Who’s the fairest of them all?

I had very little downtime throughout the week because I wanted to attend as many workshops and keynotes to make my stay worthwhile. However, I did have some time to relax in the middle of the week, and I spent it catching up on rest in my hotel room. While flipping through numerous channels, I couldn’t help but notice the complexion of every Indian actor either on a television show, news broadcasting service, or commercial. All of the Indians on screen were fairly white. How could I not notice the subliminal obsession with being light skinned when it seemed that nearly every other television advertisement bombarded me with produced that claimed to “make your skin more fair.” Ugh. No thank you. 

Now this was completely different from my interactions with local Indians on the streets. And I’m referring to the authentic locals with darker skin tones. Usually in America, I’m one of the darkest people in any given room given my rich, brown skin. But in India, it felt different; I was literally one of the lightest colored people in the room. And this was a first for me, yet I felt no more superior than the next guy. I don’t believe we live in a post-racial society. As evident in mainstream Indian magazines and popular culture, people still care about the color of their skin. The true range of Indian skin complexion isn’t represented in their own media, and that’s really quite bothersome.