As the #reclaimthebindi week comes to an end tomorrow, I think it’s really important for us to recognize shadeism and colourism within the desi community.
South Indian women are constantly told that the ideal beauty standard is the “Punjabi girl” one (thin, fair-skinned with straight brown hair) and are termed “ugly and dark” by North Indian men when they don’t fall within this narrow definition of beauty. South Indian movies cast fair-skinned North Indian girls as the heroines, completely disregarding the fact that there are a lot of beautiful South Indian women that aren’t fair-skinned and light-eyed. Hell, even North Indians play South Indian characters in Indian movies! (Like Alia Bhatt playing a Tamil Brahmin girl in Two States. There isn’t a dearth of South Indian, particularly Tamilians, to play the part).
South Indian women, particularly the ones who are fair-skinned, are fetishized by North Indian men who make disgusting statements such as. “Wow, how come you’re South Indian and fair-skinned?” and then later claim that we should be flatted because “it was a compliment”. (Apparently being called fair is a compliment.) The same North Indian males will act like they’re doing South Indian women a damn favour by pursuing them and throwing them a bunch of racist “compliments”. Dark-skinned South Indian women are just dismissed as “dark-skinned Madrasis”, even though the South consists of five different states, all with distinct languages, cultures, food habits. (Also, Madrasi is a slur, and a completely inappropriate way to refer to Tamilians). Fair-skinned South Indian women who are smart are fetishized as the “ideal” women, beauty coupled with brains, while dark-skinned South Indian women are constantly are dismissed as “ugly, dark, hairy and boring”.
It’s important that we all respect diversity. South India is not one homogeneous culture, just the way North Indian culture isn’t homogeneous either. Support dark-skinned South Indians, not just the North Indian-passing, fair-skinned ones. The desi community is fraught with discrimination based on skin colour and it’s very important for all of us to be aware of it, and speak against it.
romaincrisis
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
