The Racist Undertones of Skin-whitening Products
As a child, I was never around many Asian people. I was one of only three Asian pupils among my year group, I didn’t have any Asian friends where I lived and the majority of my UK based family lived in the midlands, whereas we were from Manchester.
I was blissfully ignorant of my skin tone and thank goodness too because it would have only added to the painful list of insecurities that I suffered from as an angsty teenager. By fourteen, puberty hit me hard and was quite unforgiving. I wore braces, glasses, a dodgy haircut, I had acne swarming all over my face and my eyebrows had merged whereby if they were dyed blonde, would resemble the famous golden arches of McDonalds.
The day I finished my last exam at high school, I went straight to the orthodontist and had my braces removed. Soon after, my sister hacked away at my monobrow and finally the relentless assault that acne had waged on my face was beginning to cease. I could breathe a sigh of relief and look towards a camera with a glint in my eye and a sparkle in my smile. I was ready for college where I wanted to make an impression on my peers and for the first time, the opposite sex.
Before that, I went on a three-week family holiday to India and it was here where I first became aware of my own skin tone and the judgement that others may have of it.
The heat from the sun was scorching and as a young, wide-eyed sixteen-year-old, I wanted to be outdoors, exploring India; eating from the stalls, playing cricket in the street and shopping. My skin obviously got darker as a result of this but I was oblivious to the connotations and judgements that this would have. I was just a young kid enjoying his life.
After a few days my fair-skinned Indian family pointed out that my skin had gotten darker. They told me in no uncertain terms that this was not a good look and recommended that I use a cream called ‘Fair and Lovely.’ I was naïve, and thought that it was worth trying — what’s the worst that could happen — after all I was exiting my gawky teenage phase, things were looking up and having had self-esteem issues, I didn’t want my dark skin to hold me back as I was about to start a new chapter at college.
Once we got back from India, we would occasionally receive parcels full of goodies, from our Indian family. Home-made papad, an Indian cricket t-shirt and some Fair and Lovely. I remember my mum was furious but by now I was conscious of my skin and viewed it as a flaw, so I continued to use it and told her to chill.
That was until one day I applied the face wash, splashed my faced with water, dried it with a towel and stared into the mirror with surprise. My face had turned grey. I blinked hard in disbelief. My eyes weren’t lying. I immediately turned on the tap and drenched my face with as much water as possible. After a day or so, my skin went back to normal. I never used the cream or face wash again but I would always continue to feel slightly conscious about my appearance.
As I got older the warm glow of the sun wasn’t an enjoyable comfort but rather a signal for me to find shade. It was not worth the comments that I knew would be slung my way about my skin. That I have turned “black” or “African”, or how that you can only see my eyes or teeth in the dark. I’ve always hated this and anytime I did go home to these comments, I wanted to hide my face away as though it had been disfigured by some unfortunate accident.
As time has gone on, I have become more confident in myself, I have accepted who I am and I see the ugliness in people’s ignorance rather than in myself. I also had time to think about colour. Even though there is a problem with colourism within our cultures, this issue is also laced with racism. The fact Asian people use being ‘black’ as an insult to people that are dark skinned shows the attitudes that are held about black people in our societies.
Bend It Like Beckham remains one of my favourite films and the part where Jasminder is in the changing room discussing who she can marry always stands out in my mind. “White no, black definitely not…” Whilst this shows that neither creed is acceptable there is a clear indication that if Jasminder married a black man, the misery compounded on her parents would be greater than if she married a white man. Many Asian’s will laugh at that part but ultimately it is telling of the insidious racist attitudes that are held within our cultures.
It is then ironic that the Black Lives Matter movement has had a major impact on Asia and is a catalyst for corporate action on skin whitening creams. People quickly pointed out the hypocrisy of corporations — and the celebrities that endorse them -posting about Black Lives Matter on social media only to continue to gorge from the $20 billion skin whitening market. Johnson and Johnson have discontinued two of their products and dating website, shaadi.com have disposed of the skin-lightening effect on their website. These products and features, which are so popular in Asia have always perpetuated the idea that whiteness is aspirational and finally we can begin to topple this self-deprecating view.
I understand that British colonialism certainly left a scar on the Asian psyche and one of the most enduring and damaging legacies they left was the notion that white is powerful, rich and more attractive. Whiteness became a symbol of superiority and something that many aspire for. Dark skin became synonymous with people from supposedly lower castes, those that work hard-labour jobs in the baking sun or poor black people in Africa.
It can be easy to blame large corporations and colonialism for the belief that ‘white is right’. However, India, and what later became Pakistan and Bangladesh, gained freedom in 1947 and have since had 73 years to denounce the idea of white-supremacy from our cultures, but haven’t. Instead, our cultures embraced it and strive for it.
I have seen so many Asian people stand in unison and solidarity with black people following the murder of George Floyd. We feel the pain of their injustice and remonstrate the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement. However, posting a black square on Instagram and hashtagging BLM is nothing more than a virtue-signalling gesture, which does little for the cause. We have to acknowledge that we have a racism problem in our own communities and we need to address that if we are to attain social equality for black people.
The toxic opinions on colour and race have long remained ingrained in our cultures and we need to be aware that our own cultural attitudes to black people only enforce the injustice of institutional and systemic racism that they suffer from.
We need to question the beliefs friends and family who are obsessed with skin tone and have those uncomfortable conversations to find out why they believe that fair is lovely. Their argument for fair skin will undoubtedly crumble like a biscuit dipped in tea and expose a flaw in their thinking, quite simply because there is no justification for believing that whiteness is superior.
Asian people must take responsibility for how we view skin. The scale of brown skin tones remains an abhorrent and nonsensical measure of one’s status in society and that has to change. Dark can be clever, funny, interesting, ambitious and beautiful. Dark isn’t ugly and most certainly doesn’t mean you are worth less. The sooner we realise this, the sooner we can all finally be more comfortable in our own skin — and equally respectful of others.
Follow Anish Parekh on Twitter @mr_pop87
