Lessons on Colorism.
My hands are small, I know,
But they're not yours they are my own,
But they're not yours they are my own,
And I am never broken. – Jewel
When I reflect on that conversation with my girlfriend there was nothing uncharacteristic about it. Before we hung up, there was a pause towards the end and she uttered nonchalantly “I can’t stop looking at my hands- They’re so dark now… I just want them to go back to their original color.” I looked down at my wrinkly brown hands. Her natural complexion was fair and had gotten a tan from the beach. Her words “so dark” lingered in my mind. I instantly felt a sense of shame for harboring dark hands. She was one of my closest friends, so I knew her comment was not malicious. Our relationship was one in which we did not think twice before speaking so I ended our conversation with words of assurance, “Don’t worry. Your color will come back soon.”
I have always had a love-hate relationship with my hands. During the latter part of my teenage years, I noticed they were considerably more wrinkled and darker than the rest of my body. If hands were indicators of a person’s age, mine always looked like the hands of an overly tanned senior citizen. It was because of this I decided against polishing and growing my nails to avoid unwarranted attention. However, my grievances pale in comparison to my gratitude for having fully functioning hands. My hands have made the most menial and arduous tasks feasible. For without the use of hands my customary winged liner would cease to exist, not to mention my characteristically dramatic hand gestures. Through my palms, I have poured my heart into prayer and held my children so tightly. My hands have lifted my body countless times but they've also lifted my own self-image.
I am the daughter of immigrants and like most, success meant everything to my parents. I was raised to believe that everything is temporary except one’s good deeds and education. I can hear my mother’s words echoing, “They can take away your money, all your material possessions but your education is within you and no one can take it away.” I did not ask who “they” were but I supposed it was the unpredictable lows of life. I was made to believe there weren’t any limits to my success and I could push through whatever boundaries lay in front of me. Perhaps my innocence was the secret to my success. Growing up, there wasn’t any real discussion of physical beauty. My mother was the type of person who saw beauty in everyone, to a fault. In our home, uttering the word ugly was akin to the dirtiest four-letter word. “God created everyone to his likeness,” she would say, “not yours…”, she did not raise me to notice the color of her skin or anyone else’s. I knew there were different races, cultures and I was made fully aware of racism. But the connection beauty shared with complexion left me “color blind.” It wouldn’t take long before all I saw was color.
I did not have an identity crisis right away. It was a slow and gradual process, but eventually her comment opened Pandora’s box and it was full of insecurities. Discovering the importance placed upon the color of one’s skin consumed my thoughts. I looked at hands and then my complexion in its entirety. I looked at the back of my powder foundation and it said “sand.” I did not know what the classification of sand meant but I became fixated on the color of my skin in comparison to others. Questions loomed in my head constantly: “Am I as dark as her?” The awareness had set in, then it transitioned into how the color of one’s skin impacts their life.
There is a certain amount of power and privilege of being a lighter skinned Muslim woman. In the Muslim community it is not compulsory but expected to get married after college. When I attended weddings, I noticed mothers paid close attention to lighter skinned girls. Their eyes lit up as these young fair girls choose which family would be so lucky to inherit their genetic traits. After decades of Disney princesses and colonization, most of their sons also wanted a pale princess of their own. It was unheard of for a male to marry a girl darker than his complexion, but when it did happen, everyone noticed. The bride was deemed to be blessed to have found a man who loved her despite the differences in their skin tone. When the disparity was noticed, the commentary consisted of “She must be a good person, she has really nice features” or “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Anything to make themselves feel assuaged about the union.
In college it was a customary conversation among my friends to sit around and discuss potential marriage prospects- the way one may discuss guys who they are dating. Being of a darker complexion, I received proposals but not as many as my lighter skinned peers. I would spend a lot of time listening and laughing to their stories of overzealous mothers. One friend consistently regaled us all with her stories, “The mother kept offering me a different son, every time I refused one…each more qualified than the other…” The entire room would burst out in laughter at the absurdity of it all. I did not have a lot of proposals when it was my turn to share, I resorted to fabricating a story of unrequited love. It was inauthentic but befitting of my mantra back then, “If life is boring, just make it up.”
All the strength my mother had bestowed upon me started to fall by the wayside. I felt myself weakening and succumbing to society’s ideal of beauty. I wasn’t someone who had a history of suffering from low self-esteem. But I wanted to be prettier and most importantly visible. I started purchasing makeup much lighter than my skin tone. My powder was suited for someone who was Caucasian. I threw away all the head scarfs and hijabs that made me look dark. I did not wear white because of the contrast it had to my skin tone was too great. I also began bleaching my facial hair to blonde and it worked, I looked lighter. But I would wash my make up off and my peach fuzz turned an awful shade of green before the black came back. This was a far cry from a solution.
I needed to do something drastic and changing the color of my skin was my only choice. Everywhere I looked, all I saw were white women on a platform, and everyone else was looking up. Long before the days of Rihanna, pop stars came in one shade: white. Britney, Christina and Jessica. The lineup featured a vast array of personalities and voices but all I saw was the color of their skin. It was and still is newsworthy when someone of color earns a modeling contract or is featured prominently in popular culture because it’s such a rare occurrence.
My desperation and Google led me to skin lightening creams. The before and after pictures were alluring; each person so many shades lighter than their original color and noticeably happier. The more potent skin whitening includes hydroquinone and a long list of side effects. Thinning of the skin, uneven skin tone, intense irritation, skin cancer, acne, increased appetite, weight gain and osteoporosis. The truth is, none of it mattered to me. I wanted what came so naturally for many girls and I was willing to take the risk to get it. With youth comes ignorance and I felt invincible. I believed happiness and visibility were the side effects of having a lighter skin tone.
The sad thing is, I was right. My complexion changed dramatically, and so did the amount of attention I was awarded. I was visible. During those years, I received the highest number of proposals- mothers would whisper into my ears questions of my ethnicity, education and who my parents were. Skin tone was connected to visibility and I witnessed the power of it for two years. This process has taught me, the color of one’s skin still wields a lot of power among many. I loved the way I looked. I did not think twice about the colors I chose to wear, and it was easier to find makeup with my new complexion. It was one less thing that I needed to overcompensate for.
However, I carried the shame of my secret wherever I went. Being inauthentic cannot render one happy, despite finally feeling visible and lighter. I did not solve my internal issues of skin tone but had masked it with a dangerous solution. I hid my skin lightening cream from everyone, buried deep in the back of a drawer. The cream started to impact the quality of my life. I feared being in the sun because of the side effects, which made my annual Caribbean vacations quite hazardous to my health. I wore big hats, covered my face with my hijab and hid my hands to avoid the sun. I grew up so carefree, jumping into the ocean and swimming. My obsession was noticeable and it added to the shame I felt inside.
This changed the summer, I was visiting my grandmother and she called me over. She asked, “I don’t understand how you could have been so tan. Why is your face is turning white?” My grandmother had worn her sand-tone complexion with pride and raised eight children that could care less about the color of people’s skin. In the world she grew up in, women barely had rights. It was the work of her hands and actions of her character that dictated how she felt about herself. I looked down at her disfigured brown fingers, that must have bent from washing clothes by hand or tending to her house affairs. Success was measured by having food on the table and ensuring her children had the right to an education. She did not spend her time worrying about such trivial matters. I responded with silence. My unconscious confession. This feeling of shame morphed into a feeling of guilt. I had succumbed, and I knew I had value, but somewhere along the way I had stopped believing it.
During those two pivotal years, I also met the man that would become my husband. As we grew to know one another, I realized it was possible for someone to see beauty beyond one’s complexion. I did not want to enter a marriage hiding my skin lightening cream within the billows of my clothing. It was too big of a lie to hold onto and I needed to know he loved the real me. The person three shades darker than my skin lightening cream had made me. I wanted his family to know he was not marrying a girl that was light skinned. That his children could be brown. It was scary to think about life without “being fair and lovely.” The feeling of guilt was manifesting into depression and I knew I had to stop.
One year before I was set to get married, I held the potent cream on my fingers, ready to rub it onto my face. I looked at my reflection in the mirror and at the hijab delicately placed on my head. My clothing covered my body since I decided as a freshman in college that I would control what the world sees when they looked at me. I had been a lion when I decided to take this unpopular path of the hijab, a direct rebellion against those that objectify women. I had freed myself from other people’s perceptions of beauty, yet I was behaving like a sheep. That was the last day I attempted to lighten my skin. My complexion returned in a few weeks, and I started the process of loving my skin. I had to overcome my conditioning that lighter is better.
It was only after I stopped my addiction that I researched what a lucrative business skin lightening is. It is a $10 billion-dollar industry and predicted to become $23 billion by 2020. The statistics are overwhelming and every time I placed that cream upon my face, I was contributing to the lingering effects of colorism and colonization. It is with intense reflection I have come to realize, we have no choice regarding what family one is born into, one’s race, country of origin, or physical features. All of those elements are part of one’s story that is meant to guide us to our purpose. My skin color is part of my story and to change it would be to alter my truth. My beauty was bestowed upon me by my creator. To question it, is to lose focus on my purpose.
I needed to find my purpose, so I invested in myself. I spent my time studying the lives of people of the past. There truths, which provides the greatest lessons in life. I surrounded myself with people who made me reflect and think deeper. I read quotes by religious figures, great men and women. I reflected on their words and applied their words to my life. I learned to create a character that was capable of loving myself beyond my reflection.
All my life, I wanted to attend law school, but this process altered my career. This feeling of marginalization was painful and destructive. I had a mother who had ingrained into me my worth and taught me the value of knowledge. I wanted to have the same impact on others. I stayed in college another year and minored in secondary education. I have been teaching now for ten years and initially I thought I would help students that felt marginalized. I have realized that all students, from the jocks to anime nerds, feel at some point that they are not enough. Through my work I can inspire students and teach the contributions that different cultures and regions have made towards the growth of humanity.
It has been eleven years since I went bleach free. Wearing my skin has meant working harder to prove myself, being smarter and always being prepared. Now I recognize that I come from greatness. My ancestors had to work hard for all that they were able to accomplish and that it was persistence, not privilege that led to their success. I have learned to love my reflection and I wear my skin proudly. Being rich in melanin means I am guarded against the suns damaging UVR’s. My skin does not burn despite being exposed to the sun for long periods at a time. I will look younger as I age. I have learned to celebrate and appreciate the beauty of being rich in melanin. I am proud to say, “It is a brown thing.”
Most of all I am free from the chains of mental colonization. Every skin color is beautiful, and we are all masters of our perceptions. An open mind is the greatest freedom of them all. Having learned this allows me to teach this lesson to my own daughter. Visibility is not connected to being seen in the eyes of others but how you see and evaluate yourself. There is so much beauty and power in being brown.
Sadly, this story does not have a happy ending. Today colorism still plagues the world. I have wiped the tears and consoled mothers whose children were not as light as there in-laws had expected. I have listened to young girls discuss with sadness that they cannot play outside because their mothers did not want them to get dark. I am not sure what makes me sadder, the loss of their childhood or the awareness of the color of their skin. I have corrected children who have taunted their peers about having a darker complexion. I opened makeup bags and drawers of friends to find creams promising lighter skin. The battle continues but I constantly remind myself: physical appearance is forever fleeting but to invest in one’s character is everlasting. I look down at my wrinkly dark hands daily to remind myself of the many lessons those hands hold. It is a constant struggle because of the bombardment of images, and the political climate.
