I love my skin too! AND LET ME!!

Sirin Yakob
ILLUMINATION
Published in
3 min readOct 28, 2020
Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash

Growing as a brown girl as always been a struggle cause everything you do would affect your marriage or you getting married. Your good education or your caste everything thing has relied on your marriage

Your skin color plays a huge role in this. Every single day the marriage column in the newspaper always mentions
“looking for a fair and beautiful girl”
like what not every single soul on this planet is fair af.

I just don’t understand some who randomly come up and ask, “ Why are you so dark man?”. Like what am I suppose to do remove the sun from the universe or just remove my melanin?

Whenever I go shopping for some foundation or any base product they always show me some light color which I cant even use as a concealer.

No, you can’t drink coffee or you can’t drink tea, or else you might get tanner by drinking that. It might seem lame for some but it happens in India.

“Fair and lovely” or the new name, “GLOW and lovely” are many brown girl’s favorites.
Cause it is cheap and makes you beautiful not beautiful but “FAIR” and now gives you glow. The hype of being fair for yourself is okay but making or changing other’s appearances based on your personal preferences is wrong.
Some people make you so embarrassed about your skin that you try to make yourself good up to their expectations.

Photo by Clarissa Watson on Unsplash

You won’t get a job if you are of that color or you might not get married to anyone.

There are also many creams for men which makes them fair and also handsome. Why only if your white you are lovely or handsome why can’t every girl or every boy or every they be handsome?

In the history of India, discrimination over skin tones has been a feature of Indian society. Some historians say it was greatly intensified by colonialism and practice by the British rulers of favoring light-skinned Indians for government jobs.

The upper caste people used to have a fair skin tone while the Lower caste people used to be dark or a deep skin tone.
And in today’s people doubt and ask if you are Dalit how can you be fair or if your brahmins you cant be dark.

People who post “black lives matter” or talk about racism still use that fairness cream and suggest other people use it.

Tons of people have told me that yellow, white, or any bright color doesn’t suit me or red lipstick. This makes me doubt wearing next time no matter how strong your beliefs are or how positive, some people make you feel bad about yourself.
Just by dropping the word fair to glow won’t easer racism.
Bullying and calling dark skin tone people with some hatred words is very common.

Due to such an attitude that has spawned a huge demand in India for whiteners and bleaching products. Shop shelves are crammed with cream oil soap and serums promising to lighten skin.

It is not about being dark or being light it’s just that every person should be given the same rights or the same opportunity and the same amount of respect regardless of their caste color sex or their personal preferences.

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Sirin Yakob
ILLUMINATION

BE OPEN MINDED PEOPLE THAT CAN UNDERSTAND THINGS FROM MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVE. ❤