the myth that only fair skin is beautiful. So let's try understanding India's obsession with fair skin and bust a few myths along the way.

Understanding India's Obsession With Fair Skin

Whether we admit it or not, this fascination for the fair skin is embedded in Indian kids right from childhood. From elders finding fairer children "more beautiful" and giving more attention to them, to being told as a kid to not go out and play in the sun otherwise you'll become dark, we are fed this ideology from childhood that being fair-skinned is the right thing to be and that being dark is a "problem". As a result, we pressurise our kids to be a certain way to be accepted in society.

This dangerous ideology sends a message across that dark skin is unattractive, undesirable and thereby creates this inferiority complex in people who aren't fair. It makes them grow into adults who are victims of a slave mentality where they start putting a person at a higher pedestal purely on the basis of his/her fairer skin colour. This behaviour gradually develops into an attitude that breeds insecurity, lack of self-confidence and places undue pressure on people to be lighter-skinned.

The remaining damage is done by the peer groups "cracking harmless racial jokes" for fun, at the expense of their darker-skinned friends. Add to that the fairness & beauty cream ads running on Indian television channels, trying to aggressively market the "fair skin is the answer to all your problems" narrative and you have the perfect manipulative sales pitch. In these ads, fair skin helps people to nail big job interviews, makes them desirable to the opposite sex and turns them into rockstars overnight; talent and intelligence of the people be damned.

Therefore, the misconception that "fair skin is better than dark skin" becomes a belief and you have a section of insecure, under-confident people with dark skin, ashamed of their true identity, trying to fit in the perfect society by buying these "aspirational life-transforming products" & filling the pockets of the cosmetic companies. Matrimonial advertisements with descriptions blatantly saying "need a fair bride/groom" add further misery to the already crashing dark skin stock.

This is how a society, suffering from an inherent slave mentality, passes the misguided belief from generation to generation creating a section of fair-skinned people who have a superiority complex and a section of dark-skinned people who have an inferiority complex.

The currently prevalent myth that "English is a measure of one's intelligence" feeds on the same slave mentality which is fuelled by lack of self-confidence and native pride.

A Personal Encounter With Fair Skin Obsession

I am an actor working in Mumbai, India. So I regularly go out for auditions trying my best to grab quality projects that can elevate my acting career. However, something that I don't like about the entertainment industry is the stupid obsession it has for fair-skinned actors.

Almost every audition update reads something like "Need fair, upmarket, classy, rich looking male/female actors" because obviously, people with a wheatish/dark complexion can't be classy, rich and upmarket. In fact, they are a symbol of poverty. Funny how we even decide people's economic standing based on their skin colour.

It is amusing and ironical simply because of the fact that the richest industrialists and business tycoons of India are not fair-skinned but have a dusky, darker complexion.

I have seen actors who have been rejected at the doorstep of an audition room just because they are dusky/dark-skinned. They could have been more talented than their "fairer counterparts" sitting inside but then their dark skin colour hampers their chances to audition. Something like this kills the self-confidence of an artist who is anyway vulnerable and whose success/failure in the field of acting is out there in the public domain.

Fairness And The Celebrity Connection

It's no secret that Bollywood (Hindi film industry) and cricket are the most popular professions in India. People here look up to actors and cricketers and treat them as icons/demi-gods. They try to emulate whatever their favourite actor or cricketer does - both on-screen and in real life. In such a scenario, the celebrities from these fields should understand that they have a moral responsibility towards the society and should be all the more careful so as to not spread the wrong message.

So when a high profile actor/cricketer endorses something as shallow as fairness creams, then it influences the psyche of a nation. Because their face behind a fairness cream advocates the fact that if you want to be successful like them, then you have to be fair. And that message sets a wrong precedent for the youth of the country. The youth sees being dark-skinned as a roadblock to success and flocks in stores to buy these "career-shaping products", only to be disappointed later.

However, it is heartening to read articles about certain celebs rejecting fairness cream endorsements despite being offered huge sums of money because they don't believe in discrimination on the basis of skin colour.

We need more and more such examples in a society that's blindly obsessed with the idea of fair skin. Also, some casting directors are shunning the idea of "being fair = being a good actor" and providing equal chances to all kinds of actors, as long as they do justice to the character they're expected to play. So all's not lost. Hope still remains.

We Are All Just The Same

Some people would be surprised to know that people with a dusky/darker complexion have the same body parts as their fairer counterparts. Being fair or white doesn't automatically give you the license to be a prick. God doesn't bless you with 207 bones instead of 206 just because you're white.

To summarize, let's get some "shit" straight. White-skinned people don't poop white chocolate and the sun doesn't rise from their arse. We are all just the same at the end of the day so this irrational segregation on the basis of skin colour needs to stop.

I still remember being amused with the media houses for continuously reporting Barack Obama as the first black African-American president when he won the US national elections. Yes, though it is, in fact, the truth, somehow every headline involving him accidentally featured the word "black" in it.

It seemed like Obama's hard work, his journey, strategy, and election manifesto had all taken a backseat and didn't matter. All that really mattered and took centre stage was his skin colour. It made me realize that not just India, even the US, to this day, is obsessed with fair skin. In fact, at that time, one of the American senators even went on to explain how America voted for Obama only because his skin was a lighter shade of black and because he didn't have a Negro dialect.

This sensationalising of black people as a special category and discrediting their achievements by painting with a narrow-minded racist brush subconsciously creates a divide in the society, sending a message to the society that they are not one of "Us".  My question here is just this - "Who has given you the right to decide who's 'us'?"

CONCLUSION

As individuals, we need to be comfortable in our own skin and accepting of other's skin as well, eradicating this obsession of society with fair skin. On a side note, I hope and pray that PETA continues it's efforts towards protecting the Panda. At least that way we have a living example of how black and white can not only co-exist in harmony but also look adorable & cute while at it.

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