The ‘Black Lives Matter movement has been raging for quite some time now. This started as a protest in the United States after an incident of police brutality against an African-American person. However, this is not the first time a dark-skinned person has had to face discrimination and has been suppressed and bullied. These practices have prevailed for centuries and no matter how much we try to narrow down these issues to their core, we only end up finding more and more instances where people have associated dark skin with something bad and inferior.
African countries have been colonised in the past. People from races that were considered inferior have been sold off to the ‘whites’ as slaves. We often misinterpret our history and end up justifying discrimination against dark skin as something that has been normalised because it was practised in the past. Racism and colourism, although linked in various ways, are two different things and it is said that a few sets of people have been subjected to both. However, is this the origin of our discriminatory behaviour or is it coming from somewhere else completely? Back in the days, we have tried to justify this discrimination in various ways. We have spoken about illiteracy. We have spoken about things like scientific racism which justifies this discrimination based on the biological inferiority of dark-skinned people. Even though proven wrong, scientific racism speaks about race inferiority based on biological structuring and we often confuse it with differences in skin colour, ending up concluding that dark-skinned people are inferior. There is no doubt in saying that most of these justifications do not make sense. I have continuously tried to find the core from which this originates and the only logical explanation I have found is the human nature of associating emotions with colours.
While, white symbolises peace and black symbolises evil. While, white is worn on the days we celebrate love and black is worn to signify death. Moreover, if we surf on the internet about what is the significance of black, the most common answers would be fear, mystery, aggression, rebellion and evil. These concepts have been instilled in our minds from our childhoods. Mythology has consistently made us associate black with ‘bad’ and white with ‘good’. We depicted the anger of Indian Gods and Goddesses with shades of black, dark red and blue, while usually showing their calmer versions in lighter shades. We’ve imagined hell has red and black while heaven has white and light blue. Hence, subconsciously, we have judged everything around us with different shades of colours. We have so very frequently used the phrase ‘on the bright side’ and truly, we’ve contemplated every aspect of our lives with just darker and brighter shades of colours. Where we went wrong is when we forgot to draw the line between people and objects while connecting our surroundings with various shades of grey.
On the bright side, some of us have finally realised that we cannot judge people based on their skin colour and have started making amends in our ways. The removal of the term ‘fair’ from the brand ‘Fair and Lovely’ was long overdue because glorifying fair skin is extremely wrong in itself. I am sure that a long period of slavery in the past and economical differences in the present still make a significant population of the Earth feel that they are superior to dark-skinned people and we still have a long way to go. Stereotypes take a considerable amount of time to go away and people need to realise that having dark skin has absolutely nothing to do with being ugly or inferior. Be it racist memes or unequal opportunities at the workplace, these people have dealt with way too much discrimination for being born in a tropical country. An article by Vox speaks about how dark-skinned workers are bullied and unfairly treated at their workplace.
In India, people use the phrase ‘tu kaali hai’ as if it is supposed to offend us and make us feel ugly. Let us take a step forward towards equality by not getting offended in the first place. Let us be proud of our skin, no matter what shade it is. Yes, all lives matter. But let us identify the suppressed and uplift them first. Most importantly, let us stop associating our emotions with colours when it comes to people. After all, black and white are just shades of grey.
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