I talked a little bit about colourism in K-pop in my last blog post and my sister recommended this documentary Tan France made. I was a big fan of Queer Eye, and I love Tan. He talked about his own experiences with colourism within the Asian community, as well as the wider community he lived in growing up in Doncaster. He also revealed that he bleached his skin for the first time at 9 years old, but stopped doing it because it was painful. He revealed later on in the documentary that he did it again at the age of 16 because he felt that he was undesirable to other people, and needed to be lighter for people to find him attractive. Tan said "Racism was all I ever knew" growing up in Doncaster. He thought that lightening his skin would allow him to blend in more with people and he might be treated a little bit better. Every time he would leave the house, someone would call him a racial slur. When he would come home, a family member would make a comment about his skin being too dark, so it was almost impossible for him to escape the constant conversation around his skin tone.
Where Tan lived, people were not welcoming to the Asian community. His mum told him that whenever he leaves the house, he should walk near white women with children, because it was safer. Tan was only 5 years old when he left the house to go to school one morning and was attacked by a group of older boys. He didn't tell his family because he knew they would say something like "Why didn't you fight back? Why didn't you run faster?". The lengths he had to go to just trying to exist in everyday life is so sad. It had to be incredibly difficult for him to talk about this, and I really admire him for his bravery. He decided to see a psychotherapist to help him understand and deal with his childhood trauma. He tried to revisit Doncaster for the documentary, but couldn't get out of the car.
Colourism is something that some people sometimes look past or deny in Western society, but its impact is evident. If you look at black female celebrities who are most successful in pop music and the entertainment industry, for example: Beyoncé, Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Cardi B, Nicki Minaj and Doja Cat are all light skinned black women. It dates back to slavery, when lighter skinned enslaved people were given tasks to do inside the house, whereas people with darker complexions had to work outside. This bias towards lighter skinned black people exists to this today. In 2019, Naomi Campbell revealed that photos taken of her for an ad campaign were rejected by a country in Asia because of the colour of her skin. She didn't specify which country, but mentioned that "Ironically, I have that gene in my family". Campbell is of Jamaican and Chinese descent.
Kelly Rowland appeared in the documentary, and talked about her own experiences with colourist views voiced by other black people. When she started dating a boy for the first time, his grandmother told her that she was "too dark" to be dating her grandson, and compared her to a paper bag. I learned a lot from this documentary as I was not familiar with The Brown Paper Bag Test. This 'test' was used as a way of deciding which privileges a black person was entitled to, based on how dark their skin was. If the individual's skin tone was darker than the bag, they would be denied entry to institutions like churches, fraternities and sororities. Tan asked Kelly if she had ever considered bleaching her skin in the past, and Kelly said she hadn't but she used to wish "I just want to be Mariah's shade".
It affected me in a way where I was just always uncertain of how I looked. It started to define what beauty was to me. In the entertainment industry it manifested itself in constant comparisons.
Tan discussed the issue around "white passing" people. A white passing person is a person of colour who could be misidentified as white due to their appearance. Gail Lukasik discovered that she was mixed race when she started looking into her family history. Her mother had passed as white her entire adult life living in the South. Some examples of mixed race celebrities who have been mistaken for fully white are Halsey, Mariah Carey and Rashida Jones. There was a cringey moment from a red carpet interview with Rashida Jones where a female reporter commented: "You look like you've just come off an island or something, you're very tan, very tropical" to which Rashida replied "Well, you know, I'm ethnic". If you look at Bollywood actresses, the most popular ones are usually light skinned (from what I have seen, I'm not familiar with that many Bollywood actresses). Aishwarya Rai for example fits into Eurocentric beauty standards as she is not only light skinned, but also has light eyes.
Skin bleaching and intravenous procedures to lighten the skin are very popular in Asia, the documentary briefly mentioned somewhere in the Philippines that specialises in these harmful procedures. Growing up in a small Scottish town, people always saw it as a flex when they would come home from a holiday abroad with a tan. It's seen as a good thing by the majority of people here to have a darker complexion, and if their skin has been naturally enhanced by the sun it's something people feel they can brag about. Sunbed shops are incredibly common, as well as spray tanning and bottled fake tan which you can purchase in just about any Boots pharmacy. The weather in the UK isn't great, so here tanned skin is (perhaps subconsciously) associated with good health and being able to afford to travel. Tanned white people are still identifiable as white, and therefore can still benefit from white privilege.
Shilpa Shetty, Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra Jonas
Really interesting thoughts from Indian people about the origin of colourism and its negative effect ⬆️
We're seeing more representation of different ethnicities and skin tones in the West. Makeup brands like Rihanna's Fenty have been praised from the beginning for their inclusivity and wide range of shades. There's a lot of discussion around colourism in TV shows, movies and more on YouTube and TikTok. While watching this video by I Am Eloho on YouTube, I noticed a lot of comments by Latino people who could also relate to colourism in their communities and on the telenovelas they watch. It seems like colourism exists in almost every community, and it's sad. It's important that we continue to see more positive representation of different skin tones in TV, film, music, and more.
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