Tariq Islam
On Color.
Vasudha Thozhur, Untouchable, 2001, oil on canvas, 95 x 75.5 inches. From the exhibition, "Tiger by the Tail! Women Artists of India Transforming Culture, Part 2."
Coming from a Pakistani and Indian background has always made me aware of my dark skin. Granted, my origins are from "brown” countries. Many of my fellow South-Asians have grown up in households where the terms of gora (Pakistani, North Indian) and shada (Bengali) have been used frequently. For those that do not know what those terms mean, it is often used to either address a term for those of Caucasian persuasion (kind of like Spanish’s use of the word ‘gringo’) or used more frequently to denote light-skin tone. Similar to the African-American community, there is a love affair for “lighter skin” people within many groups in the SA community. I guess I never realized what a big deal it was until I became older and I had chats with my dadi-ji (paternal grandmother) about how she wanted me to end up with a “gori larki” i.e. light-skinned girl because I was dark. My grandmother isn’t a bad person nor does she dislike darker people (she’s very brown herself!) but this is simply the mentality that permeates our older generations and has been unfortunately passed on to our newer generations including South Asian Diasporas in the western world.
Often the mentality is best summarized as “the man can be dark but the woman has to be light”. Those who are not South Asian or Black may not understand this mentality---but those who have origins in former colonial countries will understand the obsession with skin-tone. There are many who believe that fascination with lighter skin originated in the ancient Hindu caste system dating back thousands of years (this predates the birth of Sikhism, modern Hinduism, and the rise of Islam in the region). This this mindset has been fermented over centuries of time as light-skin has always been associated with being “higher-class” in many South Asian ethnic groups because it associated with wealth and power. Historically, the ruling-class during British India let the same situation occur i.e. many of them were light-skinned. Granted, not all South Asian ethnic groups are similar and many have different attitudes of what consists of beauty and class. I speak only from the view of the general mindset of those ethnicities located in Northern belt of India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan as my opinion has been based off my interactions with these communities.
personal awareness
My own self-awareness on these issues started with my love affair of light-skin. Growing up as one my darkest kids in my South Asian family friend circle, I never noticed the color of my skin. However, as I grew up and befriended other Pakistanis my age, I started to notice my distinct dark skin tone because of my West Bengali ancestry. I had never faced “racism” because of skin-color until I faced it in my own community. I remember a very fair-skinned Pakistani kid making fun of me because I was dark. And yes, we were both Pakistani, we both had a similar upbringing in culture, but he had always gone out of his way to mention my skin color to me like I didn’t know I was dark. And I would grind my teeth and smile and try to make a joke out of it. It was my first interaction with the light-skin dark skin divide in the SA community.
personal awareness
My own self-awareness on these issues started with my love affair of light-skin. Growing up as one my darkest kids in my South Asian family friend circle, I never noticed the color of my skin. However, as I grew up and befriended other Pakistanis my age, I started to notice my distinct dark skin tone because of my West Bengali ancestry. I had never faced “racism” because of skin-color until I faced it in my own community. I remember a very fair-skinned Pakistani kid making fun of me because I was dark. And yes, we were both Pakistani, we both had a similar upbringing in culture, but he had always gone out of his way to mention my skin color to me like I didn’t know I was dark. And I would grind my teeth and smile and try to make a joke out of it. It was my first interaction with the light-skin dark skin divide in the SA community.
where it begins
For a while, I was brainwashed into taking skin color into account because it has been so fundamentally ingrained in me that I should end up with a light-skinned girl. Often these conversations on what many considered “beauty” were with extended family. Anytime I visit the “motherland” i.e. Pakistan or India---there is always conversation on my future wife. Thankfully, my parents never ever mentioned skin color as a valid qualification for my future spouse. We have failed to correct our previous generation’s mentality. It begins at home, in our families, and then it is circumvented through our media outlets and our family friend circles. It happens in the South Asian fashion industry where every girl is pretty much white and fails to account for the reality of the diversity of skin tones.
the detriment
Why is being a dark person and specifically a darker colored girl a bad thing? It comes down what we fundamentally view as beauty. Our upbringing has “taught” us what beauty is but we have not been allowed to understand it in its fullest breadth. I have met many South-Asian men who unfortunately who have often passed on a girl because she was “too dark” even if there was chemistry between the two. Sometimes I even hear the phrase “she’s dark but she’s pretty”. Understandably, we all have physical traits that we like in members of the opposite sex—be it a smile, hair color, certain type of face/body structure, etc----it’s natural. But we cannot use discrimination simply on the basis of color to validate a human being’s worth especially when it’s our own people. We ought to start validating beauty for what it is and elevate ourselves.
