Recently, there have been a lot of debate on social platforms about Colourism in Srilanka. If you go to any supermarket today, there will be shelves lined with the latest skin lightening creams, guaranteed to make u look like a whitewashed brick wall. According to today’s society, white skin equals beauty, and dark skinned people are considered unattractive. This mentality has angered me ever since I came to Srilanka, and I can say that it was one of my biggest insecurities growing up.
In order to look back at when this stigma of light skin equals superiority began, we need to address the topic of Colonialism. When the British decided to invade our motherland, they brought with them many things, including the stigma of associating skin color to superiority. Since dark skinned people mainly worked in the paddy fields, while the rich whites stayed indoors, skin color was associated with class. Although those times are no more, it’s sad to see this baseless ideology still being followed today. If I received a dollar for every marriage proposal in a newspaper seeking a “fair girl” for their beloved putha ( who may not even be the least bit attractive), I’d be richer than Bill Gates. God forbid if the girl wasn’t fair! How tragic! To the aunties and uncles of Sri Lanka, fair skin equates beauty, and there’s no bigger culprit than the companies that endorse skin lightning creams. Big companies like Unilever need to take accountability, for profiting off of peoples insecurities, which they created in the first place. After receiving harsh criticism a few weeks ago, they decided to change their brand name from fair and lovely to glow and lovely. This was a small step taken in the right direction and there’s a long way to go.
While countries are trying hard to fight this ideology, our wonderful Sri Lankan skin whitening brand 'Lia Diamond' released a ridiculous commercial supporting it. In the commercial, a girl was asked to be her best friend’s bridesmaid on one condition…if she was fair skinned. These kinds of commercials are ridiculously stupid and it’s a crime to even air on TV. People decided to flood their Facebook comments section with criticism and they immediately deleted their commercial from their page. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg. In that short time it was aired, how many people would have felt like they were worthless and ugly? How many people would have felt the need to buy the product with whatever toxic ingredients in order to feel accepted? Airing commercials like this is wrong on so many levels and it needs to be banned. There’s no two way around it. No one has the right to tell a person how to look and feel, let alone profit from creating insecurities among people. It’s the most inhumane thing anyone could do, and it leads to cataclysmic trauma among youth.
Apart from that, most of the beloved Lankan tele-drama actors and actresses were also accused of supporting colourism, while refusing to be educated on the matter. In the Lankan teledrama ‘Lansupathiniyo’, an actor with his face painted black is considered a villain. The association of the dark face with a villain adds to the representation of dark people in the society today. If you ask anyone why a dark skinned person is found unattractive, I’d guarantee you nobody will be able to provide a reasonable answer. On twitter, when confronted about this, the actor had replied saying “ it’s just a bloody tele-drama men” . Regardless of whether it’s a useless teledrama or a blockbuster, the mere fact of associating it with colorism is WRONG. People need to take accountability for their actions. When younger generations are fed this nonsense, from idols they look up to, their mindset completely changes. Kids as young as 10 don’t want to play sports because they will get dark. Some kids put powder on their skin so they look as fair as their siblings. Your next door aunty Lata keeps asking you to put some “fair and lauly” because you have gotten dark, like it’s any of her business! She should worry about her putha talking to random girls at the bus stop, but that’s drama for another day. My point is, Srilankan society needs to evolve. Times have changed but the backward mindset remains, and that’s sad to see. I do have hope for the younger generation because most people are taking a stand, and accepting that beauty is not linear. We don’t need to look a certain way to feel attractive because beauty cannot be viewed from a single lens. It’s much more than that. To all my watalappan skinned girls and boys, be comfortable in your own skin because brown.is.beautiful!
Thisari Devmini Subasinghe
EBH 2023