Thinking About Beauty

A Philosopher’s View

By Ajoy Varghese | A Dark is Beautiful Supporter

Humans not only perceive beauty, but also have the unique ability to describe it and to judge it.

The “Dark is Beautiful” campaign has an underlying assumption— that Beauty exists! It is a clear reference to the ubiquitous existence of beauty in our world. It is also a bold challenge to social attempts to fracture beauty. One attempt to do so is by pitting one skin colour against another. The campaign asserts that that beauty is not contained in one colour but in many— individually and together. The campaign also asserts that beauty is not skin deep.

Prior to the Dark is Beautiful campaign, when was the last time you actually heard a public debate on beauty? Not likely that you did. Not surprising, either. It’s easier to use a TV ad to assault your senses than to present a logical argument to challenge your reason. 

I recently heard a male celebrity protest that he had every right to choose his skin colour. How can you argue with that? Except that when a personal preference is advertised as a public good, it has made itself a subject of public scrutiny and judgment. So, if a celebrity says that endorsing a product is his right, then the public has an equal right (and I think, an obligation) to judge it. Else, his personal preference must be parked within the confines of his own thinking.

Surviving Discrimination - The AJ Franklin Story

“Though She Is Dark, She Is a Nice Girl”
By AJ Franklin | A Dark is Beautiful campaigner

Growing up, I was teased by classmates for being a crow, urged by relatives to apply fairness creams and finally, when it came to marriage, I was told in advance that people would expect lots of dowry from my family because I'm dark. 

According to most of my relatives, we had to enlist me in a matrimonial services provider, so we went to a suitable one and I filled in a host of forms. On each form, after the basics, there was a slot for skin colour. I went ahead and ticked the box that said “dark complexioned.” 

The person in charge read the form and made a funny face at me, as though I had made a stupid mistake. She pointed at the skin colour box and said, “Please change that to ‘wheat complexioned.’” 

I asked why, and she rolled her eyes at me and said in Tamil that it was standard procedure for any girl of my “karuppu” skin to tick “wheat complexioned” to boost my chances of “catching” a groom.

Be Yourself: Be Dark, Be Beautiful

By Lydia Durairaj

Have you witnessed any of these statements or realities around you:
• Buying Double-whitening-action cream to get fair in three days?
• Not casting fair-skinned actors to play the role of a housemaid, the evil nemesis, or the outcast?
• Families looking out for a ‘fair bride’?
• Making pregnant mothers bathe in milk and saffron and eating lots of nuts so that the child is born with fair skin; and if that doesn’t work, then buying the double-whitening-action cream?

These ideologies have not changed since the days of our grandmothers. For generations now we have been saturating in the belief that dark skin is undesirable – to the point where we, consciously, start to discriminate and create divides between the fair and dark skinned people.

Even in the 21st century, when issues like poverty, hunger, and war are ravaging our lands, we have contributed to the booming half-billion-dollar skin whitening industry.

Advertisers play on our insecurities and market products that endorse discriminatory philosophies

Winning poem entry in the 2009 contest

Good Mothers by Saudha Kasim

Good mothers obey the old crones who hang
By the windowsills, staring into low-ceilinged, dark rooms.
Toothless and ashen-skinned, they suggest remedies:
Rose water, milk, honey, jasmine, powdery sandalwood.

Good mothers, pregnant and blooming, bathe in all that and
Listen to their mothers echo the interfering old crones.
The ones who suggest bleaching agents
Dredged from the earth and plucked from trees.

Good mothers rub gold rings in honey (vigorously)
And put the gold-flecked syrup drop by little drop
In their newborn’s mouth.
My mother, I guess, was not good.

She didn’t burn cattle skulls and catch the moon
In her bedtime glass of milk. She drank 7 Up and ate
Sardines with relish, burnt frankincense and read up
On Vodka and Cognac brands in Kala Kaumudi.

My mother didn’t stare at snow, but watched Ronald Reagan,
Stetson on his head and mounted on a mustang, chase villains
In black and white cowboy movies subtitled in Arabic.
My mother was not surprised at my burnt bronze skin.

My mother, unlike good mothers, didn’t cover me in Cuticura.
She didn’t want me paraded in whiteface, the Keralite Kabuki artiste.
She kissed my bronze toes and admired my unfair skin.
My mother sneers at whitening unguents and loves my dark brow.

My mother, stuck in a desert town, blew raspberries at
The old crones who gave good mothers white chicken feathers.
You couldn’t be anyone else, she whispered in my ear,
Black, brown, red, yellow.

My mother didn’t name me after Ayesha, the fairest consort.
Instead, she gave me the name of the Abyssinian widow.
Blackness, she says, it means blackness.
My mother gave me the gift of colour.

About the Author:

Saudha Kasim studied architecture but decided to leave the designing and construction of houses and office towers to people who know what they are doing. She now works as a graphic designer and content writer in Bangalore, India.

"As for why I chose to enter the contest: Like most women in India I experienced the prejudice of not being 'fair or wheatish' in complexion. As a child I heard catty remarks from neighbours and relatives who couldn't understand why I was so much more darker than my mother or sister. My mother didn't really care and taught me not to care - though those lessons were hard to learn and accept for a long time. But as I have grown older I have grown more comfortable in my skin. And my name does mean 'blackness' quite literally in Arabic. And I have grown to love it over the years as well."