On Diversity

Soon after I came to the US, I was given the new identity of a “brown” person. At first, the label disturbed me. The color brown was not something I had ever related to. I was used to being praised for being “fair” and having a “good complexion.” Having grown up in North India, I had become conditioned to pride in the social privilege that comes with having a lighter skin tone.

Coming to the US changed that. My first roommate was several shades lighter than me. In fact, most people around me were. When spring break came around, I asked a friend what she was planning.

“I’m going to Hawaii. My goal this break will be to become as dark as you.”

She had meant that as a compliment. But it felt far from one to me. The losing battle against fairness is fought by thousands of Indians back home. A popular, yet dark-skinned, Indian actress recently became the face of the “Dark is Beautiful” campaign to protest against India’s irrational obsession with light skin, one that drowns countless women’s self-esteem and leads some to the unfortunate fate of suicide. Fairness is a prerequisite to validate a woman’s worth, and it determines her marriage or employment prospects. In a society with such priorities, India's “fairness products” market swelled from $397 million in 2008 to $638 million in 2012. In the past, women had been the sole targets of such rampant, ruthless and self-deprecating advertising, but now men’s fairness products are catching attention on the country’s market. The ideal parameters of tall, dark, and handsome will soon be modified for our men.

           No wonder throughout college, I had always been puzzled and simultaneously fascinated that so many girls would wait eagerly for a bright sunny sky to put on their bikinis and sprawl on the “beach,” often hoping to tan themselves just in time for their Saturday night adventures. On such days, I would only walk on routes with the most number of trees along the way, so I could guard my skin with every square inch of shade possible. I would wonder how girls back in India would die to have white skin like that of my friends in college. The same friends who instead call themselves pale and cannot wait to become more “colored.”

           I sometimes wish skin color was the only trait we made ourselves and others feel terrible about. I recall talking to a friend from South Korea when I first got to the US. I asked her if she wanted to go back home at some point.

           “No. Absolutely not.”

           “What makes you so sure?”

           “Because I don’t have to change myself here.”

           Back in Korea, she would have had little choice except to follow the bandwagon of plastic surgery to enhance the folds of her eyelids to make her eyes look larger and prettier. My eyelids are something I had never before focused on, yet my friend caught the difference in one glance. Her skin color meant little to her. She was fair, much fairer than I am, but how she wished her eyes were like mine.

We do not make it easy for people anywhere around the globe to be comfortable in their skin. Be it our hair, our color, our eyes, or something else, as a society we are thriving on comparing ourselves to others and then trying feverishly and often unsuccessfully to become someone we aren’t. Is this truly the reality in a world where we are supposedly taught to value and embrace our diversity?