. poornabell writes on changing attitudes towards colourism within her own family
While I have not endured even a fraction of what Seema has experienced, I remember my skin colour being under scrutiny and measured against other girls from a young age.My first understanding of colourism was from comments about my older sister’s skin. She is lighter-skinned than me, and I remember her skin being commented on as a thing of great beauty. More broadly, other family members and famous people were deemed beautiful only if they had fair skin.
“When you are brought up on colourism, you know it’s bad, but it’s so ingrained and widespread that you feel like nothing you say will ever change it” Several things intersected at once. The first was that I was in the thick of editing and pulling together articles for the women’s section I ran at the time, and was reading a story about how the self-confidence of girls was dropping and self-harm rates were rising. I realised that girls who were subject to colourism were likely among the most vulnerable.
The second was to be an ally - so when any negative comment was said about another woman’s colour, I’d say how beautiful or accomplished she was. The third was to help them love their own skin. So when they’d say about themselves: “I got so dark on holiday” in a derogatory tone, I’d use positive reinforcement and say how amazing and glowing they looked.
“I no longer walk on eggshells when going to my parents house post-holiday, waiting for my skin to be remarked on” After moving to America from India, Seema was able to shift her sense of self image from “ugly to unique”. She says that if someone thinks she’s ugly, it says more about their own experiences than it does about her own sense of beauty. Which is incredibly giving, considering what she has gone through. Yet there is something in a softer approach that stems from self-acceptance.
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