A few shades lighter please!

In our graduate seminars, we talk a lot about race and color, including how whiteness is cherished and celebrated in and outside the United States.

These class discussions and other conversations with my fellow students and friends made me think about the various fairness products that are marketed and sold back home. (In no way am I trying to be the voice of my nation. These are just MY views on such 'beauty' products.)

Here's a fine example of what I'm talking about:

So clearly, once you're beautiful (i.e. fair, white) you can achieve anything! Name, fame, money and power! You can realize your inner dreams and talents 'cos opportunities are endless!

So what happens if you're not fair? Well, basically then you're nobody! You're boring, unwanted and invisible. Your life sucks! (and not in a pleasurable way!)

Not only that, if cannot get married because of your dark complexion, all you need to do is use a cream! Look at this for instance:

Use it for a couple of days and see the results! You'll impress your guy and his mother in no time! How gendered and how setreotypical is that!

Ummm, but wait, isn't skin color largely genetic? So the fairness creams/soaps/sprays just suck out all the melanin? That doesn't sound right! It probably just washes away dead skin cells, leaving it smoother and cleaner with a momentary glow. It cannot possibly change one’s life! Common!

It often worries me how whiteness and fairness has become a virtue among some social groups:

The message in the above video is clear - 'not so far people' are looked down upon by 'fairer' folks. The only way to shut them up is by 'becoming' like them, and if possible, a shade lighter! Intra-race racism? (I'm sure there's a better academic term for this.)

Corporates spend a lot of time and energy researching their target consumers. Of course there the question of what came first? The chicken or the egg? Was there always a need for creating fairness? Did the marketers study people's aspiration or did they create this market through such campaigns by feeding consumer's minds with bogus claims?

It amuses me that most brands selling such fairness products are not domestic. Nivea, Garnier, J&J and many others have spent millions of $$ conducting R&D on Eastern markets to come up with skin whitening merchandise.

Oh, and if you thought their target audience is just women, you're wrong! Men too have been using fairness products. As the following clips suggests, men can finally 'come out' as they now have their own personal line of fairness products. Of course, men's fairness creams are packaged in blue, grey and black as opposed to pink in case of women :)

It's completely macho to make yourself go a few shades lighter 'cos now, women will run after you!