Via our news tab, mutineer Rupa alerts us to this week’s SECOND sepia fugging on the popular (and brutal) Go Fug Yourself blog. While I don’t necessarily agree with Heather’s review of pretty Parminder, I think the girls at GFY are usually spot-on with their wit and crit.
Rupa’s tip was about Mindy Kaling, someone whom I will admit I don’t know much about because she’s on NBC’s lesser version of The Office, a show I have never been able to sit through for an entire episode. No matter. The genius of GFY is its focus on the outfit. I don’t need to be an Office-fan to grasp THAT. Or not grasp it, as is the case here…what is up with those boots?
From the knees up, she looks adorable, all set for a divine NBC-Universal booze cruise of clenched-teeth joy, where every toast to their wonderful fall schedule comes with paranoia from Jeff Zucker that people will figure out they’ve swapped the costly champagne and top-shelf liquor with well booze and sparkling cider.
But her shoes are pure “local theater revival of Xanadu.” They look like she stapled wallpaper scraps to her ankles.
They actually look like chausses to me, but vatewer. Like expert Fugger Heather, I dig everything else she’s got going on, too. Her skin is glow-y, little black dresses are always money and the coral-red beads look great on her. But the boots…oy.
A few days ago, Brimful sent us the other GFY-related news item about Parminder Nagra getting fugged. In a delightful bit of connectivity, if you search SM for Mindy Kaling, Brimful’s comment about her here is one of two results you’ll find. If you can spin some sort of conspiracy theory out of that and the fact that both fuggees are on NBC shows, bring it. 😉
On to Parminder, specifically what GFY had to say about HER threads, since Fugger Heather and I already agree on the following:
Parminder Nagra is gorgeous.
Word. Where’s the “but”?
Which is why I wish heartily that she hadn’t gone and upholstered herself…Her body looks tense, as if she’s uncomfortable or uneasy in this confusing crosshatched fabric-store nightmare. I suspect it’s because no one expects the Spanish Inquisition — you have to maintain constant vigilence when you’re dressed as something resembling a Comfy Chair, because you risk being dragged unexpectedly into their brand of comfortable torture. From there it’s a short slide down to poking some old woman with the soft cushions and wondering, “How did this become my life?”
Owie. I don’t think she looks UPHOLSTERED, but I might be a little biased; I love green, plaid and wrap-dresses, so put Parminder Nagra in all of the above and I’m rather content. I know, it’s not her best look but if this is what “fugly” means…
fug•ly (adj.)
frightfully ugly; of or pertaining to something beyond the boundaries of normal unattractiveness. Ex: “That ‘Kabbalists Do It Better’ trucker hat is fugly.”
…in that picture, she’s not fugly to me. 🙂 Your thoughts?
:+:
On a slightly related note, I was just looking at this post when I realized that neither of these accomplished actresses are the color of milky tea. They don’t have jewel-colored eyes, fair skin or blonde/auburn hair/highlights. In other words, they look like plain old desi me. That thought made me happy, after a lifetime of hearing “You’re so pretty for a dark girl,” while growing up in Northern California. I could tell you stories about my personal experiences with the entire “fairness-is-a-virtue” mindset which would dislodge your jaw, but I’ll save it for later.
After approximately three seconds of basking in the glow of these two, I realized that if we swapped the “H” for a “B”, they’d never make it in THAT version of the industry. Hollywood will use an actress which looks like me, Bollywood…won’t.
Jai, were you a bhangramuffin? 🙂
and jai, just so you know, i’m not saying that we should create an artificial catchall brown identity. but, that being said, the past few years have convinced me that people like anna, vinod, manish & abhi are creating a new pan-brown american identity, derived in part, but distinct from, the separate brown cultures of brownland.
like i said, i go by the nipple measure: if itz brown, you ain’t light.
Perhaps what brown ppl really need is a good nipple-lightening cream.
DD, maybe Omkara will change your mind about her acting skills. Saif is BRILLIANT in that movie. just plain EVIL.
My mama ji (mom’s brother) is very fair, with blue eyes and brown hair (as are many people in my mom’s family). He grew up in India quite proud of his looks and complexion. It was the shock of his life when, after moving to the UK in the 60s (when he was in his 20s), he was accosted by a young English girl on the street one day, and called a ‘blackie’. But I do agree things have changed tremendously in the UK since those days.
In Trinidad, during the British colonial period, admittance to offical functions was determined by a brown paper bag: darker than = stay outside; lighter than = please come in.
admittance to offical functions was determined by a brown paper bag: darker than = stay outside; lighter than = please come in.
I have been biting my tongue on this one as I wanted to bring this one up before but had chosen not to. Years ago, a friend of mine told me of similar brown bag rule applied in by some African American themselves, like a few sororities or even wihin the larger Creole culture. Same terminology.
Jai – I’m a northie myself and closer to Kareena than Parminder in colouring – and I’m not American. Wasn’t being “nasty” about Kareena, just pointing out that I’ve always been confounded by why she’s considered one of the prettiest actresses these days, and can only attribute this to admiration for her light complexion.
This part of the discussion was not about beating up on celebs as “fugly” (a game I refuse to get involved in) but rather about whether women of Parminder’s complexion would even get the time of day in Bollywood.
You know Derbyshire from National Review! Wow! You should ask him and let me know what he thinks of Andrew Sullivan.
DesiDancer, What about Kareena’s role in Chameli?
razib. and jai, you know that people from armenia & georgia get beat up in moscow for being “black” right? “light-skinned” kashmirs and punjabis are no lighter than people from the caucasus. in many parts of whiteland if you don’t have a big pink mark on your face after you are slapped lightly, your black.
hmm. with that criteria my race is ‘white.’ but we’re mongoloid and hella mixed; before with afghans (also white?) and after migration, to a much lesser extent, with pakistanis.
What about Kareena’s role in Chameli?
IMO, it was horrible acting by her. I did not like the movie, the way it was made even though it had an interesting concept.
I am not a fan of her because of her acting skills. I walked out of the theater for Asoka even before the intermission, even I paid for the ticket.
razib:
oh yeah and you missed another (relatively?) paleface race in pakistan: aga khanis. not sure what are their ethnic roots. arab?
then there’s the minorities near the karakorum/himalayan ranges like hunza and baltistanis. more mongoloid brothers.
Well since I’ve already delurked in that other thread, I’ll comment on this.
Black people ARE also very much aware of various color gradiations. It is far less pronounced in America than it is in certain parts of Africa or in the west indies. African Americans don’t really run to the store for fair and lovely creams. We sure do complain about it though. Though my view is probably tainted since, for a black person, I am not that dark and not nearly as negatively affected by the colorism in the community.
Black people always seem to make up little rhymes to explain racial issues in the community… like my previous “black don’t crack.” Here we use something like: “If you’re white, alright, brown, stick around, black, get back!” And there were brown paper bag tests and fine-tooth comb tests back in the day.
Black high society was/is interesting and perhaps can be compared to current model minority communities. Essentially, members of the black bourgeois did not care if they were still “n****rs” to white society because within their own community (where they were very wealthy and thus shielded from a lot of racism) they were the cream of the crop. Light skin, euro features and all. Perhaps the colorism in the desi community is continued for similar reasons. Who cares what white america thinks about your skin color when your primary focus is your own ethnic community?
Since someone mentioned the nipple rule – did you know that nipple-lightening and pinkifying creams are popular in Japan? Women use them on their lips too, and claim it’s about reviving the “youthful look.”
I haven’t gone through all the comments, but I think Parminder looks like she knows very well she’s going to be on Fugly in the morning and is mentally planning all the ways she’s going to beat up whoever bought her this dress.
colorism isn’t limited to just brownz. it is common in latin amerika, china, japan, vietnam, etc. i’m only focusing south asians because this is a forum about south asians. i had a friend who moved from buloxi mississipi who was a very dark skinned african american, and he told me that he was personally hurt/taunted as a “skillet blonde n[…]” by lighter skinned “red boned” or “high yellow” upper middle class types. also, if you want to read a pop history survey of the ups & downs of being blonde in europe, read joanna pitman’s on blondes.
You know Derbyshire from National Review! Wow! You should ask him and let me know what he thinks of Andrew Sullivan.
since john is kind on the outz with true social conservatism (‘the party of death’) i think his hate-the-fagz sentiment has mellowed a bit. but he still has a visceral attitude toward a** f**king 🙂
I guess I should offer a belated clarification of my original objections, since I’ve inadvertantly been responsible for the diversion on this thread to some extent.
What I found distasteful wasn’t just the fact that Kareena’s facial features were being disparaged — personally I think it’s better manners and more sensitive to just keep quiet if one doesn’t have anything positive to say about someone in these matters, although that’s just me and I’m well aware that people have the right to say (almost) anything they want to on a public discussion forum if the moderators don’t object — but (more pertinently) the way that some people were referring to her skin colour in such nasty terms, eg. “ghostly pale”, “pasty whiteness making the whole screen go white”, and so on. It wouldn’t be deemed morally acceptable to make similar comments about dark women (and rightly so), so I felt that this kind of inverse-racism wasn’t the right way to behave either. On a tangential note, I do presently know some Indian women who are as fair-skinned as Kareena and have also met women like that in the past, so it just struck a negative chord with me. I also remember desis when I was younger who made similarly disparaging comments about unusually light South Asian women, and it struck me as both inappropriate and insensitive too (references to “albino” etc, for example), although later on I realised that it was often motivated by jealousy on the part of some darker desi women and a pre-emptive passive-aggressive manoeuvre by the guys who felt intimidated by the girls concerned as they probably thought they’d get shot down if they approached the women in a romantic sense.
I guess I’m going to end up re-hashing some of the points made my previous commenters, especially Kush Tandon, but it would depend on the type of the role. Her facial features are pretty enough, so she’d be cast in “rural” “dusky” type roles a la Nandita Das (Rajasthani or Punjabi villager, for example), or — if she decided to go down the saucier route — Bipasha Basu type roles. Or they would just lighten her complexion via makeup or photography, as happens to Bipasha, Sushmita etc, along with very many actresses in the various Indian television serials.
I do agree wholeheartedly that within the Indian media, and amongst large swathes of the general population, a woman is deemed to be very pretty if she has unusually light skin irrespective of the “reality” of her facial features. With regards to the latter, the glorification of the woman concerned is indeed sometimes very inappropriate.
There are some very fair-skinned desi women around who do indeed have pink nipples. I refuse to elaborate any more on that 😉
I haven’t seen Omkara yet but, as I’ve mentioned a few times previously on SM, Saif was absolutely superb as a really twisted and cynical guy in Ek Hasina Thi, he was a complete b*stard. (Also in Parineeta although obviously he wasn’t an out-and-out villain there). I’m not surprised he’s excellent in such a negative role in Omkara.
DesiDancer,
Not in the full-blooded sense, although I was probably at least 50% of the way there. I actually aspired to be more of a New Jack Hustler 😉
Jai, please spare us your amateur psychology and your own baggage and sanctimoniousness.
Nandita Das is NOT a “Bollywood star” – she does mostly art house films (though that may be a self-respect issue, she doesn’t waste her time on bumping and grinding but would rather act). And Parminder is, to my eye, several shades darker than Bipasha Basu. I am FROM Bombay and I know folks who have tried to make it in the film and modelling worlds, and who openly talk about how hard it is if you’re not “fair”
I had the “honor” of “being with” a very fair skinned Punjabi Brahmin girl – and her nipples were brown as brown can be. Unfortunately, being married and all, I can no longer go In Search of the Pink Nipples.
I don’t know what the big fuss about Kareena Kapoor is about. I have seen this woman in-person and she looks like a cross-eyed white mare. On the other hand Pammy and Mindy are oh-so s-e-x-y.
I remember reading a fascinating article in either the New York Times Magazine or the New Yorker about Coco Chanel showing up in Cannes in the 1920s looking all coppertoned and thus almost singlehandedly reversing the way white America thought about tans. I’ve read elsewhere that within 10 years of the Coco Chanel / Cannes debut, a market that had been dominated by whitening creams (for both whites and blacks) became saturated with fake-n-bake and tanning lotions.
In the end, so much of these notions of beauty are tied to re$ource$ – Coco Chanel got a tan because she had money to go to warm places. Prior to her, a tan was associated with working in the fields. Among subcontinentals (who are coming from a society that is still vastly agricultural), it’s the same mentality.
Most aunties will probably go to their graves thinking that pale = beautiful, but thankfully it seems to be one notion that’s died a quick death among second genners, or at least the ones whom I know. Anyhow, I’d be curious what would happen to Fair & Lovely sales if Aishwarya, Kareena, Priyanka, et al. went to St. Tropez for a few weeks and came back without their “good colour”…
SP,
Please spare us your ill-thought-out admonishments and your own baggage and cognitive dissonance.
The most ironic thing of all is that, in fact, I essentially agreed completely with your second paragraph and most of the other points you’d made in previous posts regarding the excessive glorification of light-skinned women in Indian culture regardless of their facial features, along with the fact that Parminder Nagra would indeed unfortunately not be given lead roles in mainstream Indian films (a point I made extremely clear by the examples of the roles I listed that she probably would be offered).
Perhaps you should re-read my posts with a cool head and a more objective eye before lashing out at total strangers.
Kavita:
Just your use of the word ‘pale’ as opposed to ‘fair’ shows your bias against light-skinned people.
I’m shocked by the “reverse racism” sort of bias against lighter-skinned Indians. Just because some of us happen to have hit the genetic lottery for what’s considered traditionally attractive by some, why hate on us? (And hey, I’m not all that fair — in the North I’m considered average color, among Southies I’m super-light.)
I’ve often found it hard to relate to some darker skinned Indian women (I’m a woman) — vibes of distrust and competition. But, instead of raging against the unfairness of it all, I try to be extra friendly and sweet, knowing that it might be up to me to break down any barriers people have about how fair people are — that we think we’re so great, that we think we’re superior, blah blah.
And hey, a lot of times maybe I do get extra attention from the male part of the desi population, before I even open my mouth. As a woman, I know how it feels to see the instant attention and respect that good looks can bring to other women (the gorgeous blondes, the model-like girls) — and it sucks, it can really hurt sometimes.
And, hello Kareena does look like a lot of northies I know! To some of us, she has almost “girl-next-door” qualities (sans the ugly personality)! Same with Preity… she’s super-fair and has a great personality… no one’s ragging on her here. But maybe I’m missing the bigger point…?
One of my consolations on ugly days (when I really feel unattractive and think all guys care about is how you look and blahhhh blahhhh): “At least some people find my color pretty.” I’m not super-stacked, my features may not be as gorgeous as Bipasha’s and my booty not worthy of display… is it wrong to feel like I can pass the all-important “physical attractiveness” test at least on one question?
I’ve often found it hard to relate to some darker skinned Indian women (I’m a woman) — vibes of distrust and competition.
booh-hooh-hooh. girl, look at it in context. i don’t have anything against fair-skinned brownz, and i doubt anyone else here does either. i think we’re just observing that the skin color biases are really old skool, idiotic and out of context in the west. for those of you who live in a more brown-soaked environment i’m sure it matters more and is relevant. i doubt you would trade the suspicion and resentment you attract from other brownz for “too bad she’s kala” every other day, so get some perspective. i’m sure anna has had to deal with resentment from other brown females for her more classically attractive facial features, so sometimes it evens out, take heart.
also, all this crap of ‘i know many women who look like kareena kapoor.’ statistics anyone? my family socialized mostly with pakistanis when they weren’t socializing with bengalis, and very few of them were brunette white light (e.g., like benazir bhutto). are pakistani punjabis just mysteriously darker skinned than their sikh and hindu bretheren across the border? in fact, when my father went to west pakistan in the 1960s for his masters he was shocked that punjabis weren’t as fair skinned as ayud khan (who was of pashtun origin ethnically). of course, this is how “white” americans viewed ayub khan in the 1960s: For example, President Lyndon Johnson was reported to have said while canceling the visits of the heads of state from India and Pakistan in 1965: “After all, what would Jim Eastland (the conservative senator from Mississippi) say if I brought those two n[…] over here.” (Quoted in Richard Goodwin, “The War Within,” The New York Times Magazine, 21 August 1988, P.3. It was reported that the American President decided to cancel the visits of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri of India and President Ayub Khan from Pakistan when the two countries expressed opposition to U.S. policies in Vietnam.)
p.s. i obviously have nothing any light skin per se 🙂 but i also don’t expect my personal preferences to reflect or imply cultural normas.
Hate to say it, there is A LOT of jealousy here in this thread against light-skinned people (by the way I’m not particularly fair myself, probably somewhat lighter than average northern Indian but definitely still brown). On a different note, my sister, who has been blessed with fair skin and very nice Indo-Aryan features, beautiful nose, etc. has ironically bought into this whole crappy bias against light-skinned people, even referring to herself disparagingly as ‘pale’. She dislikes the European beauty aesthetic; in the indian context, she dislikes the ‘Punjabi’ look (especially the Punjabi nose); she also finds south Indians and African Americans to be very attractive. So those of you who are relentlessly trying to change the 2nd generation definition of beauty, you scored a victory in her. She now finds people who essentially look like herself to be less attractive.
“She now finds people who essentially look like herself to be less attractive”.
Which, to be fair, I agree is no worse than dark-skinned/non-Euro-featured people who also have been molded by society to find their own look unattractive.
OK, one more comment since we’re talking about Kareena Kapoor; one thing I have noticed, when travelling to Europe for example, is that the models on billboards, advertisements, etc. look like a nicer version of the local population. In India, when you see the billboards, ads, etc. with Kareena, Preity Zinta, other models/actresses etc. they seem to belong to a different population entirely than most of the Indian janta walking on the street (except for Punjab/Kashmir, Himachal, etc). Pakistani models, much like European models, simply look like a nicer version of the local population. So in that sense I do agree with the people who are commenting on that disconnect in India specifically. Indian models, tv actors, film stars, etc essentially either ARE Punjabi or have the Punjabi look. They also look a lot like Pakistanis (who are also predominantly Punjabi). BUT, whenever I’ve seen south Indian movies, tv shows, etc. they also prize fair skin and a certain type of features, which often look very different from the majority of the southern Indian population. For that matter even in Delhi, UP, and Bihar, the majority of people do not look like the billboards over their heads. Maybe because that look still represents the ‘ideal’.
i think we’re just observing that the skin color biases are really old skool, idiotic and out of context in the west
Razib,
1) Idiotic = Yes
2) Old skool = No. Colorism is well and alive in almost every corner of the world. Check out the picture of Thai king. How typical Thai he looks – this was pointed out to me by a Thai friend. Very recent example of skin/height politics gone bad is Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda. Even in Sudan, the civil war has skin color (via ethincity: Arab vs. African) at the bottom of it.
3) out of context in the west = I 100% with you and the Lyndon Johnson quote tells it all. Lyndon Johnson had gumption to say it, others won’t do it but think similar. Guy, you read world history, one of the core modus operandi of western imperialism used to be pick a lighter skinned people over darker skin as natrual allies, as in many countries in Africa and South America. An example, the Belgians in Rwanda.
Saying “out of context in west” is highly erroneous. Cindrella was not written by a South Asian writer – Munshi Premchand, Ismat Chugtai or Bollywood director like Mahesh Bhatt. The story starts like this: Mirror, mirror on the wall who’s the fairest of them all? Even in Korea, their hottest actresses look more like westerners in their features – they always rumors of plastic surgery. In China, plastic surgery is hitting the roof.
I have agreed with you on most points you made on this thread but I refuse to believe that western enlightenment (be it through being a 2nd genner or being educated in USA/ UK or something like that) has freed you of colorism. Hell, no. Perhaps, through more seeing/ sampling of beautiful women of all color, race, and skin tone in West. That I agree.
Oh !! This discussion has changed to “color” … Hmmm I will check back after 400 comments. 😉
, film stars, etc essentially either ARE Punjabi or have the Punjabi look.
Who is #1 at the moment? Aishwarya Rai, a Mangalorean Bunt – and Hema Malini, Rekha, Jayaprada, Sri Devi et. al. ? I think all these ppl from South of the Vindhyas would be terribly offended by being told they have the Punjabi look
also, all this crap of ‘i know many women who look like kareena kapoor.’ statistics anyone?
exaggerated. The average Punjabi Jat is salt of the earth brown, lighter on average than others, but not “English Rose”. Also, perhaps the UK jabbers are thought to be lighter cos the sun doesnt beat down as heavily in london as it does in ludhiana.
Risible,
Amitabh is not wrong completely. Till 80s, the majority of actresses were Punjabis, Pathans (Madhubala, Meena Kumari, etc.), or very light skinned from Bengal (Suchitra Sen, Sharmilla Tagore) or even South (Vijayanthimala, Rekha, Hema Malini). Or Nepal (Mala Sinha). Pre-talkie period was dominated by Anglo-Indians, even later Leela Naidu (lot of people think was the most beautiful actress in Bollywood) or Nafisa Ali.
It all changed in early 80s when Sridevi and Jaya Prada leading the brigade. At the same time, Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil were becoming force to reckon even without a convential look. Now Bollywood is a complete broad mix of region and looks – from Rani Mukherjee to Katrina Kaif.
Saying that Bollywood was never dominated by Punjabis/ Pathans is wrong – just look at the Khan families (Sanjay Khan, Feroze Khan, Salman Khan, SRK) or the Kapoors (I will have to name two dozen of them) or Anand family and their role.
Colorism is well and alive in almost every corner of the world. Check out the picture of Thai king. How typical Thai he looks – this was pointed out to me by a Thai friend.
kush, you don’t need to lecture me, i’m well aware of this prejudice. the thai elite is disproportionately chinese (and this includes the royal lineage), so it makes sense that they would be lighter skinned as a matter of phylogeny (descent) as well as environment (staying out of the sun) and adaptation (the correlation between SES and light skin which tends to develop in many nations).
Very recent example of skin/height politics gone bad is Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda.
i don’t see what relevance this has. the tutsi domination of the hutu, to some extent, predates belgian colonialism. nilotic herders have a natural martial advantage against farmers, just as central asian nomands had against chinese, indians and europeans. the mobile are more likely to be ‘natural’ soldiers than sedentary farmers (nilotes have dominated bantu in kenya & tanzania too).
Saying “out of context in west” is highly erroneous. Cindrella was not written by a South Asian writer – Munshi Premchand, Ismat Chugtai or Bollywood director like Mahesh Bhatt. The story starts like this: Mirror, mirror on the wall who’s the fairest of them all?
yes, it is out of context. as i said, there is color prejudice in the west as well, but the scaling is different. the greeks praised women who were xanthos, fair, and there is some evidence that helen was traditionally fair haired (there are multiple forms of many greek legends, so there are dark-haired helens as well from what i gather). but in europe to be fair is not equivalent to being fair in india, which is my point. no indian women will be fair by european standards because i have never met a naturally blonde south asian who is not admixed (or purely) with recent european or west asian ancestry (unless you count afghans). it is out of context to worry about being “kala” for brown people in the west if you socialize and interact mostly with whties because no brown person is not “dark.” it is totally a waste to gossip about how “x” is dark and “y” is fair when they are brown because brown people by definition are “black skulls/coloreds/sand niggers.” this is why i object to the emotional stress and hurt inflicted on the kala in the west, it is totally maladaptive meanness.
Even in Korea, their hottest actresses look more like westerners in their features – they always rumors of plastic surgery. In China, plastic surgery is hitting the roof.
but you need to decouple the two aspects of beauty here, the “indigenous” and the “exogenous.” preference for european features in east asia is a 20th century development. during the tokugawa period japanese women with naturally brown hair (japanese are about 25% ainu/jomon, and so less east asian in their phyisque) would dye it black. the epicanthic fold was consider beautiful until recently. the east asian stereotype of a troll/witch had ‘red hair and green eyes and a large nose.’ classic european features (early encounters with europeans in the 16th and 17th century by the chinese noted their resemblence to trolls and witches [they were ‘hung mao,’ red haired folk]). on the other hand, light skin has always been praised (for reasons which i have offered before).
you don’t need to “clear up the facts” bro, i know this shit pretty well.
as for my own biases, you have to know them, i like blondes like my gf. i’ve never been with a lady who has brown eyes, so yeah, perhaps i’m worst than any of the people i’ve criticized 🙂 [but i make it a point to not assume that my own biases will be those of other people, or act as if they are “natural,” they aren’t almost surely] when it comes to non-blondes, i’ve expressed the opinion that i’m not a fan of light skinned women with dark hair because it always necessitates a lot of electrolysis 🙂 (no flames, no flames!) from what i’ve seen in porn very dark skinned black women are more attractive to me than the lighter ones because their aureola isn’t nearly as prominent (i.e., there is less contrast). too much information….
btw, in the generality, i do think it is totally fine to find whole races of people unattractive or ugly. and even to express that opinion, within bounds. the only issue is when people generalize from their own preference and assume that of course others must share that preference (myself, i don’t find super small east asian chix that smokin’, but many of my friends totally go crazy for that shit). my main issue on this thread has been the narrow one of indian color prejudices being expressed and transferred to the west without taking into account its relative ludicrousness in the new context. in india being fair is a big deal for marriage, so even if it hurts peoples’ feelings i suppose there is some utilitarian advantange. in the USA, unless you are in the arranged marriage market, the fixation seems a total waste whose only result is to hurt peoples’ feelings (the kala).
re: the tutsis, i want to make something clear: their domination of the hutu was not purely a function of european colonialism. yes, the europeans systemetized and reduced the more fluid free form definitions by imposing outside categories (i believe the idea of the “hamitic race” was introduced), but as a pedantic point i think it is important to clarify that the tutsi-hutu dynamic existed prior to european arrival, and its best analogy is probably the relationship between nomands and farmers in central asia.
btw kush, did you miss my repeated acknowledgements that color prejudice is a world wide phenomenon, or wut?
one last thing. i have noted before that females tend to be 5-10% lighter on unexposed skin than males, that basal testosterone positively correlates with darker skin within populations, etc. there is some reason to assume that within populat ion preference for lighter skin in females is a strong cue for fertility. but, there are also cultural/environmental/social factors which mediate preferences, so there is elasticity in terms of this tendency. so, during the restoration era in england, the reign of charles II, dark hair was all the range. why? charles preferred dark hair, and his preeminent mistress, barbara villiers was very dark. there was also a survey of the british nobility and gentry in the 19th century which suggested there were fewer blondes within this population (likely because the nobility was more likely to outmarry with darker european populations because of the international character of the aristocracy). so don’t always assume that the preference for blondes is invariant or ‘natural.’
p.s., finally, although there is a strong line of evidence from evolutionary psychology and cross-cultural anthropology that female light skin preference is a human universal (within bounds), there is no evidence that i know of that “caucasian features” is. before the 20th century east asians tended to reject the beauty of caucasian features, and consider them ugly (the ainu of northern japan/hokkaido had more caucasian features despite their genetical relationship to other east asians, and were not held up as exemplars of beauty). studies with amazonian tribals showed that males preferred the look of east asian females to european females when showed pictures (probably because east asians were closer to their own population’s basal appearence).
I realize it isn’t my place to try and police this blog and that I am a guest. I also have no desire to call people out… but can someone PLEASE make some kind of rule against the repeated use of the n-word?
I’m not usually so sensitive, but having it pepper discussions so frequently that it loses its effect bugs the hell out of me. I read this blog because its one of the few places online where desi related issues are discussed intelligently. But I don’t want to have to stop reading to avoid feeling the akwardness that word brings.
but can someone PLEASE make some kind of rule against the repeated use of the n-word?
i’ll desist.
Seven posts in under an hour… must be some kind of SM record. Do you do the same rambling in face to face conversations… ?
Oneup:
Wow! That’s the best summery of “our kind of people” i’ve ever read–if that’s in fact what you’re doing. i don’t think even lawrence otis graham realized this, as he seems blinded and infactuated by social climbing and prestige.
i think you’re right that there are a lot of parrarells b/w the black elite and their indian counterparts, as i discovered one summer in oak bluffs. but i also think its an “old money” thing, as black society echos its idle rich wasp neighbor and indian society takes it’s cue from the original wasps.
the new money is a bit diiferent. in this world–and this is real Society w/ a capital S today–it’s…well… money, not pedigree that counts.
In Canada I’ve noticed that most non-desi folks can usually tell the difference between the two largest south asian groups here namely, Indian Sikhs and Sri Lankan Tamils. Most people however can’t tell the difference between Arabs and Sikhs, actually the avg. Canadian thinks that Sikhs look more Arab than Arabs themselves.
Basically dark skined Tamils, Bangladeshis, etc are ‘black’. Whereas long nosed Punjabis, Sindhis, Gujus etc are ‘Arab’.
Both blacks and middle easterners are both considered to be very dark, though some exceptionally light skin / hair middle easterners sometimes pass for white this is never the case with light skinned South Asians who people just assume are arabs.
The skin colour thing is silly, because both middle easterners and blacks are very disliked minorities in Canada. Middle easterners are more disliked than blacks. So south asians with darker skin are in luck.
Do you do the same rambling in face to face conversations
talk fast.
Superbrown,
You can bet that anyone who dislikes blacks and Arabs in Canada is going to hate Indians as well. And Chinese people. And Jews. And homosexuals. There are no particularly disliked minorities in Canada – Muslims are getting bad press right now, but it’ll pass. As far as the haters go – dark or fair, minorities all look the same.
Thanks Razib! It’s wasn’t just you though, else I would have asked you specifically.
Heh, I try. It’s a pretty messed up phenomenon but at the same time, who can blame these people for ignoring the racism around them when that same racist system actually elevates them in their own community. I personally find colorism of any kind disgusting. But at the same time I’m not exactly begging to be darker. Some part of me recognizes that I benefit by being light[er] (plus I just like who I am, I have no desire to be lighter either)… And while I don’t recognize seek to maintain the light/dark skin dichotomy, I can see why some people would.
Kush: But I never denied that Punjabis have much influence in Bollywood.
Razib:
re: the tutsis, i want to make something clear: their domination of the hutu was not purely a function of european colonialism. yes, the europeans systemetized and reduced the more fluid free form definitions by imposing outside categories (i believe the idea of the “hamitic race” was introduced
Just as Bishop Caldwell, renowned polymath, declared a Dravidian race in South India. But also re:rwanda, there was serious water shortage. The pop. tripled b/w 1950 and 1994. and the country had a fertility rate in the early 90s of 8 per woman. Food production improved but pop growth outstripped it, there was a serious drop in per capita food production… and as EO Wilson said, the teenage Hutu and Tutsi soldiers took care of the problem in the most direct way.
as black society echos its idle rich wasp neighbor and indian society takes it’s cue from the original wasps.
I think the British influence on the Indian elites has waned. If there is any “Western” model for the modern Indian nouveau riche, it is American. But oneup is correct abt Indians nevertheless. Indians have their own notions of beauty, and its not western. eg. whites are caricatured in bollywood, and sometimes treated in a downright racist manner, other asians have not advanced beyond 19th century sterotypes, and africans are invisible. And an Indian will be happy with his fair skin as lord of his ghetto (which has expanded and extended thanks to the net without worrying about what the wan majority does or thinks. The real solution for those marginalized by it in the west (and fairness, like intelligence, comes to us by dumb luck)is to simply lessen the hold of the community and to seek happiness elsewhere.