The colour of my skin

While growing up, Maysa Zahra Khan’s mother used to say to her that ‘the only thing you’ve got going for you, girl, are those eyes - make sure nothing happens to them’. They both understood that the biggest obstacle to her destiny was the color of her skin. Maysa now questions our hypocritical racist tendencies.

Page 22
Q-News, Issue 358
December 2004

It’s hard to believe, as I near my thirties, that I still have issues with being brown. Not with being brown specifically, but with the South Asian term of great endearment, kali (blackie or dark-skinned). Being thirty is a time of self-reflection, acceptance, expression and self-actualisation. Your feet firmly planted in adulthood, it is time to work out the pathologies of the inner and outer dimensions of yourself.

There is a pathology that I’m particularly concerned about. It is the pathology of racism that is so rampant in Muslim cultures. More importantly, I am concerned about the success, or lack thereof, that I will have in reframing it for myself and for my children.

Racism is more often than not internalised. You say you’ve never heard anyone use the term kali before? I have argued with many on this point. When people speak glowingly about lighter skin, I say their words are racist. There is absolute denial, of course. It’s a preference, they say. A preference like choosing Pepsi over Coke? Yeah, right. Preference for lighter skin over darker skin, apparently, is not racism. Now what was I thinking?!

It is so normalised, people can throw off comments about skin color as if discussing something as inoffensive as the weather. Nobody will call you on it. No one will think it’s even strange. For a culture that’s so tied up in shame, no one’s even embarrassed to talk about it. It is that normal. Scary. Do I think too much of this?  Perhaps but what is scary is that there are many more out there who do not think of it all.

Why do we act so surprised when Muslims face Islamophobia, such as being turned down for a job interview  or being profiled by law enforcement authorities, allegedly because of racism? If our own community is so judgmental, what right do we have to hold others accountable for judging us?

What seems most paradoxical to me is that we have pockets of people in the Muslim community that abhor everything remotely ‘western’ but milky white skin seems to be an exception to the rule. Perhaps this is all tied up in ancient Brahmin, colonialism thought processes, where oppressed populations have a strange fascination with the people who oppress them. Frankly, at this point I don’t care where it came from; I just know that it no longer should be okay to speak in this way. A look at the matrimonial section in a popular Islamic magazine highlights the number one preference for brides-to-be: fair skin.

Instead of giving our youth, especially our girls, the foundation of self-esteem that will sustain their ability to deal with a world that is at times filled with much misery, we shred their self-esteem to bits even before they come into their own. This sort of discourse hurts our children. Children know very early on that dark skin is equated with ugliness and light skin with beauty. Who’s teaching this to them? Don’t disillusion yourself; it’s not the public school system but our own communities.

My challenge to you is this: if you are not doing it already, the next time you hear a conversation about black and white, dare to call the person on it. Speak out. It is disgusting and offensive.  Shame on that person for perpetuating this type of thinking. Shame on you if you are participating in this dialogue of absurdity.