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honeylatt-blog · 4 years

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Colorism in Media

Light Skin Privilege

There is often a social phenomenon called the Light skin privilege that dominates south Asian countries like Indian and Myanmar and other parts of the world much more subtle. Light skin privilege is discrimination based on skin color, also known as colorism or shadeism, is a form of prejudice or discrimination, usually from members of the same race or culture but also within wider society, against dark skin individuals. Growing up in Yangon, Myanmar, in a country where dark skin people are somewhat of a minority, beauty standards are skewed.

My relatives would always give me Fair & Lovely whitening products to maintain and lighten my skin. My siblings and I were always told to not play outside in the sun because it would darken the skin. Always referred to as “Nyo-Chaw” in Burmese which translates to us “dark pretty girl”, the second-best compliment you can receive, only bested by “a thar phyu tel”, which translates to “fair-skinned”.

History of Colorism

So, what exactly caused colorism? According to Decode, this social issue dates back to slavery, when the white slave owners would rape their slaves and father mixed-raced children slaves who had much lighter complexions. These mixed-raced slaves would be then “given domestic work as opposed to the physical labor of darker slaves, this landing higher on the skin tone hierarchy because of their proximity to whiteness (MTV Impact).”

Fair to Glow

The idea that fairness is equated to beauty in these cultures has allowed for racism, specifically, anti-blackness to continue. This causes multi-billion billionaire companies like Unilever to promote skin whitening products such as Fair & Lovely in several countries such as India and Nigeria. This type of business exploits the insecurities of people of color and fuels more colorism in society. The normalization and persisting ignorance of colorism in society is a representation of the historical legacy surrounding racial prejudices American society has yet to relinquish.

Recently the Unilever company’s brand Fair and Lovely has decided to change their name to Glow and Lovely to soothe some of the backlashes they have been receiving from communities all over the world due to implications that their brand is promoting a standard of beauty that is discriminatory towards dark skin individuals.

Their ads always claim that using their skin lightening creams and other products will lighten their complexion to three or four times their original shade. All their ads and products have these skin shade measuring spectrum labels that insinuate that the fairest shade of them is the most desirable trait to aspire towards.

This type of skin lightening promotion discriminates against beauty standards in places that they were heavily marketing in and is dehumanizing the people with dark skin. These ads have blatantly displayed having dark skin as ugly and told that it could be fixed by using the Fair & Lovely products.

These ad campaigns portray various scenarios where the dark girl tries the skin whitening cream and gets the job interview, they were dreaming of, because she was fairer, or she found her a love interest or even looked beautiful after being portrayed lighter in these commercials. This type of commercials and marketing campaigns may be frowned upon in the West, however, are very common in places like India and Nigeria, and Fair & Lovely is amongst the highly influential trendsetters in this beauty industry.

Now with the rise in the fight for Black Lives Matter, incited by the death of George Floyd’s death by police brutality, there have been louder wake-up calls and many people speaking out against racism and colorism. Over recent years, many movements such as unfair and lovely or Instagram accounts have received a lot of attention and following for promoting dark skin representations and raising awareness.

The government of India got involved and initiated a ban of all whitening products in 2014 or any product or ads that reinforce “discrimination or negative social stereotyping based on the skin color”. This made Unilever want to avoid legal repercussions and encouraged their branding and campaigns to use terms like “radiance” and “glow” in place of “fair”. Some reasoned that remaining the brand to Glow & Lovely doesn’t eliminate the colorism but perpetuates and feeds on colorism. They make billions off of colorism.

Colorism in the Entertainment Industry

When we look at Bollywood, the film industry of India, we see a huge lack of diversity in terms of the range of skin tones. Though India’s population consists of a diverse range of skin color, we only see the lighter and fairer skin tones represented in the media. And the darker skin representation is almost nonexistent. Someone like Min

Even though I’ve only mentioned blatant colorism in the Far East, colorism is unfortunately still very prevalent and deeply rooted in the Western communities as well. Hollywood itself. Over ninety percent of Indians are tan; however, none of the main protagonists of any Bollywood films we see are ever tan. Darker Hollywood actresses of Indian Descent such as Mindy Kaling would never have made it in the film and entertainment industry of India. Simply because she is much darker than what Indian’s standards deem beautiful.

Conclusion

Media has a big influence on colorism. It influences and manipulates what the beauty standards should be in people's minds. There are a lot of things that we as people, regardless of our skin color, should do to combat colorism. Using social media and your social platforms like YouTube, we can share content that spreads awareness of these issues that can be generated into bigger movements as we move forward.

This means doing the work of educating yourself through social media about the issues and working towards unlearning some of the biases that you might have learned through life and the media. It takes a lot to change the way we view things, and it is difficult to admit our privileges. However, we must do so, to initiate positive change in our society so that each one of us, regardless of the skin color we are born in, can feel beautiful and accepted as they deserve to be.

Thank you for your time.

Honey Tin Latt is currently enrolled in the University of Tampa for her MBA. She is currently working part-time at Enterprise Solutions at her school. She used to work as a peer tutor, Resident Assistant, and Vaughn Information Desk assistant which led her to gain skills in customer service and leadership. You can reach her at [email protected].

Works Cited

Singh, Simrin. “A Letter to Indians Everywhere: Put Away the Fair and Lovely.” Medium, Medium, 2 Apr. 2020, medium.com/@simrinsingh/a-letter-to-indians-everywhere-put-away-the-fair-and-lovely-2bc0bd98464b.

Tai, Crystal. “The Backlash against Asia's Addiction to Whiter Skin Has Begun.” South China Morning Post, 3 Feb. 2019, www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2184747/asias-addiction-whiter-skin-runs-deep-backlash-has-begun.

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silenthillmutual · 5 years

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okay. warning for negative bc this is kind of a vent post?

so. i’m still working on unlearning a lot of things that i had kinda drilled into my head with my mom that i did not realize were bad until recently? or things that i could not easily voice were having negative effects on me until recently. and i’m kind of thinking about how my mom is very. hhhhhhhh.

my mom does not have a life outside of work. and not like, “oh she’s very dedicated to her career” sort of way. but like, she does not believe in taking time off. and i think in the way our capitalist environment functions that always comes off sounding very admirable. it’s not.

because what that equates to is like, she works to avoid other things in her life. she says that she can’t afford to take a break or any time to herself and my best friend and i had told her repeatedly that if she really wants a relationship she is going to have to take time to devote to that which means working less if only by a little bit! and that i have told her that she should take time to herself to relax whether she had a relationship or not because it’s not healthy to obsess over work the way that she does.

and. i guess she does a bit now. i saw recently on her fb that she went to colonial beach w her boyfriend and like. good for her. but that doesn’t erase that she is constantly harping on me, even from a distance, to do like. everything all in one day. and that i should be working 40+ hours a week and that if i don’t do that, that i’m lazy.

like my mom’s version of workaholism is to view herself as the rule and not the exception, which i can see in certain contexts how that translates into “oh so she’s not full of herself” but it’s actually really the opposite! because i think it takes a special brand of narcissism to assume that everyone is and should be exactly like you and that if they are not they are failing and that is their own fault.

so, my mom has fibro, like on top of all of that and i wonder if she’d feel better if she didn’t constantly push herself into working all the time. and the truth is that she’ll look at any time i spend online regardless of what i’m doing (bc she doesn’t ever care what i’m actually doing on there, to her it’s all the same) as time wasted and an addiction to the internet. and she thinks that everyone else w fibro or w any chronic or mental illness can work exactly as much as she can because if they do anything less they’re being lazy.

and i think you can kinda see why it’s an issue for a licensed therapist to think or feel that way.

so like. i have never pursued any job that says it’s part time, under $10 an hour that wants me to work 39 hours a week (one hour from full time in the commonwealth of va), no benefits, 8 hours every day, retail, with a massive list of responsibilities. because i know that i can’t handle doing 8+ hours which is how much it’ll wind up being if they want me to open/close (taking into consideration traffic and people who just will not fucking leave), like i had to struggle to work 8 hours at a job i actually LIKED without thinking of working at fucking target or some shit for 8+ hours a day. i can’t do it. between the anxiety and the autism that sounds like something that will make me absolutely want to die and i know this because i tried that at party city for three days and came home in tears every single day and my feet hurt so bad i couldn’t move.

and my mom’s response to that was like. just deal with it! just push through it! you have to!

you’d think a therapist with a chronic illness would be more compassionate than that.

but my mom’s whole life is focused on work and i don’t even think it’s because she just loves her job that much. she just refuses to do anything outside of it. she has a dog and a cat (MY cat I adopted her she is under MY legal name and that dog is basically my dog, he was my baby) that i was under no circumstances allowed to take with me regardless of where i went or when, but that she does not...enjoy. at all. she is constantly bitching about the pets and she bought an automatic feeder and self-scooping litterbox and hired pet sitters not for the occasional trip out to her boyfriend’s but for like a regular thing because she is at home as little as possible. every single second that she can spend at work she will.

and she hated that i didn’t spend 6-8 hours at work (more counting traffic) and then want to spend all of my free time looking for a second or different job and cleaning the house and cooking all the meals and running all the errands and taking care of the pets. with no help.

and that’s part of what i mean about her working to get out of having to do other things. because she also works so much so that she can get out of eating. like. ever. her body image issues are so fucked up that she will eat one meal a day and be like “ugh i’m such a pig i’m so fat i should stop eating maybe then i’ll lose weight”. and then she’ll deny that she he has an unhealthy relationship to food and claim she just “doesn’t have time to eat” even though she apparently has time to bitch at me over facebook or henpeck her boyfriend and read 8 different versions of her horoscope in an hour + longer breaks

like i’m sorry but if i could eat in 30 minutes with my coworker calling me to panic on the other end bc everyone decides to come into the library at the same fucking time then i think maybe. just maybe. you can eat a goddamn granola bar in 2+ hours while sitting at your desk instead of saying “i should be writing notes” and not actually writing your fucking notes!

what really kinda. bothers me all about it. like in addition to all this super unhealthy stuff that makes her occupation as a therapist hypocritical as hell is how she criticizes me for doing the exact shit that she does.

by which i mean. holding other people to my standards.

i’ve worked a lot at not being judgmental of other people and challenging my own notions of what is right and acceptable when i find myself judging other people. it’s really hard. i think it’s connected a lot to being autistic and the kind of biases that we’re all brought up into and it’s why travelling and secondary education are really important, not even just because of learning aspect (although liberal arts forcing you to take classes outside of your comfort zone. i think helps a lot in this too) but because meeting people from all different kinds of backgrounds makes you look at things from different angles you wouldn’t have otherwise, because if you never leave you never broaden your horizons.

so when there are still standards that i hold people to it’s. i try to just hold people to “not being a total asshole to everyone around you” as a relatively basic standard that i don’t think should be controversial? but even when i voice that opinion - like, literally, i went to richmond cc with two friends and when i got back i was telling my mom about this guy who was very loudly, specifically so that i could hear his unsolicited opinion of my cosplay, talking about how bad/boring jojo was because he knew i was dressed as someone from jojo and he wanted me and everyone else around him to know his opinion of jojo, then went and started mocking his friend for wanting to buy a gba instead of a gameboy sp bc his friend and i both saw the mother 1+2 and mother 3 cartridges and was just being an asshole! again! and i was just complaining to her after the fact about this guy being a dick and my mom’s response, not even like an “i don’t get it but i’m sorry” first was just

“well maybe he’s autistic”

and! i’m sorry! but that! doesn’t fuckign fly with me! i said “so am i that doesn’t mean i go around being an asshole to everyone at con”

and she was like “well maybe he’s not as high-functioning as you you can’t hold everyone to your standards”

NO! NO MAYBE HE WAS BEING AN ASSHOLE BECAUSE HE’S CIS WHITE GUY AND THINKS EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW HIS OPINIONS! do you know how many fucking people go to con are autistic????? a whole shit ton of us! do you know how many poc, trans, nb, not-straight people loudly voice their opinions to make the people around them including their friends feel like shit? NONE OF THEM! NONE OF THEM! NONE OF THEM! ONLY THE CISHET WHITE GUYS WHO THINK THEY’RE TOO GOOD FOR COSPLAY FUCKING DO THAT!

and it’s so irritating! like i’m not allowed to talk about my autism EVER and even when my standards are REALLY FUCKIGN LOW i’m being too judgmental of others but she’s allowed to talk about how everyone who doesn’t work 40+ hours every week and starve themselves is fucking?? lazy????

unreal. un fuckign believable.

#nori talks #nori's adventures in moving out

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