Skin color and racism

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The picture is of Rimi Sen, a Bollywood actress. The first one is before she became hot property. Notice the skin tone And the second one is probably after using Fair and Lovely for 7 days. Notice the skin tone. It is shades lighter. Now, comparing variations in women’s skin tones is hardly my thing. However, Rimi is special. She said, and I quote- “I play a sweet and beautiful girl in the film. The best thing that I like about the film is that though it has four heroes, I am the only heroine. Rohit Shetty is amazing as a director. He can make even a black African look pretty.” African junta erupted at this brainless comment, and rightly so. It is a very insensitive comment and demeaning to an entire group of people that spans various ethnicities, religions and cultures. Anyone who is Black and African would take offence at this gross categorisation of Black Africans being not pretty, only for the reason that they are Black and African. What I do not understand, however, is that Indians erupted in protest too, tut-tutting and shaking their heads, about how racist little Rimi was. Now, a population that makes a commercial success of a product whose only USP is “Make your skin whiter in 7 days” has no bally right to call someone else racist just for verbalising what they themselves practice. I have seen mothers chiding their daughters for playing in the sun. “Don’t play in the sun, you’ll become black!”. In fact, I personally remember a snide remark one of my aunts passed when I visited her house in the summer after having played a good week’s cricket in the sun; “You look like an aborigine”, she said. Excuse me, like? I am a freaking aborigine! I hate it when Indian people talk as if they are white and European. Nothing wrong with being white and European, but come on, let’s get a reality check here. And these same ***kwits take exception when someone starts talking about the Aryan Invasion theory. Oh no, then we’re the natives. We, the slightly fairer Indians, we, the original inhabitants of India. We, the oh-so-***king-great-we-gave-the-world-the-zero Aryans. One has to grow their teenage years in India to understand the Indian obsession with white skin. And it is not just in a localised region of India, it is freaking all over the place. In Punjab, a beautiful girl has to be gori-chitti. Matrimonial advertisements are awash with the word ‘wheatish’, which is basically brown with foundation after a rigorous course of Fair and Lovely. I know someone who wrote ‘Indo Aryan’ in the race column on a form, and he was not making a joke. Face it, people. Indians are NOT Caucasians who are brown because of the tropical sun. Even if you bathe with Fair and Lovely cream every day, a single day in the sun is going to bring back the melanin. You can wear blue lenses, you can dye your hair blonde, but you’re going to be an Indian with blue lenses and blonde hair, a freak, a wannabe. So, while Rimi Sen is an insensitive dimwit for saying what she did, the general Indian population has no right to censure her, because we are doing exactly what she is. Kenyan students in Pune have a bloody hard time finding apartments to live in. Bollywood female roles have always been scraping the bottom of the acting talent barrel, probably because the only criterion for choosing a female lead is the shade of her skin. When Rimi Sen is the product of such a society, why should we blame her for putting into words what we all believe in and practice on a daily basis? We should applaud her for presenting the Indian point of view to the world, that dark skinned people are ugly and start exporting Fair and Lovely to wherever there are Black Africans to be found. Surely, they must want to get rid of their ugly black skin as much as we do, yeah? We haven’t even spared our Gods!Rama is referred to as Raja Ghanashyam, the Dark one. Krishna, the word itself means Black. References like Ghanashyam Murari abound. But no, we cannot have Black Gods, can we, we the Fair and Lovely? So what do we do? We paint them Blue!? Yes, most depictions of Rama and Krishna show them as being fricking Blue! What the hell? And then people take exception when someone questions whether Rama and Krishna really existed. The average Indian is darker than the average North African, there are Indians who are as dark as sub-Saharan Africans. And yet, we create social circumstances where imbeciles like Rimi Sen grow up to believe that black is ugly and white is beautiful. Even if it is Michael Jackson white. Idiots. When I entered university, I remarked to one of my close friends that most Indian youth either try to be white or try to be black. Very few of them are content with being Indian. Do I look White? Do I look Hispanic? No, goddamit, you look like a rice and dal loving Indian. “I am an Indian” is stamped on your ***king forehead and no amount of Fair and Lovely is going to get rid of that. So, go easy on Rimi, yeah? I am sure she doesn’t deny that she’s a brainless bimbo. Don’t blame her for growing up in a society that gives itself readily to racism when you yourself do your part and then some to perpetuate the bloody stereotype.