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Categorize Chinese fair skin beauty standard or any other East Asian fair skin preferences as “white worshiping” is ignorant and the new RACISM.

Recently, a wave of Western users have flooded Xiaohongshu (Rednote), criticizing Chinese people for “bleaching” their skin to “look white.” On platforms like X and Tumblr, they went even further—accusing Chinese artists of “whitewashing” their own people and calling them racist. They refuse to believe that Chinese people naturally have light skin and insist that China’s preference for fair skin is a result of colonial brainwashing.

Honestly? This is not just ignorant—it’s insulting.

1. Chinese People Have Always Had Light Skin

Let’s get this straight: many Chinese people are naturally light-skinned. Just like any other large population, we have a range of skin tones—from fair to wheat-colored to tan. But claiming that all Chinese people have dark skin and that we “bleach” to look white is simply wrong.

Historically, Western travelers who visited China in the 17th and 18th centuries often described Chinese people as “fair” or “pale.” It wasn’t until the 19th century—when Western racial theories were developed—that they started classifying us as “yellow” to separate us from Europeans.

2. “White Skin is Beautiful” Has Nothing to Do with Western Influence

One of the biggest misconceptions is that China’s preference for fair skin comes from colonialism. This is completely false.

Chinese culture has valued fair skin for thousands of years—long before we even had contact with the West. In ancient poetry, beautiful women were described as having “skin like jade” (肤如凝脂) or “as bright as snow” (冰肌玉骨). Why? Because in traditional Chinese society, fair skin was linked to class, not race. If you worked in the fields all day, you’d get tanned. If you were rich and stayed indoors, your skin remained fair. That’s why fair skin was a symbol of status—not because we wanted to “look white.”

3. The Real Problem? Westerners Still Think Only White People Can Be Fair-Skinned

Here’s the irony: the people accusing Chinese artists of “whitewashing” are actually influenced by 19th-century white skin superiority theory (even if they don’t realize it).

How Did Westerners Start Believing White Skin = Superior?

In the 19th century, European scientists created racial hierarchy theories that classified people by skin color. They placed “white people”(mostly German or Anglo people) at the top, calling them the most “civilized” and “intelligent,” while other races were seen as inferior. To maintain this superiority, they had to make white skin EXCLUSIVE-so they categorized Asians as “yellow” and Africans as “black,” even though many Asians were naturally fair-skinned.

This mindset still affects some Westerners today. They assume:

If someone has fair skin, they must be white.

If an Asian person is fair-skinned, they must have bleached their skin.

If an Asian artist draws fair-skinned Asians, they must be “whitewashing.”

See the problem? They are still thinking in 19th-century racial terms—where white = superior, and only white people are allowed to be fair-skinned.

4. Pushing a New Form of Racial Bias

These so-called “anti-racists” claim to support diversity, but in reality, they are forcing a Western racial narrative onto Asians.

They don’t actually care about how Chinese people see themselves.They ignore our history, beauty standards, and natural diversity.They attack artists simply for drawing what they see in real life.

This isn’t about fighting racism. It’s about forcing their own version of race onto us.

5. Who Decides What Chinese People Should Look Like?

Chinese people don’t need Western approval to define our own beauty. Our culture, history, and diversity speak for themselves.

To those who think Chinese people should all be “yellow” or “brown”—ask yourself, why do you feel so uncomfortable with fair-skinned Asians? Is it because it challenges your idea of race?

jessiarts

Hey, PSA:

On your phone, go to Settings> Security and Privacy> Privacy> Other Privacy Settings> Ads> Delete Advertising ID

Then go back to Other Privacy Settings> Google location history> Turn off Location History &/or Turn-on Auto-Delete (you can set a time period of how long to keep it)

Then, staying on Other Privacy Settings, go to ’+ See all activity controls’> Web & App activity> Turn off (you can also turn-on Auto-Delete for here too) Then Scroll down to Personalized ads> My Ad Center> Turn Off Personalized Ads.

Google has no business knowing/storing everything you do online, and knowing/storing where you go everyday. Turn it off.

These instructions are for an Android phone, IOS might be different. If you have IOS or another operating system feel free to add on with your own map to where they’ve buried these settings in your phone to help others.

aristoteliancomplacency

iOS:

Settings -> privacy -> apple advertising -> turn off.

Settings -> privacy -> analytics and improvements -> share iCloud analytics -> turn off.

Settings -> privacy -> analytics and improvements -> share iPhone analytics -> turn off.

Settings -> privacy -> tracking -> ‘allow apps to request to track’ -> turn off.

Settings -> privacy -> location services -> customise per app. Most you can set to ‘never’. Some will need ‘while using’.

And even for those apps, you can turn off ‘precise location’.

I’ve noticed one thing, if a show goes out of its way to promote “girl power” “girls help girls” it usually would be the exact opposite of it.

Like the new Chinese tv drama dream of splender (Meng Hua Lu) got backfired for this type of promotion. It sets itself on a high moral standard, only for the audience to notice its protagonist centric morality, now people all think the second female lead is bullied by the protagonist gang and she should be the actual hero in the show coz of her actual character arc, which is quite ironic, coz the second female lead was supposed to be a ~bad example~ as to show how good our protagonist is as a comparison.

The show gets hate comments also because of its discrimination against sex workers, like they are making the whole being prostitute in acient China about ~choice you make~, like you have a choice in ancient China being something like a geisha. When whether selling ~artistic talents~ or body or both is not up for them to decide. When they can be sent like they are just a gift, an object to anyone.

When the protagonist talk about how they are holier than tho coz they don’t choose to sell their bodies. They win favors from clients using their artistic talent. Those who choose to sell their bodies have no self love. Yeah yeah😅 Anyway, that is just soooooo against its promotion of “we love girls, girls are the best” but not the prostitute right?

But then the plot goes on about how difficult it is for the protagonist to get rid of her pariah state(she was sold to be a “geisha” as a punishment for her father’s crime), how she is ashamed of her past, promising the male protagonist if she’s done anything wrong just send her back to be a pariah as a punishment. Welp if you could “choose” to not sell your body, win favorites just by your music or dancing talent, if famous enough, can earn a lot money and get to meet the king blah blah, then how is being a “geisha” and a pariah a bad thing. But when the second female lead desperately wants to marry a rich husband to get rid of her pariah state, the protagonist scold her for trying so (???) In this show, the “fault” of the second lead is just simply wanting to get out of pariah state? Just because the more talented she becomes, the more shows she performs, she feel more objectified? What’s the problem in her wish?

Also the show begins with an investigation by the male lead, about if the queen is “lying” about her purity. The show is a history adaptation, so the Queen, Liu E, would be one of the most famous female politicians in history, was and is KNOWN to be a wet nurse when she entered the court. Like the emperor already knew she wasn’t a virgin(hell she even gave birth before!) when he had an eye on her. She was made a queen with the whole nation knowing this was her second marriage, and she remained in actual political power after the king died. Who gives a fuck about the queen not being a virgin and “lying” about it? People from 1000 years didn’t give a shit, the audiences too??? Like no matter how the show tries to make the investigation “mysterious”, are they realizing they are adapting a famous history figure?

Little note at the end:

The show is an adaptation of a 1000 year old play written by Guan HanQing. Said play is titled prostitute saving prostitute, Guan made two prostitutes heroes of their story, the Xia of the story. but the 21 century adaptation wanted its protagonist to be “pure” and dissing the second female lead for not being a perfect victim in the original play. SMH

Ah yes, Liu YiFei is the protagonist, now she just proves once again, one, she can’t act. Two, she’s insufferable on screen. And now we also know she’s a darn neoliberal feminist 😂😂😂

niets-is-onbeduidend

I recently discovered a fandom podcast and decided to listen to a couple of episodes to see whether it was my cup of tea. The atmosphere of the podcast is nice but their views on the relationship between fiction and reality seem very …adaptable depending on the topic.

With regard to fictional villains or their fans they defend the notion that there is an extremely strong link between fiction and reality.

The hosts of the podcast speculate that women who like Kylo Ren or Reylo must either hate themselves: ‘why would you otherwise think that a woman only deserves a Kylo Ren?’ Or have bad men in their own lives and therefore wish to believe that someone like Kylo Ren can be redeemed.

They go as far as to claim that liking a villain is a reflection of character:

People who like this kind of character [Snape, Loki or Kylo Ren] will never like Finn and Poe. If you are the kind of person who sympathises with explicit white supremacy in your fanworks there is no way they were ever going to like Finn or Poe because they are people of color and white supremacists just don’t think they are people.

In one minute they connect liking Snape, Loki and Kylo Ren to being a white supremacist. Or as they put it elsewhere ‘there are gross people in society so there are gross fics.’ To paraphrase: if you like or create gross fanworks you must be a gross person.

They notice that other people do make a difference between a fiction reality but to them this is a bad thing.

The hosts don’t understand: The level of remove [from reality] that is necessary to like such a [fictional] guy. And mention that they find it truly bizarre that people do not translate fictional content directly into reality. ‘A lot of people […] are not thinking about the genocide when they are thinking about fucking a villain’. They acknowledge that people could write Reylo because they think Adam Driver is hot but according to them that is irresponsible. They do not comprehend: that level of putting your own morals and ethics at the door to enjoy fiction.

Based on this it seems that they think that separating fiction and reality too much is unadvisable.

Until we reach the topic of RPF. They like RPF. They are fans of RPF. According to them RPF is OK because it is made up, because it is not real.

To me this comes across as if they are not truly concerned about the relation between fiction and reality at all. But rather instrumentalise it to attack what they do not like and defend what they do.

I’d add a TLDR but they summarise their standpoint on these matters quite handily themselves: ‘some things should just not be on the internet because they are disgusting: yes the people aren’t real, yes a real person isn’t harmed, and yes maybe violent video game don’t actually affect what people end up doing, but there are a lot of things I don’t want to see’.