2 years ago-
Ok, maybe if we talk only about upper class society, yes there’s a deficiency on judgement on colourism but sorry to say it’s still an illusion, at least according to me.
From the lowest economical system to highest, yes maybe some don’t pass judgement directly but isn’t it practical?
We , Indians are born black, it’s according to the environment and from our genes of course.
So, why are we black. Because of Melanin. Yes, it’s what protect your skin and thus you and make you blend with the surrounding we have.
But what we’re doing? Yes, we absolutely treat it like a curse or some fault.
People are suggesting to dress up not according to your choice but according to your skin color. Using mismatch fair foundations are of course a current example.
Families are having nightmare if you are dark as nobody is gonna marry you. Every single one has imprinted in their mind that beautiful means fair and fair means beautiful.
And if you are contradicting this theory as lack of knowledge or science make the society deaf, what will you say about the ones who are making these products? Have you ever seen a dark model from India? Or leave model, have you ever seen an advertisement to feature dark women?
Yes it’s easy to say that every color is beautiful and so on but is a famous industry going to pay a dark model just because she is talented? Nope.
Yes, of course contradiction happpens. We have a lot of courageous men and women who are taking this colour issue seriously. And thanks to them that we’re at least learning to disapprove it. But from those literate one to the simple housewife, if you are not fair, you are not beautiful, and if you are not beautiful then everyone is gonna pinching you. And that’s how we are accepting our own culture and ourselves, a slow clap to us all.Talking about the current society which is a modern society or era. We have become an illusion of our real personality to make it look real on social media or in front of the people. I think unlearning colorism in real will take a decade to actually follow it. Specifically in Asian countries, we are talking about the skin colors that it’s not a feature to judge people as beautiful but lacking to follow in real situations. We are born with an attitude of Fair skin is beautiful and others are not and they inferior bunch of people. We have been provided the surrounding normalcy to call out people and discriminate them according to their skin tone or color. A lot of agenda, social movement and trends on social media has finally led a way to highlight the issue of colorism, but we are only taking it digitally serious and in reality it is still a taboo to be black or brown.
I will share a small incident from my internship at hospital, a highly educated technician was looking for a girl to marry. He was dark in complexion. He was connected with the girl through Facebook, and they did get along well. Then a woman asked him to meet her in person. He was not ready to meet her because of the skin tone he had. He was sure that the girl will reject him immediately due to the color. This only tells us about the reality of our society upon colorism because if we have accepted in reality then it was not an issue for a man to marry a girl whom he had liked but failed to get married due to his color.
We are a bunch of educated people, and we need to stand out beyond the color race to grow in a society.Our society is full of ancient thought , cultural and mentality . How much we try the patches of pass is remain the same . And one of the darkest facts of the past is discrimination due to colourism. In ancient time the dark colour people are not allowed to sit with walk with stay with white colour people . It is said that the past never forgets, it comes with it taking its memories and thought.
Soon as the word get modernize, the thinking of the People change probably but the thing which is not changed till now is differentiating between colours even today directly or indirectly people are discriminated on the basis of their colour the society has divided the people in 4 types that are:- fair , Yellow, brown, black . Many girls where house in childhood not to play in Sun as her colour is already dull . This is a long thought process we are feeding in our child mind .
In entertainment industry many girls rejected because of the colour . And those who are selected accepted by the entertainment industry never get that much of opportunity as the fair colour people get whether they were always with the side roles.
Accepting changes but these are some changes with the society and the people cannot change but cannot accept . Everyone is trying hard to go with the flow but still we are facing to bridge this gap of mentality and discrimination which is very essential for the free India for the independent India .
Many brand introduce products like “cream which can glow you colour” “can give your new colour” they are may be directly or indirectly , promoting that the dull colour people will not be accepted by the society or are not been accepted till now . Company should avoid using such kind of for sentences in promotion of the product for using these line as a taglines . As you all have seen the world famous cream fair and lovely has to change her name and now it’s name is glow lovely . People has came that the company is promoting colour discrimination.
A society has begin unlearning colourism but we are very far from the target. There is very painful and difficult journey we have to face. In colour which we are born is given by the god to their child and it’s their choice and our density . All are no 1 pictures them and discriminate time all equal and people should pictures according to their mentality and heart not according to your colour and clothes .“Beauty is supposed to be described by the skin colour”, they mean, darker the colour uglier she is, they think. Even in today’s modern world, our society has set beauty standards for women. Discrimination on the basis of colour has been in frame since ages and it is still there. Everyone today wants a fair, tall and fit girlfriend or wife, nobody is ready to accept her like she is.
They often say that “you don’t fall in love with the face but the heart”, but the people around never meant so. Everyone in this society wants his/her life partner to be beautiful. It’s a myth that people have started to unlearn the concept of colourism, because this has been going on in our society since ages and people still believe in accepting this even in the modern world.
I’ve seen a lot of people blaming girls for their dark skin or short height, even after knowing that it’s not their fault, or she never asked for that. Everyone here, puts a lot of effort in becoming fairer, tall etc etc. in order to satisfy the society. This society never helped us love ourselves the way we are. People should start believing in themselves that skin colour never decides the beauty of a human being, their actions and their deeds do.In modern-day India, colorism is perpetuated and reinforced by several factors, including the cultural significance of a “fair complexion” to many Indians, the omnipresence of the fairness-oriented Indian media, and socially rewarded phenotypic traits in Bollywood’s leading men. From the ancient Indian rishi, Manu, who thought blue-skinned people superior to darker-hued brethren, colorism in India has ranged from a fanciful fairytale to modern-day practice (Palladino). The notion of distinctively different skin colors was prevalent and varied from region to region.
So how has colorism in India manifested itself over time? In the past – and various pockets of the country even today – dark-skinned Indians were discriminated against for employment, marriage prospects, and social acceptance. Caste hierarchies among the South Asian population bolster this prejudice further, with the upper castes generally being lighter in color. Traditionally, Indian bridegrooms and their families are interested in a fair complexion, especially signifying the whiteness of the skin. Fair skin is universally considered to be the most beautiful skin color as it signifies kinship with Europeans.
When we envision a darker-skinned girl next to a lighter-skinned girl, we tend to assume that the former will be fairer in her treatment of others. To many darker-skinned women, being treated fairly in society has meant having to somehow bury their skin tone. In other words, they have to ‘pass.’ The shade of one’s skin becomes a substitute for character traits like intelligence, competence, and generosity; it even comes preloaded with certain assumptions about personality. As human beings, we are material creatures and we love earthly things. We ordinarily love these earthly things for which we have got an eye. In our modern era, beauty is a vital point that is appreciated by every pair of eyes. The most essential quality of beauty that makes it more astonishing is the color of a person. But there is no denying the fact that the color of a person matters in society and mostly the appreciation and admiration comes when it is white because, white color symbolizes purity, beauty, etc.
The one who does it knowingly is ignorant while the other who blindly follows doesn’t know any better. An ignorant person doesn’t mean to harm but because of lack of awareness inflicts pain on others and at the same time also causes damage to oneself. To be fair that all these have their roots in the dark ages but still even now it has a profound impact on the lives of women. It is primarily based on our own experiences and perceptions which are so much implanted in us, until and unless we break the shackles and or liberate ourselves for some new ground.
If everyone has the attitude to accept someone for who they are and see beyond color, this unlearning colorism will come sooner than ever before. Discrimination in any form is wrong and whether it happens on basis of caste, creed, or color it is a matter of shame for the entire human race.
India’s fixation with fairness is an absurd paradox, given the tropical environment of the country and the population’s high melanin index. A renowned celebrity recently questioned this particular obsession and recounted her own experience of her brown skin. Colourism defined as ‘prejudicial treatment or preference for people with the same race based on their color’ continues to be a deep-seated social challenge in India.
In talks about acts of discrimination, the terms racism and colorism are often used interchangeably. One fundamental difference between the two is, however, that racism is discrimination based on race and discrimination based on skin tone. Notably, the uncontrolled colorism it propagates today did not always hurt India. In ancient Indian writings, especially the Mahabharata and the Rig Veda, the dark-haired heroes such as Krishna and Draupadi are mentioned and celebrated. After it was invaded by the Mughal dynasty, Indian civilization first discovered the concept of colorism.
To blame the colorism of India at foreign doors would be unfair. Even after Indians were left to their own devices after independence, their fixation with fairness continued to continue through their own ‘other’ activities. The Indian attitude, which supports colorism, reduces genetic makeup and climatic conditions which cause the formation of melanin (the skin tone pigments) in humans to be more or less reduced.
Colourism can’t be denied to have a bad impact on any gender. But women typically feel more urged to strive for just skin tones, as they are often pressured to achieve unattainable societal beauty standards in order to gain valued catches on the marriage market. The term ‘gendered colorism’ is used for this topic. A popular refrain for possible brides in matrimonial commercials is “fair, big and thin.” Conversely, if “tall, black and beautiful,” potential grooms are still suitable.
An issue as prevalent as colorism can’t vanish in India with a single rebrand or a single dark model on a poster board. But keeping the coloristic talk continuing is essential so that the future generations of Indians don’t regard their dark skin as a binge. We must first discover the years of training that provide skin tone to an essential measurement of our value, to learn to be proud of our “wheatish,” “toned with honey” and “black” skin hues.Colourism is something that our Indian society has dealt with since the time unknown. People are discriminated on the basis of their skin colour right after they are born—and that too not just by the unknown society but by their own family! How sad it is to know that your own family looks down upon you just because of the colour of your skin?
While the times have definitely changed, and we can see the change in people’s mindsets as well, the ground reality remains the same. People might continue to preach how colourism is wrong and that it doesn’t make sense, but in their real lives they themselves conform to these disgusting standards of colourism. Therefore unfortunately, the notion that our society has begun unlearning colourism is, to this day, an illusion.
We have to make active efforts to unlearn this disgusting mindset of colourism and treat people with respect and without any discrimination, regardless of the colour of their skin. We have to make progress and lift ourselves from this garbage heap of a society that discriminates and judges people on the basis of their appearance—be it the way they look, the way they dress, or the skin colour they were born with. Every human being deserves to be treated equally and justly, and then only we can call ourselves an evolved society—a society with educated and open-minded people.
Colourism basically means and includes discrimination among people in the basis of the shade of their skin. Especially in Indian Societies this particular aspect of colourism has been faced bby almost every girl child. Their is a general perception that fair skinned people are more beautiful as well as desirable. The concept of colourism is engrained in India to the extent that skin lightening products and the industries manufacturing such products are excelling in India. Media, telivision Industry and bollywood has an active role in the same as these are particular platforms for the promotion of such products, which encourage fake beauty standards.
Despite these Modern Times that we live in, our society has not been successful in eliminating colourism, it is till date associated with caste system in the country which believe that people belonging to upper caste are fair and the one’s belonging to lower castes are darker. The discrimination faced by these individuals is a clear violation of their right to equality before law and so it here becomes our responsibility to abolish such practices or customs and move towards the world where the capability of an individual is not limited to the colour of their skin.
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