Aren’t we all the same skin color when the lights go off at night every single day?
However, a country that is predominantly shades of brown is obsessed with skin whitening and skin brightening like it’s a free pass of authority and respect.
The young Indian, Yukta, lays her views down on how selling Rs10 trial packs has done nothing but resulted in one relative or neighbor finding remedies into ‘fixing’ the natural skin color that we, ourselves are born with and here’s the question she has for all the concerned Aunty’s and Uncle’s falling prey to the ‘fairness is key’ ideology:
“Aap mere mummy papa ke DNA mei caunsa haldi chandan lagane wale ho?”
Indians have been injected with the idea of fairness long enough to cause deep seeded insecurities into people with darker skin tones. Yukta strongly believes the role caste, class and creed has played into positioning fairness as a symbolic pass of supremacy and higher caste authority
The valiant and young Indian doesn’t shy away from pointing out on the multi million dollar industry of fairness products that make their living out of incashing our insecurities.
“When a popular brand decided to make a not so lovely move by deciding to drop the word ‘fairness’ from their whitening product – how about not having a skin whitening product?” questions Yukta, the young Indian adamant on erasing the outdated ideology and obsession around a fair skin tone.
If we don’t do something about it today, the very industry that is targeting and injecting us with insecurities is soon going to cross $500million and before we know it there wont lie a single product from our daily essentials that don’t have the terms: ‘whitening’, ‘brightening’, ‘lightning’ on them. Fairness is the ultimate goal narrative here and they sell because we buy.
“White is beautiful and so is brown dark brown and chocolate and this is what needs to be said out loud”, here is what the young Indian has to say about the fairness industry in India and why we need to tackle it before it spreads like an illness.
