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Why is this?
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[Deleted User]
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This is a slightly random topic and question but it's something that's been getting to me recently, so I was just hoping people could maybe explain the reasoning behind this. The question is...
Why is racist to make the slightest remark about a black persons appearance and totally unnacceptable if it's negative about their skin colour, yet it's widely seen as acceptable to make nasty and insensitive comments to and about people with naturally pale skin?
I'm sure I would get so much hate if I ever asked a very black person if they'd ever heard of/considered bleaching their skin and it would most definitely been seen as racist, so why do so many people feel it's ok to ask a pale person if they've ever heard of/considered spray tanning?
Why is racist to make the slightest remark about a black persons appearance and totally unnacceptable if it's negative about their skin colour, yet it's widely seen as acceptable to make nasty and insensitive comments to and about people with naturally pale skin?
I'm sure I would get so much hate if I ever asked a very black person if they'd ever heard of/considered bleaching their skin and it would most definitely been seen as racist, so why do so many people feel it's ok to ask a pale person if they've ever heard of/considered spray tanning?
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I heard Anita Rani off the One Show, herself a light skinned Indian lady, recounting her mother's pride at how light skinned she and Anita were, and getting cross with Anita for sunbathing, thus darkening her skin colour !! In America generations ago, a lot of black families encouraged interracial marriage in their families to lighten their skin colour. This was shown on " Who Do You Think You Are " when Ainsley Harriott was featured. The lighter the skin, the more marriageable / employable / regarded you would be. To answer your question in very basic terms - to be too dark or too pale skinned is considered unattractive to some people. Even if you think such a thing, you shouldn't be saying it out loud, but ignorant people are everywhere.
Not black.
Dark.
This applies to Britain, some parts of Europe and East Asia as well.
In England, sun-tanned people were associated with the working / labour classes - e.g. people who worked as farm hands, trade workers and such - and pale-skinned people were associated with the upper / gentry classes.
Those differences were used as social codes in Victorian-era literature, especially Thomas Hardy, E. M. Forster and I think D. H. Lawrence. As in, dark or sun-tanned skin = dangerous, vulgar, coarse, uncivilised, unpredictable, uneducated, etc.
Sun-tanned skin only became fashionable and associated with luxury/wealth during the 1930s.