Hamid Rayhan
The white world, the only honorable one, barred me from all participation. A man was expected to behave like a man. I was expected to behave like a black man, or at least like a nigger. I shouted a greeting to the world and the world slashed away my joy. I was told to stay within bounds, to go back where I belonged. (Fanon, 2008)
As time goes on, it appears that the human race is combating an increasing number of “-isms,” or notions, connected to discriminatory practices. For instance, racism, sexism, classism, and colorism are some of the most pervasive and detrimental “-isms” that the world faces today. The phrase “discrimination” describes prejudice or unfair treatment of an individual or a group based on social factors based on race, gender, and social standing status. Colorism and racism are two types of discrimination that can occasionally coexist. Despite the fact that they are connected, their definitions, underlying reasons, and results differ. The term “racism” refers to a set of personal, social, and institutional attitudes that systematically oppress members of a certain race or ethnicity. On the other hand, colorism is a byproduct of racism that, in any community or culture, discriminates against individuals with darker skin and grants privilege to those with lighter skin. The roots of colorism can be found in the history of slavery, just as modern racism. Colorism coexisted with slavery, which was a racist institution in and of itself. For instance, slave owners might give lighter-skinned slaves home chores and darker-skinned slaves arduous work (‘Colorism’). As a society, we must work hard to comprehend that skin tone is both an indication of injustice that must be fought and an “integral part of who we are” (Helms, 2008). Understanding our disparities and having open dialogues about privilege within our communities may help us take the first steps toward becoming a society that is not color-blind but rather racially conscious in a social justice-oriented way. Colorism is a common trait among people of African heritage, which they either use to their advantage or the advantage of others with similar skin tones. Also, Herring (2004) defines colorism as the exclusive practice of treating members of the same “racial” group differently just because of the color of their skin. Both oppressed people of color and post-colonialist Caucasians who stand with them can fully participate in global colorism. Thus, racism is described by European-American post-colonialists as the deliberate external expression of discriminatory power relations, whereby judgments are made based on the race and skin tone of marginalized people of color.
Colorism developed over time in many facets of society, particularly in the media and the job market. The “paper-bag test” was employed, particularly in African-American history, to decide whether or not a black individual would be recruited for a job or admitted into special organizations or fraternities. The idea behind this test was that a black individual would pass if their skin tone matched that of a paper bag or was lighter. Darker people would be shunned (Colorism). Even though no one will admit it, this phenomenon still continues in workplaces today. The media also actively supports colorism. Dark-skinned lead actors and actresses are still underrepresented in the Hollywood film industry alone. People of color with lighter skin tones or people of mixed races typically make up the bulk of the cast when there is inclusion and diversity in the cast. Because colorism endures tenaciously in so many facets of society, its repercussions are profound. Beyond lost possibilities, mistreatment towards those with darker skin includes being called names and viewed as less than human. People with lighter skin tones also benefit from advantages that people with darker skin tones do not, such as access to opportunities and representation. To fully understand these effects, a thorough explanation of the development of colorism is required. The discounting of traditions rooted in indigenous and African beliefs and the casting of these communities as exotic others leave a clear trace of the history of racism against non-White populations in today’s Latin American society (Gates, 2011).
Academics from many fields have always been interested in the precarious position of marginalized people in a society where discriminatory laws based on class, ethnicity, or sexual orientation are common. A sizable body of sociopolitical, cultural, and psychological research has been devoted to dealing with the covert and overt mechanisms through which the colonizer-the colonized relationship is defined and regulated since the emergence of postcolonial studies in the latter half of the 21st century and its subsequent rise in popularity. Many postcolonial thinkers sought to understand and stop the great metamorphosis that was happening in the colonized natives’ rich customs and traditions as a result of exposure to the “superior” culture of the dominant oppressing group. These thinkers were deeply concerned with the process of subalternation at work in the juggernaut of colonization. The “look of the white subject interpellates the black subject as inferior, which, in turn, prevents the black subject from seeing himself/herself without the internalization of the white gaze,” as Alexander G. Weheliye phrased it, is what prevents the black subject from seeing themselves (Yancy, 217).
Colorism, a contemporary social phenomenon that favors light complexion in post-colonial countries, especially among women, is something we find to be particularly upsetting. This colorism may be seen in matrimonial advertisements, commercial advertising, media, especially the 500 million dollar skin-lightening product industry, as well as in foreign and local film industries—the ordinary people’s opiate of cinema. A power imbalance along the lines of light and dark complexion is thought to have resulted from the subcontinent’s violent past, particularly the numerous invasions and imperial conquests that occurred. Colorism is the term for prejudice based on the socially constructed connotations or meanings of a person’s skin tone. Alice Walker came up with the phrase in the 1980s because she believed that racism did not adequately describe the extent of prejudice based on skin color. In fact, the problem transcends racism in many regions of the world where colorism is pervasive among communities, including sections of Africa, Southeast Asia, East Asia, India, Latin America, and the United States. Racism is based on the social concept that social position, privileges, and treatment are associated with particular racial groups. Colorism is the association of identity only on the basis of skin color, even within a single race. Therefore, under colorism, a person’s treatment in contrast is determined by the social value assigned to that skin tone or shade rather than by any actual or fictitious racial categorization. Blacks were gradually forced by the capitalist sociopolitical system in the United States to internalize negative stereotypes about their socioeconomic status and skin tone that portrayed them as soulless, destitute, uncultured, irrational, and savage. This led to blacks’ attempts to emulate wealthy, bourgeois whites and ultimately led to their self-hatred (Mocombe, 8).
The postcolonial hierarchy, which maintains that powerful sovereignties are those whose people has fair complexion, is a significant instance of intercultural cohabitation. People with darker skin tones are teased and viewed as less capable of contributing equally to discussions on global issues. Notwithstanding the belief that political objectives will result in conflict, skin tone and the current international order are closely related. Furthermore, the majority of post-colonial sovereignties are able to prevent catastrophic warfare despite their disparities. If post-colonial sovereignties are to overcome international disputes, they must abandon their self-serving disparagement of others, particularly those with comparatively lighter skin tones. Regardless of skin tone, strategies for resolving conflicts should consider the moral reasoning, problem-solving skills, and general demeanor of those involved in any negotiating process. Colorism is the hierarchical structure that gives advantages to people with lighter skin tones over people with darker skin tones within a community of color (Hunter, 176). In other words, black people were pressured to downplay their socioeconomic roots in order to acquire acceptance and respect from the majority of American culture and to dispel unfavorable preconceptions of blackness, a process that finally resulted in the epidermalization of inferiority and colorism (Mocombe, 33-7). In the face of this racial discrimination, Blacks were forced to choose between the forms prescribed by the power structure and the practice of their Otherized insecure African customs. As was to be expected, they chose to assimilate and reproduce white America’s norms in an effort to improve their material circumstances, gain respect, and achieve economic success, a difficult process that left African Americans with cultural amnesia and a collective loss of memory. In modern third-world nations like Bangladesh, Africa, India, and other nations, for example, colorism takes the form of a blatantly positive bias in favor of lighter skin. This will now be referred to as “fair skin bias” in all subsequent observations. “fair = beautiful” is a well-known literary and legendary axiom. Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena contended for the title of “The Fairest” during the Judgment of Paris, which ultimately led to the Trojan War. The Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work Historia Regum Britannia, published in 1136, served as the inspiration for the Arthurian legend. The introduction of the Fair Maid of Paris, the “Three Fair Queens,” and the innumerable other fair maidens of Camelot was by no means the last. Who can forget the defining line from Snow White by the Brothers Grimm, published in 1812: “Who is the Fairest in the land?” Or “My Fair Lady”, which is frequently cited as the greatest musical of the 20th century? The word fair in this context denotes gentility and class distinction. The last line of the most well-known and well-loved nursery rhymes in the English-speaking world may have also had an impact on the title of the Lerner and Loewe musical. London Bridge is collapsing, my lovely lady. The expression typically also depends on the color of the eyes, the size of the nose, the texture of the hair, and the fullness of the lips in addition to the skin tone. In other words, the African American populace prefers straight hair over curly and kinky hair, blue eyes over brown eyes, and noses with a European contour (Thompson and Keith, 338-9).
The etymology of the adjective fair explains a lot about it. Its origins are in Middle English and Old English, where it is related to the word “beautiful” in Old High German (fagar). True cognates of Old Norse fagr and Old Saxon fagar exist. Incredibly tellingly, “lightness of the hair or complexion or light in color” is the third term in an online dictionary. Being “beautiful or lovely to look at” is the fourth definition. Last but not least, around the 1550s, the connotation of “soft-complexioned” took over the meaning of the word “fair,” reflecting tastes in beauty. All of these definitional structures are Western in origin. A cursory linguistic survey of third world countries, especially Bangladesh, Africa, West Indies, especially India shows us several problematic connotations of a similar nature. The Hindi words gora,gori, and gore all refer to a light-skinned individual or group of people; they are sometimes used to vaguely refer to people who are from “the West,” even though “the West” does not exclusively consist of white people. It is also used to refer to light-skinned native Americans, with the important supplementary connotation of attractiveness and a lovely demeanor. The word “white” has really evolved into a manner of praising someone for their perceived physical attractiveness. Bollywood songs, which dominate lyric-based music in the subcontinent, have numerous references to Hindi films from various eras where the word gori/gore/gora is used in this sense. Whiteness and femininity have literally been simultaneously linked with beauty. This link between language and mind demonstrates the influence of historical context and perspective on how we currently perceive the world. Particularly after the Civil War and Emancipation, when mixed-race children of interracial marriages began to hold more power, chromosomal disparities started to take on greater significance among the black American population. However, because of their white ancestry, mulattoes occasionally received special treatment from the dominant white society and were given privileges that were not available to monoracial black people. Mulattoes generally shared the same sociopolitical injustices as black people and were denied basic civil rights. It is crucial to take into account the relevant historical foundations, including the post-colonial legacies of fair skin bias, the mindsets and cultures that are prevalent in India regarding skin color and intonation, and the way that fair skin bias disproportionately affects women. In the case of India, the idea of fairness and colorism has always had strong associations with casteism and socioeconomic status. Women endure higher difficulties and are the target of greater discrimination in so many regions of India, cutting across regional, ethnic, religious, and social divides, as a result of deeply ingrained societal preconceptions. However, women who are not “fair-skinned” must also bear the weight of their skin tone. That also we see in third-world countries.
Although both sexes are affected by the preference prejudice toward fair skin, female Indians are subjected to much more severe skin color discrimination than their male counterparts. Using the historical framework of colonialism as to be investigated: “Invasions, Insurgencies, and Imperialism” historical framework, we see this study examines not only the potential causes for this fair skin bias but also the situation omen in this riddle. Even if the underlying systems that created class inequality have mostly eloped, India’s society nonetheless maintains remnants of imperialist class hierarchies and social class divides based on skin color. The basis of current attitudes regarding various skin sharpness in third-world societies and other countries is these persisting historical socioeconomic disparities, which have become wider over time. Due to the historical structure of fair-skinned peoples conquering the subcontinent through invasions, colonization, and colonialism, there is a significant preference for the conqueror’s pale skin intonation. This then evolved into a metaphor for the continued social and economic superiority associated with having light skin. Due to their advantageous position, white-black mixed-race people generally identified with white people and avoided black people; this propensity caused a “buffer class” between the white and black races to be introduced in various parts of the South. In an effort to distinguish themselves from those with darker skin tones, the mulattoes built separate towns with light skin as the admittance condition. Dark-skinned people consequently experienced double marginalization: they were excluded from mainstream white society and also faced hostility from black-white mixed persons who believed they were “whiter” and thus superior (Khanna, 29-33).
Most crucially, it can also be used to refer to a class of men, tribe, rules-regulation, and social class. This demonstrates the relationship between race and color that is ingrained in both the national consciousness and the country’s collective past. This led to the development of the social system: Over time, caste became to be linked to both social status and skin tone. In addition to being wealthier and lighter-skinned, higher social classes would also be thought to be more moral and more educated than the less wealthy and darker-skinned lower castes because of how the caste system operates. This social division persisted when caste-based discrimination was made illegal, but it changed to classism based on socioeconomic standing. Caste and skin color continue to be associated because of a sluggish shift in social attitudes as well as long-standing customs of marriage within castes, tribes, and socioeconomic classes. Theoretical framework investigates colorism and beauty bias, looking at how the marriage market, the media, and the advertising industry show the stark disparity in gender norms when it comes to colorism and fair skin bias, and how this connects to socioeconomic levels in an apparently post-colonial and post social class contemporary post-colonial societies. Identity construction is a challenging and never-ending process that never results in a complete, unified entity. In other words, identity is the problematic process of access to a “image” of totality, which is just “an appurtenance to identity and authority,” rather than the outward sign of a reality. As a result, “the negation of any sense of originality and plentitude” and the subsequent process of displacement and differentiation, which always renders identity “a liminal reality,” are necessary for the development of identity (Bhabha, 2008).
A thorough examination of India’s sociopolitical past is necessary to comprehend this complex modern issue. The founders and monarchs of the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal emperors and their dynasty, and finally the Europeans were all fairer-skinned ethnicities that ruled over the Indian subcontinent historically. The British Raj, the most formalized type of foreign rule the subcontinent had to deal with, was the culmination of the period of European colonialism that started in the 16th century. Later, in the 19th century, several European historians and Christian missionaries—Max Mueller being perhaps the most well-known—proposed an alternative theory regarding the Aryan invasion and subsequent enslavement of the Dravidian communities of early India. This alternative theory, according to some contemporary theorists, was developed to disprove the central myth of Caucasian superiority and to explain the similarities between Latin-based language efforts and Sanskrit-based language derivatives. Modern historians like Romila Thapar, who prefer to refer to both Aryan-speaking people and Dravidian-speaking peoples instead of separate races, have refuted the idea that the Aryans were a separate race that intermarried with Dravidians. Max Mueller’s studies on the Rig Veda and early India codified the Aryans as a race and put them in a social class, albeit incorrectly. There is no denying that the Dravidian and Aryan languages had quite different linguistic structures. Dravidian-speaking people are said to have first arrived in India around 4000 BCE, according to Mueller and his contemporaries who worked on the Rig Veda and other Vedic manuscripts. Aryan speakers may have arrived around 1500 BCE. The oldest signs of human activity in India date to between 400,000 and 200,000 BC, and by 1500 BC, Indo-Aryans from Iran had migrated into the subcontinent’s northwest. This account of India’s story—one in which a people gradually assimilated into an already-existing population rather than an abrupt invasion—is supported by linguistic, genetic, anthropological, and archeological evidence. This identity formation hypothesis can also be viewed in light of the phenomenological school of thought, which maintains that consciousness is always “consciousness of” something (Yancy, 2005).
The subcontinent’s ethnic makeup, according to Thapar, is made up of a variety of communities, each with its own unique nature and appearance but not a great deal of variation in terms of skin tone. Despite this, the idea of Aryan color dominance has captured the attention of the country. If it is much more plausible that Aryan language speakers just spread into the existing population through a process of steady intermarriage, what does it say about a nation that buys into the myth of a white superior race? According to both reality and perception, Indian history shows a bias favoring people with lighter skin tones. Historians are unsure of whether the introduction of Aryan-speaking individuals contributed to the discrimination against those with fair skin. When looking at the early history of the subcontinent, pointing out that the idea of a caste system based on color was not even evident in the earliest Vedic texts, but rather developed much later. It is unclear whether the bias first became prevalent in society prior to the Mughal conquest in 1500 CE or the first migration in 3000 BCE.
Conventionally, the Mughal Empire began in 1526 following Babur’s victory over Ibrahim Lodi, the final sultan of the Delhi Sultanate, at the first Battle of Panipat. Up until the British formally took over India in 1857, it remained the dominating sovereign empire of the subcontinent, extending control over smaller kingdoms and princely states. At its height, the Mughal Empire established itself as the dominant force because of its superior military prowess, tactics, and artillery, which propagated Mughal culture, including art, religion, language, and music, and served as a model for other cultures. Last but not least, Mughal art in particular provides an intriguing context to investigate the bias that is applied retrospectively. The Caucasoid persons who appear in artworks of the period are all noblemen or ladies of the court and all have fair skin. The Mughal Empire is another example of how bias generates a cycle of imagined superiority that is supported by historical occurrences and societal views. The first wave of European settlers entered the continent in the 1500s with the end of the Mughal Empire. The British Raj did not exist before the Revolt of 1857. Social inequality was a significant feature of life throughout the British colonial era. Indians were frequently seen as second-class citizens in their own nation and were not permitted to hold the top office in the government. The British also emphasized inequities and strengthened the caste system, which existed before them, in order to quell mutiny and uprising among Indian colonial subjects. Meanwhile, miscegenation took place and a new class of Anglo-Indians emerged as a result of the lengthy Raj and the extent of settler colonialism. These Anglo-Indians had many physical characteristics with both India and England, were typically lighter-skinned than Indian colonials, and were considered to be superior to them. In this sense, the Anglo-Indians, who were superior due to their physical attributes, reinforced a preexisting beauty bias and gave support to the idea that having a pale complexion indicates being of a higher social status. They prefigured the phenomenon of mixed-heritage and ethnically ambiguous-looking actresses who are currently the forerunners of the phenomenon in India.
The alternative Aryan idea was emerging on a bigger scale in Europe during this time, while on the Indian subcontinent, white was becoming objectively superior to Indian, and fair was becoming demonstrably superior to dark. Other events also entered the historical narrative of India around this time. The fair-skinned Mughals laid the groundwork for the British colonial systems of governance, which codified the caste system and reinforced the belief that fair skin was a desirable ideal to be treasured and aspired to. It is nearly impossible to pinpoint the precise beginning of the development of a fair skin prejudice in India because of the wide expanse of its history, which spans from the miscegenation of the Aryans through Alexander’s first known foreign invasion to the Mughal Empire and lastly to European colonization and the British Raj. To some extent, it is also the incorrect strategy because, in this kind of historical structure, it is irrelevant to pinpoint the precise start of a mindset. The more important question is how the bias is perceived over time, even though finding out would be fascinating. More importantly, when did race start to factor into the caste system? And why does this impression continue despite the fact that the ancient Vedic literature does not include the idea of color? The caste system was abolished once India gained its independence and was unified as a country with East Pakistan and West Pakistan each having their own dominion. As a result, these things were no longer legally impacted by caste, including availability to jobs, education, and social standing. But discriminatory behaviors that have existed for millennia do not go instantly. In a similar vein, William James contends that the body image, or those aspects of the self that we first notice, is one of the key components of the self and plays a crucial role throughout life; if one’s physical characteristics are positively assessed, this has a positive impact on one’s self as well. Nevertheless, it is more likely that someone will experience negative feelings about themselves if society ignores particular physical characteristics (Thompson and Keith, 2001).
Caste is still a significant component in many families’ marriage and relationship decisions and continues to play a significant part in social interactions. Caste is still a part of today’s culture and neighborhood assignments because of the historical benefits and disadvantages connected with different castes. This tradition is not just common in India, Indonesia, and Nepal; it is also prevalent in Bangladesh’s Hindu and Muslim communities. Caste has so survived as a legacy and influences social standing, educational success, and employment more so de facto than de jure. As inequality increases over time and we revert to colorism, a highly stratified color society also emerged as color became progressively more favorably associated with caste. Since independence, these differences have become much more ambiguous, which is a positive development. However, because of the media’s promotion of these ideas and the common mindset, which can be seen in marriage advertising as well as in many other places, colorism and unfairness are still social problems in India today. Therefore, even decades after Independence, India’s social stratification based on race and color during this period of colonialism still had a big influence on the nation’s thinking and aesthetic standards. Since black America cannot be categorically said to fit any typical pattern of colonial or postcolonial experience, it is frequently argued that applying postcolonial theory to it simplifies and distorts the distinctive characteristics and concerns of the latter. It is clear, however, that postcolonialism has a fundamentally compassionate attitude toward the colonized people as well as outcasts of all kinds who have previously been overlooked because they were thought to be of little value (Young, 2003).
Although the initial structures that gave rise to this class difference have largely collapsed, caste systems based on skin color and imperialistic class hierarchies nevertheless exist today as a historical artifact. Two cultural spheres of enormous significance to the people of modern India allow us to observe prejudice. Marriage in India thus becomes an intriguing prism through which to study the problem of colorism in India because matrimonial relationships and the commotion around them are a reflection of both beauty standards and gender conventions of a culture. Black people in the US and Latin America, according to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961), faced issues that were comparable to those faced by Africans, and according to Edward Said, resistance in the colonies and opposition and protest in the city were related and complementary expressions of the same emancipatory agenda. In fact, colonial contact had its most severe and difficult effects on African Americans during the First World War due to their subjugation, cultural dispossession, social marginalization, and resulting dual consciousness, also known as hybridity, syncretism, creolization, or métissage. Therefore, it is accurate to argue that many forms of postcolonialism are vividly illustrated and imitated by the African American experience in America (MacLeod, 1997).
The emergence of matrimonial ads—which are precisely what they sound like: “Bride Wanted” or “Groom Wanted” adverts posted in the classified section, following landlords seeking tenants and individuals selling cars—has made it easier to analyze these trends. In Indian newspapers for the first time in the early 1970s, these two-by-three colums with border-boxes are now a common sight on Sundays or holidays. Although some people enjoy reading them for laughs, prospective brides, grooms, and most importantly, their families, should consider them seriously. From a social science standpoint, they are also a veritable rich mine of information about the real preferences of society. Educational level? Also, caste? According to one theory, since there is a limited amount of space due to the fact that there are literally thousands of “personal advertisements” placed in a newspaper on any given Holiday, families are obliged to choose the attribute that matters the most to them—money—which is riches.
In ads and other kinds of media, especially in movies, the potential of marriage and fair-skinned bias is constantly brought up. It is not unusual to see a number of skin-lightening creams promoted by actors who the average person has already heard of in a country where over a thousand films are produced annually in at least seven different film industries of the country, where actors from television and film are pictured on walls next to deities, and where well-known actors can advertise and glam up everyday items like soap, laundry detergent, and salted crackers. Bollywood movies are frequently dramatic, charming, and packed with hidden messages, much like commercials. A scene plays out in a family’s relatively humble living room in one advertisement for the cosmetic product line Fair and Lovely, one of the most well-known brands in the market since its introduction in 1978. In response to a comment about their precarious financial situation, the father laments, “If only we had a son.” When the only kid supporting her aging parents overhears this statement, the daughter is upset and rushes to her room, where her mother consoles her by bringing out the answer to all of her problems: a tube of fairness cream. The rest of the story’s developments are rather simple. The daughter may now get a higher-paying career and support her family thanks to her new fair skin. The black subject is imprisoned in what Edmund Husserl calls the “Natural Attitude” (Husserl, 2006) and feels shame, self-contempt, and “nausea” while yearning for “anonymity” and “invisibility” and experiencing these negative emotions. Black people’s bodies experience “an amputation, an excision, a hemorrhage” as a result of this harmful process of self-examination and self-surveillance, which refers to the negro’s desire to denigrify, denaturalize, and “deracialize” himself, a desire that is evident in blacks’ desire to marry white or light-skinned people (Husserl, 2006).
Our newly-raised protagonist takes her parents out to a pleasant meal to close the scene. The father says with a smile, “Beta,” in a kind manner. Although the word “beta” is frequently used today to refer to both sexes informally, its literal meaning is “son.” The complicated function of gender, as well as the subversion and concurrent support of gender standards, maybe the most intriguing component of this specific advertising. In this case, the fairness cream is assisting her in finding a career as opposed to a husband. The expectation that a husband would provide for his family financially would have been met, either by preventing her from being “a burden” on her parents’ care or by making a direct financial contribution to their upkeep. However, after using the beauty product, our protagonist became fair, earning money, and assuming the authority and role of a “male provider.” She has been able to transcend her gender thanks to fairness cream, which has helped her overcome the weakness of being a woman. Women are more likely than men to look to other people’s opinions for validation. The last point is that colorism and its denominators are perceived differently by black men and women. Black skin tones are associated with hypersexuality and negative crime stereotypes in men; for women, attractiveness is the issue. Women usually react more strongly to chromatic stereotypes than men do since they have less influence over their life. Racism, sexism, and colorism put black women in danger on three fronts (Thompson and Keith, 339). Basically, dark-skinned women were seen as being at the bottom of the social scale, making them less marriable and giving them fewer chances to further their education and careers. Therefore, it is only natural that black women would grow more color-conscious in such a hostile environment that promotes sexism, racism, and discrimination.
The most damaging notion is that a woman’s work prospects will improve if she has a fairer complexion. Unfortunately, this picture captures reality. In The Beauty Bias, Deborah Rhode asserts that women who don’t uphold mmtraditional beauty standards or who are overweight frequently lose out on promotions and suffer the unintended repercussions of other people’s perceptions. In an anthropological survey conducted over the summer of 2013, had been known that 63% of participants stated that fair women had a better chance of thriving in the profession than ‘dusky’ women. The respondents all agreed that lighter-skinned women had a considerably lower success rate in finding husbands than fair-skinned women, even if they disagreed that this was the case. Black skin has long been linked with “laziness, backwardness, lethargy, and neglect” in Colombia, as it is in the United States. In fact, Jose Maria Samper, a significant politician of the 19th century, described the Black man as “primitive, coarse, brutal, indolent, semi-savage and dark brown,” evoking stereotypes of African Americans that persist in the United States now, and during this time period. (Soler Castillo & Pardo Abril, 2009, p. 136)
This suggests that even while the broader public is unaware of the existence of this bias, it is much more likely that ‘dusky’ Indian women face the brunt of it on the job. Dark-skinned women are more likely to be perceived as backward, slow, and unpolished and are less likely to be promoted or treated favorably on teams. This is most likely due to the original definition of dark skin and its caste-based connotations in relation to education and class distinction. So, the perception of a link between caste and color and the historical association between caste and socioeconomic status are the sources of the assumption of backwardness. While both men and women are affected by this assumption, men are in a slightly better position than women because of a social mindset that links self-worth to appearance to a much, much lesser extent than does the latter.
The same tale was presented in a 2008 commercial featuring Bollywood A-listers Saif Ali Khan and Priyanka Chopra. Chopra uses a Ponds’ product called Pond’s White Beauty to lighten her complexion following a failed romance. The graphic timeline of Chopra’s facial features, each with lighter skin than the one before, interrupts the cinematic tale, making it clear that viewers are supposed to infer an implicit cause and effect. Chopra claims to have grown up with Ponds and that it had a significant role in her life as a young child in interviews with the actors. “Love makes the world go round, and Pond’s White Beauty lends a hand to it,” she says. Chopra may be required to say these things because she is Pond’s brand ambassador, but as a public figure and well-known actress, her suggestion that having lighter skin is the key to finding love and happiness serves as another tool for the fair-skinned bias. The last advertisement featured a wedding ceremony with a bride decked out in stunning traditional Indian jewelry. It was for the Indian jewelry store Tanishq. The ceremony didn’t first appear out of the norm because it featured a woman with fairly dark skin who was wearing a bridal gown and talking to a young child. Later, when the bride and groom are preparing the saat phere during the wedding ceremony, the audience learns that the bride is the mother of the child.
The response to this jewelry advertising was astounding; numerous Indian media sites, both domestic and foreign-based, praised it for its positive and exaggerated portrayal of a woman’s presumed remarriage while also depicting a bride with dark skin. Yet, the fact that this advertising drew the same amount of attention for featuring a bride with dark skin as it did for featuring women getting remarried is revealing of the persistent prejudices in Indian society. In the past ten years, the market for skin-lightening products has grown to include men as a target demographic. Emami, a well-known Indian corporation for fast-moving consumer goods, introduced Fair and Handsome in 2005. Shah Rukh Khan, a Hollywood icon, agreed to serve as Fair and Handsome’s brand ambassador in 2007. Although there was some vocal opposition to this from activist groups in India, advertising for women’s fairness creams continued to run without receiving the same level of public chastisement. In the same way that commercials for women’s beauty goods reflect modern Indian society, the beauty and health industries’ entrance into men’s fairness products somehow manages to reinforce gender stereotypes. Marketing claims like, “Male skin is also somewhat deeper in skin color due to greater amount of melanin in skin cells,” may be seen on the official website for the product range. The skin has various unfavorable side effects from daily shaving. Male skin appears darker and more irritated because of constant skin abrasion caused by razors, alkaline shaving chemicals, and a lack of frequent miniaturization. Males are more prone to tanning, spot formation, and uneven skin color since a higher percentage of males than women labor outdoors for equivalent jobs.
Last but not least, the website’s stock photo of a clearly Caucasian man is the most incriminating of all. Here, the message is not at all subliminal – being ‘white’ itself is attractive, not merely having white skin. The imperialist legacies in this advertising have a significant impact on public perception. In addition, the notion that males are “more prone to tanning” because they should spend more time outside serves to further reinforce the stereotype that fairness is feminine and darkness is masculine. This assumption is based on an incorrect understanding of women’s roles in society. Recent perspectives and research confirm this view; 18% of respondents to a survey claimed that when they heard the word “fairness,” the first thing that came to mind was women. An 18% answer rate for “women” in a write-in question is fairly high. Beauty was the term most frequently linked with 68% of the respondents. Given the great gender-based compartmentalization of beauty standards, the ability to advertise Fair and Handsome while maintaining gender norms is a true achievement of capitalism. Bollywood, one of the most significant media outlets in India, continually promotes a bias against those with fair complexion.
From Madhubala in the 1940s and 1950s to Madhuri Dixit in the 1980s and 1990s to Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Katrina Kaif in the present, the most well-known actresses over the previous few decades have all been strikingly fair. While Katrina Kaif is half Kashmiri and half British, Aishwarya Rai is more attractive due to her bright eyes, fair skin, and ambiguously Caucasoid features. Her appearance thus represents a tiny portion of Indians, but because of Bollywood, she has become a symbol of unachievable beauty for the great majority of Indian women. The degree of apathy with colorism and how deeply rooted a society’s bias towards people with fair complexion is can be seen. The idea that black skin was unattractive was obviously more of an obvious truth than a problematic view, even though it is easy to presume that neither one aims to offend persons of African descent. As was previously established, systematic marginalization of blacks in America continued even after emancipation, and blacks continued to experience everyday misrecognition and suffer from white America’s widespread rejection of their humanity. The weight of the racist stereotypes was so great that it gave rise to a malignant process of excessive self-surveillance and self-interrogation within the African American psyche, in accordance with Du Bois, who claimed that this “disrespect and mockery, the ridicule and systematic humiliation” generated an “all-pervading desire to inculcate disdain for everything black” (Bois, 2007). Whites’ refusal to acknowledge black Americans as citizens while also holding them to the obligations and responsibilities of citizenship complicated matters further.
Being fair-skinned is thought to be beautiful in modern Bangladesh, unlike other third-world nations. Regarding it, there are well-established historical theories. What benefits does having fair skin have? Whether beauty is a definable quality or a matter of subjective opinion has long been a topic of discussion among social scientists and historians. The associations between women, beauty, and color might lead to a number of conclusions. Compared to manual labor employment in rural areas, white-collar jobs in cities place more value on appearance. Less beautiful people often have a worse chance of acquiring a job, getting promoted, and earning more money—despite the fact that there are no differences in cognitive capacity. Women frequently face more negative consequences for their appearance as a result of gender-based double standards.
The desire for Anglo-European features and skin tone are major factors in attaining attractiveness. How does this relate to fair-skinned prejudice and skin tone? Evolution also plays a part in this; while imperialism may have been a contributing factor in the historical lighter skin tone of higher caste and socioeconomic groups, it was also reinforced by the natural darkening of those engaged in manual labor or fieldwork on the Indian subcontinent. Additionally, it leads to a connection between family background and justice. Due to the value of family in the cultures of Asia, especially Indis, Bangladesh, and Nepal or other countries and the idea that a fair person comes from a more educated and highborn family background that has been either modestly comfortable or wealthy for at least a few generations, Indian families seek out fair-skinned alliances for their sons and daughters. This is evident in the marriage advertisements. Discrimination based on traits that are hard or impossible to modify, including height and facial features, is at one end of the spectrum. The “looking-glass self,” an advocate of the symbolic interactionist paradigm, contends that self-concepts evolve throughout time as a result of considerations of and responses to other people’s assessments in every circumstance. Before constructing their “looking-glass” identities, people think about how they could come across to others. As a result of this process, people start to develop some sort of self-perception or self-concept. People speculate as to what others may think of that appearance. In a manner similar to this, the interpersonal theory stated and maintained that individuals’ speech and conduct are influenced by their “significant others,” or those who have the power to praise or chastise their subordinates. The best illustration of these concepts concerning identity construction comes from Fanon’s discussion of how the inferiority complex of the colonized originated in Black Skin, White Masks (Davis, Daniels & Letha, 1998)
Although they have such an impact on appearance, sex, race, and ethnicity are typically discussed separately in legal and theoretical debates of discrimination because they involve identity in a more fundamental way than other attributes. Purely voluntary qualities, including attire and personal hygiene, are at the other extreme of the spectrum. Mixed features fall somewhere in the middle, such as obesity, which has both biological and behavioral roots. Skin beauty may appear to be in various contexts along this continuum, which really supports the contradiction. The idea that one’s skin color may be improved in order to shed the stigma of being dark and connected to uneducated low-class people is the foundation of a $500 million industry. On the other hand, advertisements for skin whitening suggest that skin color can be improved. The benefit of dark skin, however, is that it is related to race and ethnicity in such a way that only people with light skin, or those who are truly “well-born,” can achieve the most desirable perceived color identity and social class level. A more important issue is the unjust pressure placed on women to adhere to the rigid beauty standard of having lighter skin than men.
Although their haughty demeanor greatly incited resentment among people of color, mulattoes were typically revered and envied by black people because they signified authority, sociopolitical advantage, and economic luxury. Consequently, even more difficult circumstances befell women of darker complexion tones. Black people internalized the widely held but unspoken idea that, whether consciously or unconsciously, one’s life will be more satisfied the more White one is. For black women in particular, skin tone and physical appearance stereotypes are significant since they are closely related ideas. Physical attractiveness is something that is more demanded of women across all cultures and societies. A woman’s sense of self can be permanently destroyed by repeated exposure to insulting stereotypes. There are many reasons why unfavorable perceptions about black women have such a significant detrimental impact on their self-esteem. One is that because women are exposed to other people’s opinions during the socialization process, they are more susceptible to unfavorable stereotypes.
The language used in matrimonial ads, which calls for fair brides but “qualified” husbands, and the fact that fairness creams are primarily sold to women, demonstrate the imbalance of power and gender in the beauty industry. One explanation is that it’s because women are thought to be more responsible, socially and genetically, for future generations. An educated, upper-class woman is more likely to be fair, and her children will likely be raised in a similar fashion. Second, since women’s fertility is linked to their physical beauty, society places more value on women’s physical appearance. The curious paradox that pale skin is both genetically predisposed and attainable must be taken into account. Products that claim to change skin tone and can help people cross socioeconomic and caste/tribal boundaries are known as “fairness creams.” However, the idea that fair skin belongs exclusively to upper-class Indians underpins the validity of fair skin being prized. The ideology that people now have more agency and power to change their lives than they did before, not only because of the easing of caste restrictions and increased occupational mobility but also because of the idealized universal access to education and modernization, is the result of capitalism and the idea that fair skin is acquirable. Evolution is the primary explanation for the significance of appearance in sociobiological frameworks.
People know that certain aspects of beauty can also be used to improve one’s social standing, which is why their preferences for specific aesthetic attributes become deeply embedded in society and are passed down from generation to generation. Because pale skin has always been associated with money and status, many people find it beautiful. This desire for attractiveness is linked to the idea that having pale skin is desirable, which perpetuates a vicious cycle of rules that are upheld. Conversely, the idea of being a lowborn person and historical injustice are closely associated with having a dark complexion. Because they are aware that the general public will assume they are of lesser socioeconomic standing, people with dark skin often strive to appear lighter. Fair skin is regarded as both a sign of riches and prosperity and “the means of attaining social inclusion,” according to arguments. Indians from lower castes see the use of fairness cream products as a way to overcome social shame and advance the social order. This is no longer a minor issue in Indian society when women in villages choose to spend their money on Fair and Lovely sachets rather than on food. Women now use skin-lightening creams to get around social constraints. This reminds me uncomfortably of colonialism when cosmetics were first promoted as a way to transcend social classes, racial distinctions, and skin color. “Imperial Leather” by Anne McClintock goes into more detail on this. There are unsettling similarities between the soap industry at the start of the nineteenth century and the fairness cream market in modern-day India. Both represent the capitalistic promotion of imperial values. For example, mass marketing and the repositioning of soap as a necessity-have strengthened patriarchal ideals like “No dust, no filth, no labor”. Due to the horrifying, enduring memories of slavery and black Americans’ unwholesome experiences in the racist, white-dominated post-Civil War era, this system is pervasive and persistent in the African American community. Ultimately, colorism has led black people to divide the members of their own community, to treat one another unfairly, and to grant benefits based solely on a Eurocentric discourse that gives priority to lighter skin tones and Western facial traits. Therefore, it is not exaggerated to say that by accepting this system, blacks have been duped by their oppressors into a discourse that aims to keep different groups within the black American community divided over inconsequential issues and fixated on them until they gradually lose the ability to plan and implement successful emancipatory programs to improve the sociopolitical and economic status of blacks in the country (Ogunleye, 1998)
The Pears’ advertising with a black child and white youngster depicts a black boy’s body as miraculously turning white after washing with Pears, promoting a soap that would eliminate the need for domestic labor while also demeaning “women’s work” and reinforcing racial superiority. But his face—the representation of the real person in Victorian culture—remains black and unaltered. The black boy represents the racial hybrid that the colonized were supposed to develop into: white on the outside, and colored on the inside. Fairness creams support social ideals of beauty that light skin is attractive in modern India.
In the end, views of different skin tones in India and other nations are influenced by history and widening social disparities. Colonialism and invasions by lighter-skinned peoples throughout history contributed significantly to this by producing an economic effect in favor of the victor that became firmly tied to skin color, making the socioeconomic gap between people with light skin and those with dark skin visible even today. So, even though the legal ramifications were removed, the preference for fair complexion has been passed down from imperial to current times and is a holdover from those eras. Economically backward and oppressed people’s descendants frequently remain in the lower socioeconomic and educational echelons of society. This explains why persons with darker complexion tones tend to be more common in India, including maids, drivers, and those who are poor, have less education, or work in professions that are not highly valued by society.
Due to India’s long history of casteism, in which higher, wealthier, fair-skinned castes were thought to have higher moral standards and to be more deserving of wealth and education than lower, poorer, and dark-skinned castes, this societal division has changed into classism based on socioeconomic status but still connected to skin tone. As a result, the skin-lightening industry in India is a key part of the contemporary culture of the region, and linkages to its social and historical foundations are crucial. While the bias against dark skin in India extends deeper than that, it is frequently justified by drawing a comparison to the need for tanness in the West and their tanning industry.
Tanning is a result of both self-perpetuating Western customs and a new social classification of color; it denotes leisure time and a certain social class level. These analogies ignore the fact that tanning has just recently become popular in the West, whereas India’s predisposition toward beauty is the outcome of far older cultural factors. Furthermore, the idea of fair skin is inextricably linked to issues of marriage, status, dowry, class, and education, particularly for women, demonstrating that fair skin is the outward manifestation of hidden cues that signify a woman’s socially constructed value. This explains why these fairness cream products are so well-liked in rural India and villages where women desire lighter skin to transcend their socioeconomic status – either directly by marrying a wealthier man or by paying less dowry, or indirectly by becoming qualified for higher-paying jobs and climbing the social ladder – all through their fairness cream. By promising women the chance to rise to a higher social class and appear to find pleasure, these creams exploit class disparities and historical caste divisions along lines of race.
While some attitudes are changing – especially with globalization and exposure to different standards of beauty – conventional ideas, fetish, and stigma, have remained largely constant. Although beauty pageants, like the Miss India competition, have become more inclusive and have started including darker contestants as well, these contestants never make it to the final round, and the winner of the beauty pageant ends up modeling for the skin-lightening product of the company that sponsored the pageant – another example of capitalism driving these social norms.
This is easily seen in the stark contrast between Nina Davuluri, Miss America 2014 and the first Indian American to hold the title, and Navneet Kaur Dhillon, the 2014 Miss India pageant winner, to see that the Indian mindset has not moved very far from older norms. Davuluri is a South Indian of Telugu descent and is several shades darker than Dhillon, a North Indian Punjabi. While Nina Davuluri was breaking barriers for her race and color, Navneet Kaur Dhillon, the winner of the Ponds Femina Miss India 2014 pageant, was fulfilling her modeling contract by being the face of Pond’s White Beauty BB+ fairness cream. Lastly, the response to Davuluri from Indians was significant for its acrimonious nature. Comments on the news articles such as the Times of India’s coverage of the Miss America pageant all revolved around how ugly and dark Davuluri was. “The standards of beauty are going down.” “Indian and black crossbreed? Looks so.” “Oh god!!! She is so ugly…America, this is the best you’ve got?” “Next year someone of Somali descent will also win.” Even Michelle Obama looks prettier than her. Davuluri also received xenophobic and hostile comments from Americans about her ethnic background and immigrant parentage, but the backlash from India, drawing on not only the color of her skin but also venturing towards racial slurs, shows how deep the fair skin bias is embedded in India’s values and social consciousness, and how terrible it can be. While India remains tied to the conventional standards of beauty, our legacy of colonialism needs concerted efforts to dismantle. Only by recognizing the role history played in creating this standard of beauty, and by remaining vigilant of the insidious power hierarchies embedded in colorism, can we break the self-perpetuating cycle of a desire to be fair, and thus move into an era of greater social mobility, equality and justice, and – dare I say it – an altogether different kind of fairness. Also, as was the case under British control, there is a connection between social class and skin tone. Due to racism and poverty, dark-skinned South Asians are still unable to free themselves. Colorism in Western culture has historically been mostly driven by the film industry and still is. The beliefs promoted by the white majority were accessible to people in every part of America and Europe through the media, which embraced colorism to perpetuate racial stereotypes. “White privilege” refers to the advantages that persons with a European ancestry automatically obtain. In fact, Helms (2008) asserts that white people are better off than people of color “regardless of what socioeconomic level one observes, stating that racism is built on “white privilege, which is an advantage of being white” (Helms, 2008).
Dark-skinned persons are conspicuously underrepresented in popular culture compared to people with a lighter complexion. Additionally, by exploiting colorism, the cosmetics industry collaborates with the media to promote skin-lightening and bleaching goods that are sold all over the world. Politics has, depending on the circumstance, either facilitated or encouraged colorism. The effects of colorism are extremely detrimental because of all of these factors. The fundamental factor in the dehumanization of dark-skinned people is colorism, which places people of color at the bottom of the social hierarchy and inhibits them from obtaining opportunities like education and employment. Dark-skinned persons in all cultures develop self-hatred in addition to being despised by others, and they primarily use bleaching to try to conform to artificial beauty standards. Also, colorism is a complicated problem that has ingrained itself deeply into the structures and foundations of every civilization in the world. It will be necessary to acknowledge colorism on a much larger scale in order to break the loop.
Reference:
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Hamid Rayhan
Poet & Fiction Writer
E-mail : hamidrayhan@gmail.com
