The ‘dark’ history of Racism
How colorism still exists skin-deep in India
They say beauty is skin-deep but dishearteningly the statement is contrary to the existing harsh reality where a person’s skin color is more often than not taken to be a trademark of measure to one’s judgements.
The question of why the societal system has held on to such ludicrous thoughts traces its answer to the history of how our country has been built on. Historically speaking, our country has the racist values codified through its ungrounded caste system that determines a person’s social stratum.
Unfortunately, no matter how we might even succeed in eradicating the ill-effects of it, the mindset of people that have been poisoned over years with the fact of Fair being the ruler is simply by no means fair.
Unethical misconceptions and expectations that a women born fair is more desired than not which in turn twines itself into deeming the person a choice of concern is underwhelming.
Bias exists in almost every morality that strictly by rules shouldn’t be.
But to change something on paper is much easier and not the scarred mentalities of mindsets of a few.
Statistics overflow with data reports showing how fairness and cosmetic products find their best marketplace in India without even having to convince the customer of its purpose. It’s like selling a product of necessity. Couldn’t have been brutally easier.
The insane blind-folded belief of just getting a tan is never taken normally in an Indian setting and the very fact that it is condemned by the elders of the family is frightening.
Broad-mindedness to accept one’s own physicality and personality should be an inborn character or at least must be taught to a growing child to feel comfortable in her own skin by the elders of the family.
But alarmingly, it runs in the blood passed on by generations that being dusky, or anything less than the assured fair skin tone is not beautiful.
Even the idealism of Western Beauty measures etches the propaganda that whitening, or lightening is a trait of passage to look more admirable and charming.
Remember your good, old nursery rhyme “Chubby cheeks, dimpled chin; rosy lips, teeth within; Curly hair, very fair”. No, it's not fair.
Culturally, we have melanin and hyper-pigmentation so normal in our skin. It’s genetic. One can’t possibly convince a tender child to all these colonizing beauty norms.
The article ‘Dark is beautiful: The battle to end the world’s obsession with lighter skin’ by The Guardian clearly highlights how inculcating this whole imagery is essentially deformation and not transformation.
Movies, TV programs and advertisements reinforce the bias constantly etching the thought with a forever mark over growing children.
The inferiority and the mental block that a child undergoes when he/she isn’t necessarily fair skinned according to societal norms is traumatizing.
The grotesque mortification has in fact to its credits, legal orders that ban agencies and companies portraying darker skin tones as inferior. But just as the millions of law orders that exist only at paper and never into reality, this too remains inadvertently.
The issue becomes intolerably brutal when the fairness products in the pursuit of white-washing skins starts using harmful chemicals that are toxic to the human health in the longer and shorter run.
Several such instances have been noted. Although there have been many initiatives taken for change like the Dark is beautiful campaign and social-media awareness, the problem is yet to find an effective and strong remedy to break down people from the evil clutches of fairness superiority and narrow-minded judgementality.
On a concluding note, the unravished truth of beauty being an in-depth concept with skin tone hardly to denote anything is going to take some more time for the society to come up on terms with!
