“Color color, what color do you choose?” I recall an elementary school tag game. The ‘It’ chooses a color and shouts it aloud. The other players scramble to touch an object of the selected color. Anyone that fails is killed and is out of the game. Adults play the game with human lives.
As sarcastically as possible, I wonder why schools that teach about the importance of proteins, vitamins, and minerals do not teach about the importance of melatonin — an essential component whose concentration in our skin defines our privilege setting in the world and the destiny of our lives.
The human skin tone is officially three shades — white, brown, and black. If you are from an Indian origin, there is further societal sub-grading into fair, medium, and dark. The women folks aspire for a lighter shade of brown to do better in the marriage market, even if their entire gender is treated as second class citizens anyway.
I am a woman who, by Indian color standards have been considered fair-skinned, and therefore I am privileged. During the few months break between my high school and undergraduate years, I was going through a tough phase in life. I was depressed, slept during the day, and read during the nights. I became thin and anemic because of unhealthy eating and sleeping habits, and the lack of sunlight made my skin go pale.
When I started my first semester in college, people who knew me from before complimented me for becoming fairer during the holidays and, therefore, prettier. A compliment that would have otherwise made me happy made me feel sick in the tummy. It was a compliment for becoming unhealthy. If a skin-based privileged person like me had to face this, I could not even begin to imagine the trauma of dark-skinned people.
Cosmetic industries flourish on insecurities. Indian cinema contributes by casting mostly fair-skinned women for virtuous female lead roles. Stereotypes are created. Parents want genetics to magically transform their own genes and bless their children with fair skin. People pull out everything from the kitchen shelves, grind, rub them on the face and scrub till they bleed to lighten the skin tone. Today, we photoshop or use artificial filters on our selfies.
For those hypocrites that praise, judge, or condemn another human being based on their skin tone but hold a flag for George Floyd on their social media platforms, protest your own belief system first. When individuals change, society changes. When society changes, systems change.
As for the rest of the racist folks, let’s play a childhood game again. It is called ‘Shame shame puppy shame.”
