I don’t claim to be Mindy Kaling’s hardcore fan, but I am eternally glad that she exists. I was just as grateful when Nina Davuluri won Miss America. I was even glad that, although not South Asian, Lupita Nyong’o exists. Basically, I praise the universe for giving North America the chance to see successful women of colour, especially successful South Asian women with very dark skin. Each time I see their presence growing in the public eye, I desperately hope that people in South Asia see how successful these dark-skinned women are, realize that Fair & Lovely is a product of colonialism, decide to create a massive pit of fire in which million of tubes of the stuff is burned in a national celebration, then this event be named as some holiday and finally: actually start casting dark-skinned women in Bollywood films. And then, from these films, the world has proof that dark-skinned Indians exist. We would be combating the colonial legacies and their ridiculous white standards of beauty!
A girl can dream.
I remember waiting for my Saturday piano class when I was nine when an Afro-Caribbean friend of mine asked me what my background was (In Canada, this is a nicer way of asking the question “Where are you from?” without alienating visible minorities). When I told her I was from India, she replied in genuine nine year old shock: “But you’re too dark to be Indian!”
How refreshing to be told by a non-Indian person who has never gone to India that I don’t look Indian.
A trip to South India would quite literally blow her nine year old mind.
Being a transnational South Asian child, I lived my first seven years of life in Bhopal and Bangalore. I basically grew up in Canada and am now getting a degree adulthood in New Jersey. In each place I’ve lived, people’s reactions to my dark-skin and my identity as a South Asian girl/women have varied. These three places and the accompanying comments on my skin tone are namely shaped by two factors:
a) diaspora communities and diversity
b)white supremacy and colonialism has temporal tentacles that reach quite far into many generations.
For my fellow piano school peer, the reason for her making that comment stems from the fact that the city I lived in Canada had an Indian population that found cultural roots from a particular region in North India. Meaning, that any child’s understanding of what Indian people looked like would be that they looked like white people, had tan to light brown skin and black and usually brown eyes. Because there was a large population of Sri Lankans who looked like myself and very few South Indians, I’ve gotten quite a few comments:
You’re not Sri Lankan? But you’re so dark. (quite a few Sri Lankan friends and high school friends)
You’re so dark you’re practically black. (my younger tan sister)
You’re so dark you’re probably adopted (again my younger sister, ironic because with brown skinned parents, either one of us could be adopted).
While, there is nothing wrong with being adopted, black, or Sri Lankan, I am not any of these things. I identify as a Malayali, South Indian-Canadian.
When I lived in Bhopal (that’s North India for anyone unaware of Indian geography), I distinctly remember my morning rickshaw rides to my pre-school were ruined by a duo of fair-skinned North Indian seven year olds who kept telling my best friend (a four year old) that he shouldn’t talk to me because my skin was dirty. I kid you not. My skin, according to them, was dirty because it was so dark. Children, unlike adults, have not learned to hide their prejudices. I can only imagine what biased and potentially awful human beings they grew up to be. I predict that no one really admonished them for saying something so horrible because they grew up in a culture where it is enforced by the media. You don’t see any dark skinned heroines in Bollywood, which leads children into thinking that dark skinned girls are ugly and will not amount to much (because as a woman you have to be both smart AND pretty). There was another memory in which a 9 year old self was constantly bullied by a family of West-Indian Canadian children saying how ugly I was when their mom wasn’t looking (don’t even think that would have made a difference).
When I usually tell this story to children of South Asian diasporas, they are shocked and rightfully so. They also give me a pat on my back and ask me how I’m not as “messed up” as I could be. Sometimes I wonder the same thing….
My parents and relatives have never been horrible about my skin which I had inherited from both of my grandfathers. However, as a woman, especially seeing the “pretty” Indian women, I honestly thought my being a girl with dark skin was some sort of curse. When I was little I would rub my skin while in the bath, as if beneath the layers of skin, was my true whiter and prettier colour. I have felt jealousy towards my sisters and friends for having such fair skin.
But despite the self-hate I had for my skin, I got some very confusing comments. A Mary-Kay sales lady (a white lady) said that bold colours would look lovely on me. A peer of mine (also a white woman), said that she was jealous of my ability to wear daring shades of eye-shadow with my skin-tone. I laugh internally sometimes when I hear that because I don’t think they really mean the compliment. If only they knew how many women around the world force themselves into a ritual of using dangerous bleaching products in an effort to look just like white women.
I find solidarity with many other women of colour who are taught to loathe their dark complexion. I find solidarity with black women who feel betrayed when a black man tells them that he only dates white women because he believes blue-eyes and blond hair is universally more attractive. I got really angry at my sister internally when she said that my now boyfriend wasn’t crush worthy because we both looked like siblings as we shared having dark skin (as if dark skinned people aren’t allowed to date each other. The underlying message being: nobody wants dark skinned babies). My heart grieves for the dark-skinned girls who grew up in households that told them that they are ugly or not as smart because of their dark skin.
I find solidarity with dark-skinned women who saw Lupita Nyong’o winning an Oscar or being lauded as an “it girl” and were proud of their black femininity (representation matters!). I sigh in disappointment that Bollywood would rather caste Katrina Kaif, a half white woman who can’t speak Hindi, as a leading lady than a darker Indian women who is just as pretty and can speak the language. I find solidarity with dark-skinned anime fans who have a very limited number of options on what character they can cosplay while their white peers can easily cosplay Asian characters.
When I saw that Nina Davuluri won Miss America, I was elated that an Indian woman who was not fair and was South Indian could be considered beautiful and talented.
At the same time, I cynically knew that she, like Freida Pinto, would never be a cast as a Bollywood actress in India.
-Post submitted by Srutika Sabu
Red White n Brown 