MY EXPERIENCE WITH COLOURISM
To be honest and vulnerable about my experience of being shamed for having dark brown skin is
painful. Because every time I think about it, the memories seem to isolate me farther from being
confident. I have been trying to revolutionize my own relationship with colour and identity for
several years now and I am proud to reveal that I have become much more empathetic to the little
nine year old in school who constantly felt inferior to her classmates and hid behind a veil of
arrogance. I no longer judge her; I just want to love her. She used to put her hand on the table next
to her friends’ and watch it closely to find out who was fairer, and every time she realized that she
was the darker one; she would feel a sweeping blow of shame. She would religiously use turmeric
paste on her skin to scrub off the melanin and waited patiently for years to see it fade away. There
was hardly any representation for beautiful brown girls like her on TV and being bombarded by
advertisements for fair skin products had severely distorted her idea of beauty before she had even
learned how to multiply. Proud aunts who spoke of their stunning “velutha” (white) kids and their
snide comments on her skin colour hurt her deeply. It still hurts.
However I came back on myself harder and searched for the perfect cure for my
“karuppu”(blackness) as I didn’t know that I could ignore their comments and invest my time in
productive things that made me feel happy. I judged other people especially girls for their dark
brown skin. I judged them when their elbows turned yellow from using too much turmeric paste yet
I ignored the fact that my elbows looked the same. My judgmental mentality made me feel guilty of
having committed some crime thus I lived for several years in a hell loop of insecurity and fear of
being discovered as some sort of hypocrite. There are several people outside of family as well who
didn’t hold back from stating their negative comments. An indirect and narrow-minded comment
that I have heard several times was the “Oh! the Sun is going to make me black” comment. Living
with such toxicity around me had made me unable to freely think about colour, race, their
correlation, the hereditary characteristics of people and its expression. People referencing black as
an inferior colour was racist as much as it was colourist but the advice I always received had been to
brush it off.
However historical evidence shows a clear link between colour and power dynamics (especially
in India) that cannot be ignored. The social implications of cultural meanings of having dark skin
imply that people who belonged to higher castes are also going to be fair, sophisticated and well
educated while people belonging to lower castes are comparatively darker, and more brash and
rough in character. Virtues of goodness are easily bestowed to people with fairer skin tones and a
social phenomenon occurs of invalidating the other physical features, and personality traits of the
person. Thus fairness is often equated simultaneously to beauty, intelligence, leadership qualities
and morality. This has tremendous economic , social and psychological implications to society.
Studies around the world have found that people of darker skin tones are discriminated against
while applying for jobs, loans, higher education and housing. Higher chances of rejection are also
faced by them.
Discrimination on the basis of colour was largely impacted by the colonisation of different
parts of the world and slavery. Workers who had European features of slim nose, straight hair and
lighter coloured skin would be granted household work to perform in their masters’ homes whereas
darker skin toned servants were forced to perform jobs outside the house, agricultural
To be honest and vulnerable about my experience of being shamed for having dark brown skin is
painful. Because every time I think about it, the memories seem to isolate me farther from being
confident. I have been trying to revolutionize my own relationship with colour and identity for
several years now and I am proud to reveal that I have become much more empathetic to the little
nine year old in school who constantly felt inferior to her classmates and hid behind a veil of
arrogance. I no longer judge her; I just want to love her. She used to put her hand on the table next
to her friends’ and watch it closely to find out who was fairer, and every time she realized that she
was the darker one; she would feel a sweeping blow of shame. She would religiously use turmeric
paste on her skin to scrub off the melanin and waited patiently for years to see it fade away. There
was hardly any representation for beautiful brown girls like her on TV and being bombarded by
advertisements for fair skin products had severely distorted her idea of beauty before she had even
learned how to multiply. Proud aunts who spoke of their stunning “velutha” (white) kids and their
snide comments on her skin colour hurt her deeply. It still hurts.
However I came back on myself harder and searched for the perfect cure for my
“karuppu”(blackness) as I didn’t know that I could ignore their comments and invest my time in
productive things that made me feel happy. I judged other people especially girls for their dark
brown skin. I judged them when their elbows turned yellow from using too much turmeric paste yet
I ignored the fact that my elbows looked the same. My judgmental mentality made me feel guilty of
having committed some crime thus I lived for several years in a hell loop of insecurity and fear of
being discovered as some sort of hypocrite. There are several people outside of family as well who
didn’t hold back from stating their negative comments. An indirect and narrow-minded comment
that I have heard several times was the “Oh! the Sun is going to make me black” comment. Living
with such toxicity around me had made me unable to freely think about colour, race, their
correlation, the hereditary characteristics of people and its expression. People referencing black as
an inferior colour was racist as much as it was colourist but the advice I always received had been to
brush it off.
However historical evidence shows a clear link between colour and power dynamics (especially
in India) that cannot be ignored. The social implications of cultural meanings of having dark skin
imply that people who belonged to higher castes are also going to be fair, sophisticated and well
educated while people belonging to lower castes are comparatively darker, and more brash and
rough in character. Virtues of goodness are easily bestowed to people with fairer skin tones and a
social phenomenon occurs of invalidating the other physical features, and personality traits of the
person. Thus fairness is often equated simultaneously to beauty, intelligence, leadership qualities
and morality. This has tremendous economic , social and psychological implications to society.
Studies around the world have found that people of darker skin tones are discriminated against
while applying for jobs, loans, higher education and housing. Higher chances of rejection are also
faced by them.
Discrimination on the basis of colour was largely impacted by the colonisation of different
parts of the world and slavery. Workers who had European features of slim nose, straight hair and
lighter coloured skin would be granted household work to perform in their masters’ homes whereas
darker skin toned servants were forced to perform jobs outside the house, agricultural
