Fair & Lovely: What's in a Color?

Roughly two weeks ago, Nina Davuluri, Miss New York, won the 87th Miss America competition. If you didn't watch it live, you had to have heard about the ridiculous outcry on Twitter. Buzzfeed does a wonderful job highlighting some of the most colorful tweets that surfaced right after the announcement. Reading through some of these, I was shocked, disgusted, and embarrassed. Are people really that ignorant to make such commentary? Or, do they just want to be the first to start a new wave of rant tweets in hopes of gaining new followers on this social media platform? Do they refuse to open themselves up to the people around them? Or, is the harsh reality of our country's divided history so deeply branded into our (thick) skulls that we will never succeed in our battle against racial and religious stereotypes? Or further, are there simply too many people with an excessive amount of free time on their hands that they decide to start petty fights behind their mobile phones, computers, and tablets just to see what happens?*

As a kid, did you ever focus on or care about the color of the people around you? So, why and when exactly do people become so obsessed with skin color? More importantly, will we ever move away from this obsession or is it ultimately a pre-written key player, a state of mind passed down from generation to generation, in each and every history chapter, past, present, and future?

The past few weeks I've been concentrating my personal reading on race relations in the news. After Duvulari was crowned, I thought back to my undergraduate degree, where I focused on South Asian literature. I remember learning about the caste system and how it still exists in today's (modern - well, maybe in terms of technology) world. I discovered interesting skin creams, like Fair & Lovely, which claim to whiten a woman, even down there. Crazy, right? In the same article, one interviewee connected the hype of being lighter skinned back to British rule, when donning parasols and staying indoors was considered "la mode." Others blamed the obsession on the invasion of American retail lines.

Ironically, I find that here in the USA, TV series like Jersey Shore and Real Housewives, promote more and more white Americans to become obsessed with obtaining the perfect tan, rather than embracing their color as well. Why can't we all embrace our differences and learn to be comfortable in our own skin?

I guess, all I really want to know is, where did all the good, accepting, open-minded people go?

La petite pamplemousse

**If you aren't already a fan of Stromae, I highly suggest going on Spotify to listen to his latest song, a modern remix of the infamous Carmen. Les paroles sont ici and decent English translations are available if you can't read the French.