Humm
As the name would suggest, this was a beauty pageant I had the misforutne of catching a glimse of on TV.
Yes, there is actually a pageant with that name.
Yes, real people entered.
And Yes, the State was actually a partial sponsor.
There was no public outcry.
No leader (that I knew of) publicly denounced it.
The pageant was targeted at Indian girls and attended my mainly Indian people who make up about 40% of my country. (Caribbean Island-Trinidad and Tobago)
The Naturally Fair competion is to me just another brown paper bag party.
For those who don’t know, a brown paper bag party, is a party where you are entrance, if your skin is darker than the brown paper bag at the door.
The promoters of the pageant are those that have been trying to preserve East Indian culture for a long time.
This time though they have been careless without repreive.
In their defense the promoters of the show might say girls were not discrminated agaist because of color but that Naturally Fair, which is also a brand of bleaching cream, was the main sponsor of the show hence the name.
Unacceptable!!!!
What is the message sent to young people.
If you read my story on the secret life of brown people, you would understand the preference towards lighter skin in the Indian community.
Before you judge, listen to this startling fact.
A poll of 100 African American students, conducted by Kai Beasley, 96% of men preferred women with medium to light complexions while their female counteparts echoed relatively the same sentiment with 70% preferring the same.
Indian persons who have been taught to beleive that fair skin is the standard of beauty, then what do they think of black people.
I will always remember that line from Bend it like Beckham, when the main character is asked about interracial marriage.
She says, something to the effect of, ”Whites no, Muslim no and Blacks definitely not!”
Have you ever heard of the double eyelid surgery?
It is the rage in Japan.
In fact, many Asians are walking a round with glue and tape to tape their eyelids back to look more European. When they’ve had enough of that, they venture to surgery.
I can sit here with my permed hair and call that sad because I think Asians are so beautiful, yet I don’t value my own hair enough to keep it in its natural state.
Don’t we get it?
Its all a lie!
We are all beautiful!
Dark, Fair, one eyelid or two…….
Post your comment…..has fair-skin preference impacted your life?
You are beautiful!!!!!!!
3 responses so far ↓
laurazee // January 8, 2008 at 5:18 am |
I am an Indo-Trinidadian living in the Netherlands. Believe me when I say racism is probably independent of skin colour. When I first moved here I was amazed at the popularity of tanning salon and skin darkeners and bronzers, which actually lightened my skin. These Caucasian women were obsessed with dark, tanned skin. I had always loved my glowing, brown skin, but with the lack of sunlight now I’m a shade of unbaked dough, slightly darker than everyone else. My golden colour and my now fair colour does not stop anyone from discriminating against me. I cannot say if the particular racists I’ve encountered objected to dark skin per se, but generally they are a society that is tan obsessed. The obsession to be fair cannot then come from a predominantly Caucasian European society, rather T&T itself.
My dark skinned Indo husband gets the racism too, but also a fair amount of appreciative female looks. Maybe the motivation behind racism lies in who we ARE not our skin colour.
*Sigh*…I was a lovely brown once.
Liis // January 13, 2009 at 2:47 pm |
I’m on the other end of the scale – I get told to sunbathe, that my blue legs are offensive and that I look sick, people stare at me in the summer.
I live in northern europe and cannot buy makeup from stores because there’s none fair enough. Maybe one day white skin will be considered beautiful again. Hope I live to see it.
ahmedseo // February 19, 2009 at 6:51 am |
this is first time I am reading this blog .
An interesting site indeed.