Accepting My Brownness

When I was in Grade 2, everyone in the class was asked to come to the dancing room. We were told to dance to “Ahasata Pibina Eran Kaleya”. After few minutes of dancing few girls were chosen. The teacher announced to us that we were being chosen for a special welcome dance to welcome the new first years to our school. I danced my heart out because I loved dancing even when I was seven years old. At the end, only few remained in the class, including me but, I was still not ready to give up. My class teacher stood next to the dancing teacher and pointed at me and said “why don’t you choose her? She’s the best from the lot”. I was so happy, I felt so special. This happiness remained only for a few seconds as the dancing teacher replied to her saying “yes, I know, but, she’s black”. I stopped dancing and looked at myself. I was black, I didn’t deserve to welcome the first years.

I don’t think my mother ever understood my need to buy ‘Fair and Lovely’ in Grade 2. She always told me that I was too young for those creams. Every day at the supermarket I would cry, beg and plead with her to buy me at least a small tube of the fairness cream but, she never bought me one. In Grade Three, I made some progress, I would secretly keep the fairness cream with me until we went to the checkout counter and then ask the cashier to bill it when my mother was not looking. I was successful few times. I would take it home and then apply it religiously on my black face hoping and praying that I would be relived of this ‘sin’. Although I was successful in bringing the cream home I was not successful in hiding it. My mother always found it and threw it away. I was so angry at my mother. It was as if she wanted me to remain ugly and wanted me to never be chosen for a special dance. How could she do this to me? I was her only daughter!

After few months, I forgot my blackness when I landed a dancing spot in the front row for my school concert. I never thought about becoming fair after that because no matter how hard the teachers tried, they couldn’t overlook my talent. I almost forgot that I was different from others; that is until I went to England. When I was in England, everyone worshipped my skin colour. They went to tanning saloons and did everything to make their skin darker. I thought to myself how foolish I was to try to become fairer when the white people over here were trying to become darker like me! I felt like a princess when I was in England because everyone in my school thought my skin colour was ‘gorgeous’, ‘flawless’ and ‘amazing’

The darkness of my skin became an issue again when my mother wanted to get me married off. Every mother in Sri Lanka wanted to get their son married to a ‘fair girl’. Some parents would come to the house to look at me after all the horoscopes and everything matched but leave with an unhappy face. Then with the introduction of Facebook came another hurdle; the parents would call my mother and ask her whether they could look at my Facebook profile. My mother would call me and tell me to change my profile picture to “something nice”. Something nice in other words meant a picture which makes me ‘marriage-worthy’. Then the parents would call again to ask my mother whether the pictures have been altered or Photoshopped in anyway because they have gone to several houses to find out that the girl in the pictures have photoshopped them into making them look white. How dare they make them get dressed and come all the way to their house wasting their petrol and money to buy a cake? What about the time and money they have spent on matching the horoscope and getting ready for the big event? All that money spent because of one girl’s ability to photoshop herself into looking white? No one questions why does she feel the need to Photoshop herself to make herself become fairer? Is it because the fair skinned is more marketable in the marriage market or is it because she felt that she was prettier being white?

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder but what if that beholder's eyes were conditioned to see certain things in a certain way? Then would the beholder see beauty using his or her own judgement of what beauty is or the beauty he or she has been conditioned to see? While I was reading for my degree I came across a book by Toni Morrison called “The Bluest Eye”. It had this one memorable quote showing how we have been conditioned to see things in a certain way; “(a)dults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs – all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured”. Fighting the “white beauty” is hard, because, from the childhood we have been conditioned to accept that whiteness was more beautiful than the blackness or brownness that we have. From the dolls that we play with, to every step in our life, skin colour becomes a huge problem to you and those who surround you. It took me years to accept my skin colour but, there are still times when I feel ugly and undesirable because of my skin colour; from the little comments of my friends who discriminate women based on their skin colour to interviewers who prefer skin colour over qualifications to strangers and photographers in online social media platforms who Photoshop me into a woman who looks as if she has immersed herself in a tub of bleach. However, I’m slowly learning to accept my skin colour and be proud of it day by day.

Pics above - 01. #NanditaDas, the woman who inspired me to accept my skin as it is. The Founder of #darkisbeautiful Campaign 02. #TannishthaChatterjee so effortlessly beautiful in her own skin 03. #AliceWalker and #ToniMorrison for writing about what they believe in.

#beauty #brownisbeautiful #blackisbeautiful #skincolour #mystory
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