When I wanted to write
on a few different topics, but related to books, Colour showed me the way, yet again... Colourism
has managed to blast its way into our lives again. It saddens and angers me to
hear of a 21 year old Tanzanian girl stripped and made to parade around naked, in Bangalore. (Deccan Chronicle)
I remember, I had
written here earlier of Indians obsession with ‘Whiteness’, now we seem to have
taken it to another level. We should be ashamed of ourselves.
The people from this
country or another are people, after all. Can we stop discriminating against
people just because they look a little different from us? Can we stop judging
people based on their colour?
What is worse, is the fact that most of us,
Indians are sometimes discriminated against, in other nations. Why are we
stupid enough to show prejudice to other countries? And that too, because they
are darker when we are, while we ourselves, have the darker shade in our own
skin colours?
Colourism: Colorism, a term coined by Alice
Walker in 1982. This form of prejudice often results in reduced
opportunities for those, who are discriminated against on the basis of skin
colour. (Wikipedia)
As if we are not fighting
each other enough on gender, caste, politics and religion, and some of these often intermingled. Do we really need more fights? On colour?!
Let us give one look to
the TV shows on mythology. Rama was dark brown in colour and Krishna, as the
name itself suggests was dark. Unfortunately, every one of these shows depicts them
as fair skinned men. Another look at Draupadi or Krishnaa, the dark
skinned one. Firstly, because she is female, she naturally has to be a fair
actress! And all the other actresses too! But if the actors are playing Asuras,
then they might be luckier…
And so do our so-called,
stars. Katrina Kaif, Sonam Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and even Shah Rukh Khan,
John Abraham and Arjun Rampal, seem to be obsessed with something as ridiculous
as skin colour!!
Of course, some of
these actors have made statements about not
promoting whiteness, but maybe we should ask them to check out some of their
own ads.
I think the only
sensible folks, are Kangana Ranaut, Aishwarya Rai and Nandita Das, because they
refuse to have anything to do with these adverts. Nandita Das was involved with a Campaign against these adverts.
Books on Racism: There
are some excellent books on racism. Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’,
Kathryn Stockett’s ‘The Help’, and Alice Walker’s ‘The Colour Purple’ are only
a few of these. Even comics in India
have decided to colour some of the Gods, blue!! And most of the Asuras black,
of course!
India does not have
movies on colour discrimination, I wonder why. At least, I have not found any.
I’ve seen a few adverts and a few books, but that’s it. I’m talking of fiction,
but there are quite a few non-fiction books, of course.
Meanwhile, India has ‘blackened’
herself in terms of her obsessiveness with the ‘white’ colour!!
Maybe I should repeat this: A quantity of the compound, Melanin, which is present in our skin determines our skin colour. Melanin
is up in areas, where people live close to the equator or where the
climate is hot, receive a lot of sunlight, and with sunlight also come
the UV rays. Due to this exposure to sun, the skin protects itself,
through the process of melanin production. This gives the skin, a
colour. In fact, the blacker your skin is, the less the chance is, of
you getting skin cancer!
Read another similar article by Yours Truly: Never give up: Fairness Creams in India??
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