This post was written by Cycads, and originally appeared on her blog.
Malaysian actress Wardina
The meteoric rise of Malaysian actress Wardina and singer Waheeda in the last few years was by no means an accident. For decades, women who wore the tudung (hijab) had longed for high-profile role models who shared their values and dress code. Representation is, of course, a good thing, but their popularity can be partly attributed to the public’s preference for fair skin.
The Malay skin colour can be best described as a spectrum of tones; from the dark brown (hitam manis) to ghostly pale (putih melepak) – all a result of a half-forgotten history of intermarriage between ethnic groups that co-exist in Malaysia and beyond. While there isn’t a social and economic divide based on colorism in the country; i.e. the rich and powerful aren’t necessarily pasty white or vice versa, there is a culture of implicit loathing of darker skin. The solution to this, however, is easy: whitening creams.
Malaysian singer Waheeda
Wardina and Waheeda represent the wholesomeness that many young Malay women aspire to. But they are also sending out messages that pander to neo-colonial conventions of ‘white is beautiful’ and ‘black is ugly’. Malaysia is awash with lightening cream adverts that suggest this. The thing people say about human nature – that we all, in some way, prefer looks that are different from our own, does not even apply here. Whitening can be a compulsive behaviour, an obsession. Friends I know who are naturally light-skinned use creams to make themselves even lighter. Whiter than white.
Purveyors of products like ‘Fair and Lovely’ and ‘L’Oreal White Perfect’ (what a racist name) reinforce the ideology of white supremacy and the sexist practice of biomedicalisation of women’s bodies. Upholding these ideas means that women should suffer from serious health implications or simply from self-hatred in the name of whiteness. What are your thoughts about this?
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Tags: Malaysia, skin lightening creams, Waheeda, Wardina
I think people in the West should write to L’Oreal in protest for their carrying this sort of product. I think it’s something that would gain a lot of support across various groups of people in the US in particular; it’d be incredibly tough for them to defend it on moral grounds. Do you know if it’s US L’Oreal or like L’Oreal international or something that carries the product?
OMG, I wouldn’t have even known she was Malaysian!
As a white woman in the US, I have to admit I don’t really understand this practice. I personally knew some Pakistani women who were obsessed with skin color, and I saw lightening creams all over Jordan too.
I live in Florida, so I see white people going to the beach all the time, laying in the sun for hours to get, well, a skin color many Malaysian women have! And then they get wrinkles earlier in life (there’s only so much Botox can do), and some get skin cancer.
I just wish people would understand that every skin color is beautiful. Just work what you’ve got; it’s great!
Obviously, as you said, the issue is deeper than beauty, and it’s something I have to admit I don’t understand since I’m not in their shoes and don’t have their history.
Lol, have they seen the range of self-tanning creams we have here?
Ugh.
It’s truly pathetic how many people’s minds are still brainwashed by the hateful British Victorian colonial attitude toward dark skin and light skin.
Bollywood is especially the worst out of all.
[This comment has been edited to fit within comment moderation guidelines.]
I don’t think we can blame this solely on colonialism. This is something that we women in most cultures have perpetuated for hundreds of years and now encourage with our dollars. These companies are out to make money and this is a huge, huge money maker.
Its probably gotten worse due to the proliferation of western media but it has always existed. It’s something that has been hard for me to come to terms with and not sure how to deal with the fact that men (particularly upper class men) do choose women who are lighter than them. Western media has definitely has made it worse, where as before in your culture the woman was only slightly lighter, now the ideal is very pale. As a dark skinned woman and mother of a brown daughter I am trying to figure out how I will explain this to her as she gets older. Because she will be discriminated against on the marriage market even in her own community. I have seen it so many times, by men who I would have never thought to be color conscious but it came into play when they actually decided on a bride. How do we as mothers teach our sons to have a more encompassing view of beauty?
Skin color has historically been linked with class and profession, both in the West as well as in the Global South. While colonialism certainly has something to do with it, it’s not the whole story.
The link between skin color and profession makes sense, because a couple hundred years ago, if you had dark skin in the West, you were tan, which probably meant you worked outside as a farmer. If you were pale, this meant you didn’t have to be outside, and were from the upper classes.
This logic was the same in Japan and many places in Asia, which also have had historical biases against dark skin based on the work/profession/farmer link. This was evident also in Chinese foot binding. If your feet were bound, it meant you were wealthy enough to not have to do manual labor.
Then, beginning in the 1960s, agricultural work decreased in the West as most people began working white color jobs in cubicles. Thus if you had tan skin, this probably meant you had enough leisure time to go on vacation in the Bahamas and get a tan. You can start seeing in fashion magazines like Vogue when tanning became “in style” in the 1960s. It symbolized wealth and leisure.
This still hasn’t quite cought on in the west.
{edit} This still hasn’t quite cought on OUTSIDE the West
“caught!” ugh, can’t type today.
Rochelle, I think your comments miss out on huge swaths of people who are dark regardless of where they spend their time. Also, while India has probably had issues with color since it was overtaken by the Aryans waaay before the Europeans came, I don’t think “fair is better” is an ideology that preceded European colonialism in all, or even most, parts of the globe.
It doesn’t matter whether you are naturally dark or not, just what it symbolizes in the eyes of others. Profession is often seen has hereditary, a kind of evolutionary influence on skin color. So if you are white, your ancestors were white, and you came from a line of people with privilege who did not have to conduct manual labor.
From the NYT:
“Sociologists have long debated why Asians, who are divided by everything from language to religion to ethnicity, share a deeply held cultural preference for lighter skin. One commonly repeated rationale is that a lighter complexion is associated with wealth and higher education levels because those from lower social classes, laborers and farmers, are more exposed to the sun.”
Even if this doesn’t really make sense, because some people are naturally one way or the other, it still instils a “white = higher social status” mentality that can permeate throughout a civilization.
Great post.
I think about this subject when it comes to the portrayal of the ideal Muslim woman in the larger Muslim community. Most of the representations of the ideal is a hijabed up, slim, fair-skinned sister. How often is the symbol of the Muslim woman a dark-skinned woman? A larger woman? A woman who is “unconventionally beautiful”? Not often.
The sad part is when critiqued about the representations a good number of Muslims will ask, “Why are you always focused on race?” Another part of our denial.
Jamerican Muslimah,
I think you’ve got the essence of my post spot on there. I’ve come across some clear, some nuanced definitions of the perfect Muslim poster girl – and she’s often a fair-skinned, slim, pretty or very cute hijabi; not far off from the hegemonic standard of beauty that we encounter everyday, everywhere.
@ Jamerican Muslimah:
“The sad part is when critiqued about the representations a good number of Muslims will ask, “Why are you always focused on race?” Another part of our denial.”
Exactly. Its a way for us to not address the issues of racism within our own communities, whether it be toward South Asian Muslims, Black Muslims, etc. Within our community we have a HUGE preference for fair skin. Notice how the hierarchy works. Arabs on top, Turks and Persians not far behind, South Asians in the middle, and Black Muslims at the bottom. The rest of the Muslims can fit in where their “colour fits in.”
I do believe that colonization plays a part, but how long can we let it? Especially once we become aware of this. And when the Arab Muslim denigrates the South Asian Muslim, or the South Asian Muslim turns his/her nose up at the Black Muslim I have a hard time trying to think of the role of colonization.
Rochelle,
I just think you are generalizing about the cause of this attitude in a way that ignores Black peoples in particular, but really all sorts of dark skinned people. This labor vs. leisure class works for those who naturally have white or whitish skin color in the gene pool, but that’s not most of the world or even most of the “global south.”
Jamerican Muslima
I was just thinking about that issue as I read the post. There really is a standard for the ideal Muslima and the pictures are overwhelmingly of fair-skinned, thin and very young women. There is something really disturbing about that because I don’t think you can divorce these pictures (even, and perhaps most importantly, the hijabed ones) from what men find desirable.
Saliha:
It’s true, I was generalizing about some theories as to why Asian societies in particular associate pale skin tones with beauty. But this is certainly not the case for Black women, especially Black Americans, who were historically treated better or worse depending on their skin tone, with paler skin tones associated with more ‘civilized’.
And in my experience, I do think non-Middle Eastern, (read: Caucasian and Black) converts face discimination within the Muslim community. On the South Side of Chicago, where I used to live, the mosque Black Muslims went to was not the same mosque Arab Muslims went to.
I have to agree with most of the people on the role of colonization. It’s a factor, but the preference for light skin was probably just re-inforced, or given new legitimacy, when much of the developing world was under European rule, not necessarily introduced only by them. There are cultural references, norms, poetics and traditions that predate colonization by many years.
I recently read 1001 nights, I had heard these tales growing up so I thought it would be a nice trip down memory lane, but I was sorely mistaken when I read it. All dark skinned men and women were stereotypically portrayed as sly, evil slaves with a hypersexual drive. Then there’s the famous “Perfumed Garden” where all Indian and African women are considered to be the epitome of ugliness (seriously, right down to their genitalia).
I know these texts aren’t religious. But they do come from lands that are historically Muslim, and have impacted the culture in some way, especially through their references to the ever pale “Hur”. I’m aware of the fact that newer translations have translated Hur into being some sort of dark-eyed companion where whiteness refers only to the whites of an eye, but I think the damage has already been done with that one. I can think of countless poems and songs filled with imagery of pious, light skinned, beautiful companions in the afterlife. Hence, the perfect Muslimah is a cute, light skinned, pious, hijabi. pl
Also, alot of religious language is filled with metaphors that equate “light” or “white” with purity and “dark” or “black” with confusion and disarray. I don’t know where this fits in, or if I read to much into it. But this light = good, dark = bad, even in religious metaphor changes the way people look at skin colour.
On that note however, I leave you with a translation of an old Punjabi rendition of the infamous tale of Leila and Majnu:
“Majnu was asked by his men, “why do you cry ‘Leila’, ‘Leila’ when she is so dark skinned?” Majnu replied “Oh friends, you do not see the beauty that I see, for let me tell you that while the pages of the Quran you read are white, the words of the Quran are written in a black ink, a black that is as lovely as my Leila”.
How disgusting so now these creams can be found in Malaysia too?? I know being South Asian how popular these things are over there. And I’ve seen some Fair and Lovely products in the Middle East. But this is the first time I’m hearing about it in Malaysia. How sad and pathetic. I also remembering a Malaysian friend telling me how in Malaysia (and other East Asian countries) they like using half-white/Asian women as fashion models. That’s if they don’t already use white models. This all just demonstrates that non whites have a terrible inferiority complex even if we try to argue otherwise.
@ sc
While I see what you’re saying about the corruption in understanding of the texts that led to Muslims falsely equating skin color with “bad/good” I think we should just always look to the Prophet’s Sunnah as a way to understand how these false racist notions should actually hold no weight in Islam. From there we can see how the Prophet stated that his freed nursemaid Barakah (who later became Zayd ibn Harithah’s wife) was a woman of Paradise and how the non Arab Sahabahs were not treated any differently from the Arab ones. That later generations started perpetuating racist notions which led to the terrible decline we are facing today, just shows how much we have deviated from following the Prophet’s (SAWS) example.
@ s.c.
I love that Punjabi translation. Its a sentiment rarely heard in South Asia today. Can you tell me the Punjabi version of it?
And thanks for representing Punjabis
Often its not a language associated with Islam in many Western discourses. For me, as a Punjabi it obviously is, but outside that not so much 
Ah what an interesting discussion about Malaysian women and their skin colour!
Wardina is from a mixed parentage hence her fair skin colour. But Waheeda has a nice tan skin colour. (the picture is too washed out and her skin appeared fairer)
I am a fair-skinned Malay but my sisters (there are 5 of us) are a mixture of fair-skin, tan, light tan. As a bunch, we are quite colourful!
Although there are many whitening cream in Malaysia market, and it doesnt look as if it’s going to be reducing anytime soon, the awareness and Malaysian’s perception towards skin colour has changed tremendously over the past few years. While a few years ago, Malaysian tend to use half white-asian models now we are seeing many more tanned skin celebrity used for products spokeperson.
To name a few Camelia, Maya Karin and Fasha Sandha are of light-tan skin tone and their faces were everywhere as beauty products spokeperson. Another celebrity, Cheryl Samad has a healthy tan skin colour that always glows and she is also another prominent celebrity in Malaysia. (you can google them for their image). While they maybe photo-shopped/air-brushed to look a tad fairer – in real person, they are all beautiful tan-skined ladies.
What the real issue is women’s self image and their association with skin colour. A women can be as fair and pale as the moon but if she lacks self-confidence and proper self-image, it’s not going to do her any good too.
Interestingly, while I was studying in the UK, some friend suggested that I use a tanning cream because I looked too pale!
Same as white people trying to be brown. Tanning causes cancer, and as harmful (if not more) to the skin as whitening it. Whatever happened to good old natural beauty?
rchoud: I agree, the Prophet (pbuh) had a lovely example when it came to race relations. I always appreciate the last sermon of the Prophet.
Sobia: Glad to know you like the Punjabi
Punjabi Islam is the only Islam that I know so it’s all I can really speak for. And I agree, this sentiment is rarely heard in the popular media, except where I heard it…ABIDA PARVEEN! (however, I have been assured that in the villages of Punjab, on both sides of the India/Pakistan border, people do know this, and they know it well 
Believe it or not, I heard this rendition being sung by Abida Parveen. I’ll ask my parents which song it was in again but I believe it’s in Bulleh Shah’s Kalam, if not, it must be Sultan Bahu or Waris Shah. But it could also belong to the Urdu and Sindhi Sufis like Shahbaz Qalander, Mir Taqi Mir or Abdul Latif Bhittai, who were all very fluent in Punjabi. I’ll find out more when I can.
you can also always check out this site http://www.apnaorg.com/. The Academy of the Punjab in North America. It’s a non-partisan, multi-religious, site about Punjabi literature and poetry. Its written in English, Shahmukhi and Gurumukhi, and contains a wealth of information on Punjabi literature coming from Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities.
s.c.,
You’re right about the very strong anti-black racism in the 101 Nights. I studied the Husain Haddawy translation into English of the 13th-century manuscript in school. There’s a lot of anxiety in the stories about black men sleeping with “our” women, with some sense that those adultery-prone women & oversexed black men will team up and destroy everything if you don’t keep both groups down. (I’m a white American, so it was particularly disturbing to me, as a very similar entwining of racism & sexism has really shaped the history of my country.) Obviously there are also some very strong pro-woman sentiments and positive ideas about female justice in the text, but I don’t remember a counter to the racism.
I have a theory about this, which I’ve never been able to prove. The oldest written version of 101 Nights we have (obviously there were oral ones earlier) was written down in Egypt between 1250-1300 in the Christian calendar (apologies for not using AH). That’s right after the Mamluks, who were Turks, had used their position of military slaves to take power. Previously, black military slaves had been critical to Muslim military successes.
So I’ve always thought that the racism in those stories reflected anxiety on the part of the new rulers–them villifying black men that they saw as their competition. Of course, I can’t prove it, and there’s a lot of racism against Africans in early Arabic literature (including a tendency to oversexualize black women in particular). But the material in the 101 Nights feels so…aggressive. I’ve always thought it had to be part of a specific political point.
Actually Zahra you’re probably somewhere on the right track. I have no reference for it, but I remember my parents telling me about the fall of the early Baghdad-based empires, and one of the reasons was the African slave revolt in southern Iraq (I have no timeline for this, all anecdotal). A number of freed slaves (who were previously in the military of the ruling Arab regime) staked out some territory for themselves and declared war against the Sultan. They were pretty successful for a little while. Then I remember listening to a radio show where Tarek Fatah also talked about the same thing. The anxiety about being over run by your own slaves is probably a huge element there, especially after seeing the success of the Mamluks. I thought it was pretty damn fascinating.
Thank goodness I’m not the only one who found the 1001 nights pretty disappointing (I read the Mardus and Mathers translation, I believe the translation you read claims to be authentically Arab in origin, taking out most of the Panchantantra Indian and other pre-Islamic Persian stories) However, regarding the tales, my understanding of it is that it was written in Persia (or so my family says, looks like wikipedia backs me up a bit). But Persia at that time included Baghdad, as large swaths of Iraq, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan were under pre-Islamic and post-Islamic Persian rule for a very, very long time. However, I could totally be wrong since my family has a bias in believing that every well known classical piece of literature came either from India or Persia
There’s a community in India and Pakistan, of people who are descended from African merchants, traders, military men and slaves who served under the Mughal empire (and later empires). They’re known as Habshi’s (although they have many names). They’re discriminated against horribly and still considered to be “outsiders” (never mind the fact that they have been living there for hundreds of years). I think the competition element is also here, because the Mughals primarily depended on Rajput Indian tribes for their warfare, Pashtun tribes for their trade and any addition of slaves, military and merchant classes from outside (especially on the southern coasts of India, where you can trade much easily with ships, instead of northern India and Pakistan where you have pretty extreme mountain conditions) would spark pretty fierce competition.
It’s a good thesis to explore, unfortunately, I’m no historian so all I can do is guess.
isn’t always like that…the fair wants a tan, the darker skinned wants to be fair; those with curls want straight hair, those with straight hair long for waves; the skinny wants to put on weight, and the rest of the world is promoting bones…
forgive us God..we human beings are never satisfied.
As an Anglo American I have grown used to this mentality in my circle of friends, but initially I was scandalized to find out that people actually use skin color as one of the criteria for choosing a spouse. I spent my whole life being told how wrong it is to judge people by their skin color only to find out that millions of people around the world do it and feel completely justified.
My husband’s cousin is one of the most amazing, intelligent, good-hearted girls I’ve ever met, and has been looked over for marriage repeatedly because she has darker skin. While I’m not opposed to arranged marriages, I was under the impression that having parents involved in the process was to help keep the priorities straight. Yet, the people who perpetuate this nonsense are more often than not “mature” women and men looking for marriage partners for their children.
I have a fascination with women from other cultures. I find some of my African sisters with deep black skin to be beyond gorgeous. The women from the subcontinent with their large eyes, smooth tanned skin, and long dark hair are exquisite. Arab sisters always remind me of queens–regal and beautiful. It breaks my heart that any of these women would think they were less beautiful than they are for not having a certain shade of skin color.
@ The Q:
I know you didn’t mean in this way, so please don’t take this the wrong way, but your last paragraph was actually not flattering but rather insulting because you have lumped all us women of colour together, into our respective groupings, neglecting the fact that each ethnic group you mentioned is extremely diverse. For example, I’m from the subcontinent but I don’t have large eyes (but they’re beautiful nonetheless
Alhumdollilah ), my skin is smooth but only because I moisturize like crazy, and my hair is only slightly longer than shoulder length – not long by South Asian standards. Many of my Pashtun relatives don’t even have dark hair or tanned skin but rather very fair skin and light brown hair.
Just as it wouldn’t make any sense to say something like “I love White women with their blue eyes” because not all White women have blue eyes, it is just as nonsensical to make the generalizations you have about other ethnic groups. We are just as diverse as White people.
I realize you were trying to compliment us, and I appreciate the sentiment
, but such generalizations just objectify and exoticize us. Plus it creates some sort of unrealistic and impossible standards for us to meet. And that doesn’t help anyone.
As far as having parents in the process, from my experience parents tend to make things worse and are pickier regarding skin colour than their children are – especially in the West where they still hold a preference for lighter skin from the motherland while their children, very often raised here, have let go of that preference either completely or to a certain extent.
Point taken. But I will say that viewing a cultural group as exotic and appreciating their collective identity is not necessarily a bad thing, nor does it deny the individual appeal that each person has in their own right. I was attracted to my husband precisely because he has physical (and cultural) features so different than mine–features that make him distinctively Pakistani.
I agree, however, that some of the qualities I listed in my descriptions of women from different cultures were superficial, and I apologize for that.
Thanks for responding The Q. Now I have some questions for you. And please, again, do not take these the wrong way. These are the questions that come into my mind, and probably to those who do not necessarily agree with you, when they hear what you are saying.
First, what is exotic? I am Pakistani – am I exotic? If so, why am I exotic? What makes a culture exotic? I am also Canadian – is that exotic? Is it possible for me to be exotic and Canadian?
Second, what are “distinctively Pakistani” characteristics? I’m Pakistani but have been mistaken for Indian, Lebanese and Persian. A Pakistani Pashtun cousin of mine has been mistaken for Russian and Italian.
You don’t have to respond to these questions, but hopefully this will give you a sense of what’s going through my head when I read your comments.
It wasn’t the superficiality of your comments that was problematic. Its fine. There are a lot of beautiful women of colour. You can acknowledge that. Rather it was the generalizations. Generalizations about people of colour, positive or negative, can be problematic because they deny the diversity of people of colour, leaving diversity only as something specific to White people. We are diverse too.
Sorry..I meant
what are “distinctively Pakistani” features…..not characteristics?
I’ve always been self-conscious about having lighter skin, and have always wanted browner skin. I went to Brazil where, while white Brazilians dominate positions of power, the beauty ideal is not too light, not too dark…
One guy (who was so tanned to the extreme it looked like he was going to be a prune before 40) noted my paleness and actually asked me, Don’t you think tanner skin looks nicer?
On another note, I’ve thought about boycotting L’Oreal or writing a letter of complaint, but on the other hand, while L’Oreal may help perpetuate the white ideal, they didn’t invent it. They’re catering to a strong demand for it. L’Oreal stopping the whitening creams isn’t going to dissolve that beauty standard by any means.
sobia and s.c. I asked about those lyrics for you:
I think it goes like this and is written by Waris Shah:
“Loki akhya Majne’nu, teri Laila rang’di kaali,
Majne’ne eh javaab ditta, tusanko akh ni vekhan vaali,
Varq safed nein Quran’de, te utte likhaayi e kaali,
Waris Shah jithe akhan laggiyan, o fer gori ho ke kaali.”
“The people said to Majnoon – your Laila is dark-skinned,
Majnoon responded – you do not have eyes that see [actual beauty],
The pages of the Quran are white and upon them the writing, black,
Oh Waris Shah – where the eye sees beauty – black and white matter not.”
I also thought of that song but I am not sure if I can fully understand the lyrics: ni kala shya kala, mera kala hai dildaar, gorian nu dafa karoo (oh my black black man, my black man is the owner of my heart, throw away the white one)…
I would co-sign with everything here and it goes way beyond Malaysia with hijab-covered whitewashed slim beauties…think Fullah dolls, or in the GCC most TV commercials/ads do not contain typically darker skinned GCC national actresses (there are some other reasons for this besides looks, though) but instead contain veiled Lebanese, Moroccan, Egyptian actresses who happen to be fair.
Abroad some US fast food places still use styrofoam and sell deep fried versions of what is now baked within the US…so going green and healthy is more of a ploy to please consumers rather than an ethical move. I am white as paste and I have to be careful when buying any skin products when in the Gulf or Pakistan because they almost always contain skin whiteners…the same brands that don’t have them in the US. It isn’t just Loreal, although that products name is very disturbing. Oil of Olay, Nivea, you name it, it contains whiteners for the local population and most of the expats who are from places where fairness is perceived as more beautiful. Many women I know go for salon treatments like bleaching and “skin polishing”. I’d better not use those creams or get those treatments or else I might just dissappear!!!!
Quote: I was attracted to my husband precisely because he has physical (and cultural) features so different than mine–features that make him distinctively Pakistani.
The Q: I don’t deny that there is probably some prototypical desi look that people think of when Pakistan is mentioned in the West, but…have you ever been to Pakistan? There are black people in Pakistan, much of the population of a place called Makraan is of African descent. There are blonde haired blue eyed and red-haired freckled people in Pakistan, in certain places in Pakistan this is the norm and not a rarity. There are Pakistanis who clearly have some Mongolian heritage and could be mistaken as being from further East in Asia. There are Pakistanis who could be from any Mediterranean county. There are are Pakistanis who are originally from all over India, South to North and they all look different, and as for Pakistanis originally of Sindh and Punjab—they can tell each other apart on first glance even if foreigners can’t. There is no such thing as “a Pakistani look.” People regulalry think my husband and I are Iranians or sometimes Arabs, assuming that we are from the same place because of the way we look even though I am a white American and he is, you guessed it, a proud Pakistani. There really is no such thing as physical features that make on distinctly Pakistani.
Sobia, I began my initial post with “As an Anglo-American.” I assumed the entire thing would be read with that in mind. When I say “exotic”, it is relative to who I am. (Although I never actually used the word exotic in my original post.)
Let me ask you this:
If you took three groups each of ten ethnic Pakistani women, ten Chinese women, and ten Anglo women would you be able to tell the difference between them by looking at them? You would, because despite the wide range of variations within each culture, there are a lot of similar characteristics held by the general population. Especially since most cultures did not intermarry until fairly recently in human history. As the world gets smaller, people immigrate to different places, and social standards change the the gene pool is getting mixed up nicely. But the fact remains that for thousands of years, people lived, married and reproduced within a confined geographic location and there are genetic characteristics that have developed as dominate in each of them.
Let me also add that the argument that you are using that there are no distinct predominant features within certain cultures is based entirely on anecdotal evidence. Just because “some people” who may not have encountered a large berth of people from different cultures lump everyone with, say, dark skin in together doesn’t mean that all people with dark skin could conceivably be from the same place or share the same genetics. Most people who come from a particular culture are able to easily identify others who share the same (often subtle, nuanced) genetic features.
For example: There is a marked difference between the features of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean people; but many westerners can’t tell the difference and often offend Asian immigrants by referring to them incorrectly by the wrong ethnicity. Yet these individuals have no problem identifying others off their own ethnicity. And it doesn’t mean that any of these could possibly be another one just because a westerner can’t immediately discern the difference.
luckyfatima made this point:
“here are are Pakistanis who are originally from all over India, South to North and they all look different, and as for Pakistanis originally of Sindh and Punjab—they can tell each other apart on first glance even if foreigners can’t.”
I agree–Pakistan is a new country based on land that was divided up in different ways for thousands of years–and there is a wide range of diversity in Pakistan for that reason. Simply drawing new lines on a map doesn’t suddenly homogenize the country; but my argument is less about the national characteristics that people have has much as the genetic ones based on different locations where societies have developed.
Thanks luckyfatima, those are the original lyrics! My translation is off but thanks for correcting that, and thanks for clarifying that it was Waris Shah.
You mentioned this really tongue-in-cheek song, “Kala Shah Kala”, It’s a really old folk song, popular in wedding festivities. It’s so ancient, I wouldn’t be surprised if people sang this at my great-great-great-great grandmothers wedding. You do a pretty good job of translating the lyrics yourself, I’m impressed
here’s what I know. The lyrics for the chorus I was taught go something like this:
“Kala Shah Kala, Kala Shah Kala, Mera Kala eh Sardar, Gori-ya nou dafa karo, Gori-ya nou dafa karo, Me aap ke le Dildar, Kala Shah Kala”
The word “Shah” means, king, so it’s sort of like a refrain “Black King Black” or “Dark King Dark” which is meant to emphasize the fact that the woman thinks her dark skinned man is as regal as a King (The analogy to King is weird without context but remember that Mughal India, before the reign of Akbar, often looked down on local converts, posting only those who came from Arab, Persian or Turkish ancestry to higher official ranks, add to this a legacy of British colonialism and racialism and you get a culture where people only wanted to marry “lighter-up”).
“Mera Kala hai Sardar”, You mention, Dildar instead of Sardar, but I believe the Dildar comes later (I could be wrong, this could be a regional variation). Sardar is a Punjabi word for landowner, or boss. So basically the woman is saying that for her, the darker the better, the dark one is her boss (lol, let’s just ignore the patriarchal assumptions here, folk songs are full of em
“Goriya nou dafa karo” means “Forget about the light-skinned ones”, I say light-skinned b/c it is probably rare in old times that a Punjabi would want to marry their daughter off to an actual European, preferring instead a person with just a lighter skin tone within their own caste/tribe/clan.
And then the last verse is “Mai aap ke le Dildar” means “My heart longs for you only”.
Hope that is what you were looking for
I think like many other songs this one has an original folk origin but was remade as a filmi/pop song and the lyrics were changed. I have a speculation that it has some Radha Krishna subtext because Krishna is thought of as dark or blue or black. Yep and dildaar is hard to translate.
I can’t confirm your speculation about Radha/Krishna, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true. The symbolism of Radha/Krishna or Sita/Ram is present in a lot of traditional Indo-Muslim devotional poetry.
There’s also the old Heer-Ranjha, written by Waris Shah (but it was actually an old folk tale that predated him, he just made it popular), where Ranjha, in spite of officially belonging to a Muslim Jatt clan, is portrayed as someone with long hair and a flute, also like Krishna (and then there’s the fact that he dresses up as a Hindu holy man to win back Heer).
@ The Q:
“I began my initial post with “As an Anglo-American.” I assumed the entire thing would be read with that in mind. When I say “exotic”, it is relative to who I am.”
I think this gets to the heart of what Sobia is concerned about in your statement. The exotification of women of color is the issue here.
Women of color are often exoticized and romanticized by whites: this is an all-too-familiar stereotype. In theory, it works the same way the other way around, but the “exotic” designation given to women of color of results in othering and distorted views of women of color that result in designations of an entire race as “regal” or “exquisite.” It’s finding one race to be more “exquisite” than another that’s the problem.
@ s.c. and luckyfatima:
Thanks for all the great information, including that sent via email
@ The Q:
Fatemeh hits the nail on the head. I was hoping you may see what I was saying through my question. Exotification otherizes people. If a White Canadian considers me exotic when he/she is saying is that I am not Canadian but rather something other than Canadian. If he/she considered me Canadian they most likely would not consider me exotic. A Canadian would not consider another Canadian exotic.
As I said, positive or negative, generalizations are rarely helpful.
The Q: Which is the Pakistani ethnicity? There are Chinese Pakistanis, too. Pakistani is a nationality, not an ethnicity. Same like American or Canadian.
By the way when I say people can “tell each other apart” I must emphasize that when we do this categorization we are going on visual cues such as dress, manners, jewellry, hair styles, etc…not sheerly on physical features.
very cool. thank you for your informative posts.