“Colorism isn’t real.”
Colorism? Wow because the term “racism” is so blase.
pilambdaod Colorism specifically refers to people of their own race valuing lighter skin over darker skin. For example in latina culture, valuing “good” straight hair over “pelo malo” or bad, curly hair.
Racism would imply we’re talking about at least two different races here; colorism specifically is about racist ideals within one race, people of one race policing others appearance within their own race.
(since this is an indian book, presumably made by indian people for indian children to read, depicting a light skinned indian woman as more beautiful than a dark skinned one, it’s colorism.)
One of those is clearly Caucasian the other Indian.
Creating random new “isms” only makes legitimate grievances seem petty and stupid.
“One of those is clearly Caucasian”
Aishwarya Rai, Kareena Kapoor, Kangana Ranaut
Karisma Kapoor, Shruti Haasan, Zarine Khan
All actresses/models born in India to parents who were also born in India (or Pakistan), in a narrow view of “race.”
If a Papua New Guinean hooks up with a Swedish person all you get is a human. There’s no new thing you’re going to get. You just get a human.
- Bill Nye: Race is a Human Construct (and don’t look at the comments; it’s the usual cesspool of bigots)
Ideas on “race” have been in slow development over the years, but colourism is a real thing (often with roots in imperialism, especially as Western ideas of beauty began to intrude upon countries).
The 100 Years of Beauty: Philippines has a jarring jump where April Villanueva (who has light/medium-toned skin) gets her skin darkened for the 1910s-20s aesthetic, then becomes powder-white when US/European colonial interests make a stronger influence on Philippine society in the 1930s (more in the research video).
Two more examples of skin tone variation between famous women in countries where colourism has become prevalent in celebrity culture (ie, it was a lot harder finding photos of a dark-skinned Korean actress than a light-skinned one):
Koreans: Song Hye-kyo and Lee Hyori
Filipinos: Valerie Garica and Nicole Scherzinger (active in the US; Filipino father, Hawaiian/Samoan-Russian mother)
Variation in skin colour across a “race” is as real as variation in eye colour (”oh, you have brown eyes? I guess you’re not a real Caucasian”).
Colourism also pervades a lot of modern beauty marketing.
What’s underneath your dark skin? A prettier, lighter version of yourself! Everyone should strive to be more fair and lovely because only then you’ll be happy with your flesh prison!!
tl;dr colourism exists and isn’t some bogeyman made up by “”es jay double-ews,”” and if you’re the person bemoaning how it “delegitimizes racism” then it’s likely you actually don’t care about racism at all and are just trying to devalue the arguments with the classic “but so-and-so people have it worse! how could you be so self-centered and selfish??”
Also “colorism” was coined by Alice Walker in 1982. This is not some new internet fad.
Colorism is 100% real. People don’t really have the audacity to say it to your face anymore when you’re older but from ages 6 to 13, I would constantly hear from relatives and others that I used to be so “white” and “beautiful” as a baby and it’s a shame my face darkened. Every desi girl I know has a similar experience.
In Asian countries, darker skinned people are thought to be ugly and poor.
One of my friends grew up in Bangladesh. Her parents had guests over, and she was setting the table and doing some chores. She’s eight years old and just trying to be helpful. The guests complimented her parents, saying they had a wonderful maid.
a maid. understandably she’s hurt, because they assumed due to the color of her skin that she wasn’t her parents’ daughter. she’s literally eight years old and doing something out of love, and that’s alienated from her—it was basically implied that she didn’t belong to the family.
she had the darkest skin out of her family (& she’s like a mid tan at most) so when she was little, they nicknamed her ’kali tara’, black star.
she teared up when telling us this story because you know in english, it doesn’t sound so bad. a black star. but in bangla, it implies a star that’s gone dark, been extinguished.
a black star doesn’t have any light.
