As the Black Lives Matter movement rages on following the brutal killing of an African American man George Floyd who died from excessive police violence sparking a nationwide campaign across USA but also has started a conversation.
Systematic racism isn’t something that we can conveniently deny of existing in Pakistan, the prejudice against the darker skin tone is deeply ingrained in our own society where the fairer is given preference.
The idea of a beautiful woman in Pakistan is still greatly regressive, even the most educated prefer marrying their son to a fairer girl or praying their daughter is born with a glowing white complexion. Although, it may not sound as big of an issue at large but for a four-year-old child to be treated differently than her fairer-skinned sister, the road to self-doubt starts from there.
And this is the story of every dark-skinned girl in our country and to think that a fairness product doesn’t promote racism is living in a fool’s paradise. These products not only promote a certain skin colour over the other but derail a girl’s confidence when she’s given it as a gift by her ‘concerned’ aunt. Fairness products in fact cater to a mind-set that half of the world is fighting to change, the biggest hurdle here being mainstream celebrities who are not only been promoting them but also are indifferent about it.
Recently, actor Zara Noor Abbas was called out for promoting a fairness face wash while also supporting the Black Lives Matter movement in an Instagram post. The actor shared a video of an African-American girl speaking about the discrimination faced by her community based on the colour of their skin which led to a user bringing up the actor’s recent ad campaign.
However, instead of self-reflecting, the actor made a tone-deaf comment and said that she believes her endorsed product doesn’t promote racism while the said product in fact equates a fresh skin to a bright skin and literally has the word ‘White’ in its name. For someone who knows a thing or two about advertising can recall subliminal messaging, where a brand promotes certain aspects of its products through hidden elements throughout the advertisement while in this case it is not even as subtle.
In the past actors like Sajal Aly, Syra Yousuf, Mehwish Hayat, Saba Qamar, Neelum Muneer, Mawra Hocane, Sana Javed, Maya Ali, Fahad Mustafa, and Fawad Khan along with many other stars have all promoted fairness products or alike. However, there are also several other big names such as Ayesha Omar, Mahira Khan, Momina Mustehsan, Iqra Aziz and Hareem Farooq who have refused to promote these products and hopefully will continue to do so.
Interestingly, while brands could get away with tag lines like ‘Hogayi main gori gori’ in the 90s but in order to appeal to a generation that’s more informed and also to save themselves from flak for such racist campaigns, many brands have opted to promote their fairness products under the guise of ‘promoting a fresh and clearer skin’ yet the model in most of these ads suddenly gets ‘whiter’ after using the product.
Now for those who may find it difficult to understand how fairness products promote racism, here’s an example.
The teenage years, most critical in a girl’s life is also the time when you first start getting a sense of something being wrong with how you look. At family gatherings, aunties flock around your fairer cousin but not you, they want to know all about her interests but not yours, a few of them might even try to keep you away from the ‘prettier one’.
Now this same 14-year-old girl watching TV and suddenly an ad comes up showing a girl go from being dark-skinned to creamy white by using just a cream and only within a few days. She rushes to the local store, buys that cream and uses it for days but nothing happens. Weeks and months but still the same result and now that girl is even more drowned in self-pity as she was before. Again, she sits in front of the TV and watches yet another ad for a fairness product and again she tries that not because she wants to look like the girl on TV or herself but because society wants her to.
Being under this constant pressure, takes a toll on a girl’s mental health and in many cases girls have committed suicide for not being ‘beautiful’ while many women are verbally and physically tortured even after marriage by their husbands and in-laws for the same reason and this only gets worse if she ends up giving birth to a child that shares her complexion — hence the toxic culture of fairness products is passed on to another generation.
Moreover, it is not just the women that are targeted but men also face discrimination when it comes to colour and several brands have launched fairness products especially for the male audience which only proves the fact about the toxicity these products are creating in an already prejudiced society.
In a nutshell fairness products encourage women of darker skin to lighten their colour and establishing the fact that there is something wrong with the colour of her skin. Racism being the discrimination against a person based on their colour and skin lightening products or fairness products play an equal role in creating a mind-set of there being a problem with being dark or black — hence fairness products do promote racism!!!
