Fairness creams are fair game

Only Bill Burr can do complete justice to this topic, but I’ll take a shot.

An article in today’s IE (http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/attack-on-africans-ban-on-fairness-advertisements-unfair-and-unlovely-2831346/) pointedly highlights the vicious anti-dark skin prejudice in India. Indeed, that’s true. Mindless beating up of Africans, bullying of dark-skinned kids, preference for fair people in jobs etc. are all reminders of the dark skin-phobia a lot of Indians so dearly nurture in their heart.

But of course, just like racism itself, no admonishment of it is untouched by the obnoxious PC culture – the kind that compels idiots to use the dark thumbs-up smiley on WhatsApp. Inevitably, such articles veer into conflating personal preferences with institutional racism. How is a preference for fair-skinned love interests or life partners any different from that for tall, able-bodied, wealthy, and educated ones?

As an individual, it is my indisputable right to choose who I want to talk to, my friends, and life/love partners as per my preferences. Racism starts where the boundary between personal and public is overstepped, such as in case of discrimination in jobs, and bullying someone for being dark-skinned, since they’re dastardly ways of inflicting personal preferences on another.

If preference for fair skin is such a social evil, why shouldn’t preference for dark hair be? Or for that matter, bigger boobs? And oh, what about the latest fad in town – abs? How unfortunate are those parts of human anatomy that haven't yet had an -ism started under their name. Do I sniff discrimination, PC warriors? So yeah, let’s have hairism, boobism, absism, and what-have-you-ism. But let’s start with the lowest hanging fruit – the proudly brandished about “TDH”. Let’s rechristen it tallism,racism,lookism.

The article calls for a ban on fairness creams. I say, why? After all, what is entrepreneurship but a knack for knowing what people would pay for? It isn’t the State’s job to determine individual preferences, or to have a confidence-building ministry for those rendered diffident by their dark skin. Those who don’t like such creams are free to ignore them, it’s a matter of personal preference. Getting them banned would be, ironically, inflicting one’s preference on another - the root cause of all social evils. If fairness creams are banned, so should matrimonial advertisements and websites, and liposuction and body-enhancing supplements and surgeries. Best solution: stay clear of bans and let the individual decide.