Eurocentric features are what make up the concept of ideal beauty for the majority of people nowadays. Blond hair, blue or green eyes and most importantly, white skin. While no one officially came out and said this, it can be visibly seen all around us.
The first proof is when a white woman sent her photo to designers in countries around the world to make her more beautiful. Barely any country made her darker, and those who did only really made her a couple of shades tanner. Even South Africa, a country that has struggled for decades to rid institutional racism, made her white. Doesn’t matter what country you’re from or live in, you cannot run away from society’s love of light skin.
Moreover, I’m sure in this day and age you’ve tried out at least one of Snapchat’s mega-famous filters. Some of these filters make you look excessively pretty and make your selfies profile picture worthy, right? Well, these filters actually make you whiter than you really are. So according to Snapchat, which has been previously problematic, whiteness and beauty are not mutually exclusive. Imagine this ideology gets engraved in non-white youngsters and they grow up loathing their beauty because social media told them it’s not enough, and that beautiful means white.
Another example that I’m sure you’ve come across several times before are whitening creams. I’ve watched countless YouTube advertisements from Olay advertising their whitening cream. They glamourise the product as if being white is the ultimate way to be beautiful and desirable. Who said I want a cream that made me white? Who said people want to turn into their oppressors? They keep trying to make you and I uncomfortable literally in our own skin, and will continue to. But forget their agenda and move on with your own.
Let us also look at plastic surgeries. We constantly hear about how whiteness is beauty. Yet, when people such as Lil’ Kim bleaches their skin into a visibly much lighter shade, they are attacked for not loving themselves and for wanting to be someone they are not. Society puts so much pressure on people to change and meet their beauty standards. People break under the pressure and they try to change who they are, to satisfy themselves over anybody else, only to meet even more backlash. Nevertheless, when the white people appropriate other’s cultures, they are praised. The double standards are clear and blatant. They are right in front of our eyes but nothing is changing.
My friend’s mom and siblings are white with a majority of the previously mentioned Eurocentric features. However, my friend’s mom has a slightly tanner skin. She explained to her child, my friend, with a laugh, that when she was younger she used to scrub her skin to the point of bleeding in hopes to get the tan away. She might think it’s funny, but in reality it is heartbreaking to see what society has made of us. Their urge to make us white and exclude those who don’t want to be has existed for long and continues to. It hasn’t faded away, but has only gotten stronger.
Finally, the white preference is most obvious in the media. Just in 2015, 73.1% of Hollywood actors were white. If all we are most likely going to see on our screens are white people, they are the standard to look up to. People don’t have the chance to relate to those who look like themselves, so they try to become someone else or feel alienated. This also comes at the cost of non-white actors whose talents are just as good or even better, but they will be denied success because they are simply not white.
I don’t know why they want me or you to be white. I don’t know how many more people they are going to break till they realise we are who we are and we don’t have to be white to be beautiful or successful. But, I won’t conform to these ideals no matter how much society forces me to and neither should you. Don’t fall into their ideology, create and spread your own. Change up your look for you and not just because someone tells you to. Most importantly, love yourself.
