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A Question of South Asian Coloring: International Blog Against Racism Week.
According to my mother, I don't tan the same way that real Sri Lankans, who grew up in Sri Lanka, do. When it's summer and my skin starts to darken, it goes reddish-brown-golden. If I had grown up in Sri Lanka, my mother says that it would just go browner. Darker. The additional color boost of red wouldn't be in there, since the red is the brown-person version of white sunburn.
I'm also too pale for most Sri Lanka-raised Sri Lankans, mostly. I lived mostly in Austria, and now in America. Neither of those are countries that have the sort of year-round sunshine that Sri Lanka does.
But that's actually a good thing by Sri Lankan standards! See, pale is good. Fair is good. The maids call my sister "sudhu baba", which means "white baby". Or "sudhu manikay" which is "white darling". Calling someone white is a compliment. White means that you can stay inside and not work and that you look like the former ruling class. Dark means that you work outside, possibly in the rice fields, possibly selling stuff by the roadside, and that you're not attractive.
My aunts always hustle me in out of the sunshine if they see me hanging around outside, soaking it up. They don't want me getting dark. I wouldn't be pretty any longer in their eyes if I did.
It's not just them, though. It's the whole country. Sri Lanka sells whitening creams. They have actual creams that you can put on your skin that will peel off your skin and make you look fairer.
I think it's disgusting, but it's not like Bollywood or Hollywood are helping much either. Do an image search for 'Bollywood female stars' or 'Bollywood actresses' and take a look at what you see. Most of them are going to be relatively fair, with brownish hair instead of actual black hair. They might still have South Asian facial features and bone structure but their coloring will be light, possibly South European.
In fact, Aishwarya Rai, who won the Miss World contest in 1994 and is appearing in this year's American film, The Last Legion, is incredibly fair-skinned and could easily 'pass' for white or mixed. In Sri Lanka, the descendents of Sri Lankans and colonialists, the so-called Burghers, were given preferential treatment for ages because they looked white, and therefore more trustworthy/advanced than the darker-skinned Sri Lankans with no white blood in their ancestry.
I know that there was a lot of discussion about how Halle Berry is also fair-skinned, and the predominant trend of Hollywood to cast paler-skinned blacks in movies, but generally speaking, there aren't usually South Asian women in Hollywood films for me to look at critically. When there are Asians, it tends to be the Lucy Liu type from Charlie's Angels or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. East Asian, as opposed to South Asian, where shades of skintone aren't as varied. Bend Like Beckham is one of the exceptions to the rule and I must say, I loved that movie, but in general, there aren't many South Asian women having major roles in movies outside of Bollywood.
Now we finally have a South Asian woman acting in a popular film, but the actress is one of those that fit most closely the stereotype about white -- about non-Indian -- being beautiful.
Not much of a victory, I'd say.
I'm also too pale for most Sri Lanka-raised Sri Lankans, mostly. I lived mostly in Austria, and now in America. Neither of those are countries that have the sort of year-round sunshine that Sri Lanka does.
But that's actually a good thing by Sri Lankan standards! See, pale is good. Fair is good. The maids call my sister "sudhu baba", which means "white baby". Or "sudhu manikay" which is "white darling". Calling someone white is a compliment. White means that you can stay inside and not work and that you look like the former ruling class. Dark means that you work outside, possibly in the rice fields, possibly selling stuff by the roadside, and that you're not attractive.
My aunts always hustle me in out of the sunshine if they see me hanging around outside, soaking it up. They don't want me getting dark. I wouldn't be pretty any longer in their eyes if I did.
It's not just them, though. It's the whole country. Sri Lanka sells whitening creams. They have actual creams that you can put on your skin that will peel off your skin and make you look fairer.
I think it's disgusting, but it's not like Bollywood or Hollywood are helping much either. Do an image search for 'Bollywood female stars' or 'Bollywood actresses' and take a look at what you see. Most of them are going to be relatively fair, with brownish hair instead of actual black hair. They might still have South Asian facial features and bone structure but their coloring will be light, possibly South European.
In fact, Aishwarya Rai, who won the Miss World contest in 1994 and is appearing in this year's American film, The Last Legion, is incredibly fair-skinned and could easily 'pass' for white or mixed. In Sri Lanka, the descendents of Sri Lankans and colonialists, the so-called Burghers, were given preferential treatment for ages because they looked white, and therefore more trustworthy/advanced than the darker-skinned Sri Lankans with no white blood in their ancestry.
I know that there was a lot of discussion about how Halle Berry is also fair-skinned, and the predominant trend of Hollywood to cast paler-skinned blacks in movies, but generally speaking, there aren't usually South Asian women in Hollywood films for me to look at critically. When there are Asians, it tends to be the Lucy Liu type from Charlie's Angels or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. East Asian, as opposed to South Asian, where shades of skintone aren't as varied. Bend Like Beckham is one of the exceptions to the rule and I must say, I loved that movie, but in general, there aren't many South Asian women having major roles in movies outside of Bollywood.
Now we finally have a South Asian woman acting in a popular film, but the actress is one of those that fit most closely the stereotype about white -- about non-Indian -- being beautiful.
Not much of a victory, I'd say.