Skin Color

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Christina here:

I'm white. Yeah. I've never been able to really tan. I used to pray every night that I'd wake up looking like one of the beautiful black girls that lived in our neighborhood. Their creamy brown skin was fascinating. Some mornings I really believed my prayers had worked, and I'd keep my eyes squinched up as long as I could against the hard--white--reality that always came.

And growing up, people acted like it was an embarrassment to show my pale legs. Only tanned ones are acceptable, you know. At least use some self-tanning cream, like you have some respect for yourself! (If you haven't caught the irony in that last sentence, you probably won't get this blog.)

So if I felt a little pasty and freakish in America, that feeling was only exacerbated here in India. I felt a lot pasty and freakish. (Sorry, Dorothy. Just use that with your students as an example of how not to construct a proper sentence.) But the girls at the orphanage here would always stroke my arms, pointing out our differences: "You white. My skin black. Your skin beautiful." I started trying to correct them. "No--your skin is beautiful!" They would laugh at me in disbelief. "No. My skin black. White skin beautiful! It was so sad.. I wanted them to know how beautiful they were, and they just wouldn't believe me.

In the shops, I started noticing the rows of beauty products designed to make girls' skin more "fair." Creams and powders to make them look whiter. I thought of American stores, where products line the shelves and promise to make our skin look darker, more tan.

And then I decided that everybody's just Nuts. Thinking if they just looked like somebody else, they'd be ok.

And that guy with the big machine cheers us all on, lines up the Sneetches , taking our money to add or remove our "stars upon thars." Good grief.

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Photos

Don't You Want to Be Beautiful?
Don't be a Sneetch!

Comments

[Vicky]

Interesting
Vicky here That is very interesting what you have to say and it is very real how we always want some thing what we don't have . This clearly shows that God made us perfect the scripture goes right for this" I am fearfully and wonderfully made" . Bless you

[Liz]

Ain't it the truth
Yeah, and if the guy running the machine has us busy and obsessed with something we will all go to the grave missing the big picture. Amazing! We can always see the lies in someone else's culture before we see our own. thanks for reminding me that I am beautifully made by my Creator. Keep writing and filming, Mother Spielberg. I love you and miss you.