Shweta Aggarwal On Anti-Black Racism In India, Skin Bleaching, Colorism & The Black Rose

all right ladies and gentlemen thank you for joining us on the show today we have a guest uh her name is shawetta Agarwal she wants to speak to us today about a issue that we do see come up um in the community uh we know that Indian people have definitely been on the African continent uh for a long time um that's for sure we know a lot of them was brought in as indentions servants you know alongside of you know African people who were enslaved even on the African continent then also the interactions even some black Americans have had with some not all some Indian people who have anti-black uh racism and we want to talk to shueta about this because she you know can dive into this and even the colorism that happens in India I know it's crazy because some of them are darker than me or the same color as me but you can have anti-black racism so sure thank you for joining the show today so thank you so much Phil um I'm honored to be able to have this chat with you and thank you for helping me spread my message um in terms of fighting colorism um so I started my journey about two years ago and I'm not gonna lie to you it was essentially out of guilt because I felt tremendous guilt around the black lives matter movement triggered by George Floyd's murder um it really got me thinking very hard about the the kind of anti-blackness um uh racism that we Harbor as South Asians inside ourselves um especially because I started talking on a Facebook group and it just kind of you know spurred from there and I realized even though I would like to say that I've never been racist in my own you know um in my own kind of uh interactions with um any Community because I've been through so much myself in terms of being bullied throughout my childhood for my color and my you know my race um I realized that because of color there is actually this kind of unconscious bias that that a lot of South Asians hold against the black community because the narrative with colorism is fair is beautiful and they're so obsessed with this narrative it's so deeply entrenched in our community that on some level you end up perpetuating that to others and of course when I say others I mean people who are darker than us and it's awful absolutely awful and for me I started writing my book about two years ago for precisely that reason because I I think I was bottling it all up inside and it finally just kind of came out and um you know as a tribute to George Floyd I would like to say um I have called myself out in my book and I have confessed um because of my upbringing because of my childhood and the bullying that I went through from the age of six for my color that I started to believe fair is beautiful and I started to use skin whitening products and somewhere along the way you go too far and you don't even realize that you're starting to then Harbor these unconscious um biases towards another Community um and so now the book is out and I'm so pleased because it's been receiving um you know amazing reviews and people are really appreciating my honesty I've had people attack me on Tick Tock as well you know people from the black community say well I hope I see you calling yourself out and I hope I see you know you talking about your own unconscious bias and I have I actually really have and I would like to say that after kind of two years of going on this journey now um the color is in healing I I do actually genuinely believe and feel that I am now bias free and um I want to share the message with everybody I want to talk about colorism healing with people and how we can all do it together and how the two community cheese can you know come together and be stronger together and and I think if we have that solidarity then we can really fight white supremacy and white skin privilege well she went to who you said a lot and I have a lot a lot of questions um yeah I was jotting some things down but but before I get to really what you know the meat of what I want to say that let's go back you know historically um India um do you still have family there in India now I do yes yeah okay so you know just let's go back on the history so India was colonized by the British correct how many years are they colonized I would say roughly 200 years if I'm not mistaken okay so India was a British colony for about 200 years and what is the feelings toward British people um in India like the overall feelings about you know this British or white people or just let's say just British people white people what is their overall feelings about them so um it kind of how do I say this they're double standards that's what I've seen very very brutally honest could you explain the Derma sander yeah so on one hand there's you know a lot of bitterness and anger towards being colonized and having to put up with that and all the um riches and all the jewels and everything and all the money that was you know spices everything that was stolen from India um and of course what the Legacy has left behind uh I.E India being depleted of its resources and obviously being you know a a developing Nation um and it's taking a long time for them to to kind of work their way up and of course fair enough right why why wouldn't there be any anger because um let's be very honest the British Empire did essentially deplete India um down to pretty much nothing when they left um then of course there was a partition between Pakistan and India and all the religious um fighting and everything having said that I do understand that the British actually helped to bring those communities together and they tried to have um help with India you know in Pakistan um uh staying together but you know um when they left they've obviously left behind a big mess as well um but on the other hand when it comes to colorism and white skin privilege that is something that when I say there are double standards that is what I have a problem with and that is where Indians need to call themselves out and actually realize they can't be pointing fingers at the British Empire for doing you know whatever they did 200 years ago and they left 75 years ago and we're still holding on to colorism we're still holding on to internalized racism and still putting white skin as such on a pedestal and wanting to enjoy a white skin privilege by becoming lighter fairer and colorism of course you know is um sorry the factors that affect colorism that that we see now in India are not just because of colonization but you know fair enough it was casters and in classism from Millennia after Millennia but colonization definitely exacerbated it I mean if you're talking about the signs that you would see back then at outside restaurants and bars and public places where they say and dogs not allowed when this is done exactly and when they you know when they were hiring people if they were of um Indian origin they would hire lighter-skinned Indians for better jobs for them whilst the dark skin Indians similar to what I understand that people have experienced um during you know slavery amongst the black community right yeah yeah why supremacists are the same everywhere he goes I mean it's the same system same thing you're not telling me something I'm surprised at hearing um so so the reason why I wanted to establish about the colonization of India so for 200 years so the the white because I'm calling white supremacists that's what they were and that's what they still are to this day so the white supremacists colonized India for 200 years now how many years did Africans um colonized India gosh uh I have to say I I don't know sorry nothing yeah I thought you thought okay okay I can oh yeah if you didn't say zero I was gonna answer it for you Africans have never colonized any group of people um have not stole nobody's resources and have not um just did this Mass you know say uh genocide anything else to anybody else so the question I have shawetta is this the one group of people that stole from your ancestors that have took over your land that has harmed that said that no or dogs allowed right put signs out did Indian people wrong for for a long time and still doing the wrong to this day because I know they are why is it that you have anti-blackness to it with a people not you I'm just saying we talk about the conversation why are we talking about anti-blackness colorism all this white supremacist stuff that that we talk about right now when black people did or Africans did nothing nothing whatsoever to Indian people could you explain that to me because to me logically it doesn't make sense I mean I would say I would have an issue with the people that colonized me and anybody that look like them versus someone that never did it to me but explain it to me yeah it boils down to color which is extremely extremely sad and very narrow-minded shallow uh thinking um unfortunately India has had castism and classism um from even before the British Empire and even before I think the Mongols um uh you know conquered India right so India has been conquered Millennia after Millennia um from the Persians coming down from like the north um uh north west of India through the Khyber Pass and then there was you know all these various different Mughal empires um we've got Indians that are extremely light-skinned because they were conquered by the Aryan race and the dravidian race that was like um more melanated I'd like to say um pushed down towards the South and the Aryan race became like the dominating race and so we're talking about the kind of light skin light eyes um and somehow over all these um you know different um conquerors and different periods it's kind of been drummed into Indians that light skin is what is beautiful it's what the perceptions of colorism essentially right are that fair is beautiful fair is better educated fair is Rich uh fair is intelligent so just imagine where does that lead dark people and and imagine how people think about dark people as in black people as well and as you just mentioned there aren't Indians who are darker um and who are more melanated than I am or or even yourself and yet I I honestly am baffled by anti-blackness amongst the South Asians and that attitude that Indians have because it it it there's no reason for it it doesn't come from anywhere and it's not justified at all oh sure it comes from somewhere it comes from white supremacy and uh colorism to me is a symptom of white supremacy yes but really what it is and what you're telling me is that internalized white supremacy is in the society and and that is like to me worse than any kind of colonization of slavery when you are replicating white supremacy on your own and they're not even over there uh over you like that you understand see like over here in America we're dealing with the white supremacists on the daily but in India right India has a Indian president Indian people running the country right and yet you still haven't internalized white supremacy which is colorism is just one of the symptoms of white supremacy um so you mentioned uh the darker people right and and correct me if I'm wrong all the darker people they in South India correct they went sorry say that again the darker people uh even I've seen some that's by black that's in India are they most from the south uh yeah I would say I mean it's a generalization but somewhat true I suppose because South Indians tend to be more darker more melanated than North Indians on average I would say okay so so you you kind of what you definitely was put into that category and you mentioned that you were bullied during childhood could you explain some of the bullying that you received in childhood so I am from North India I um I was born in Rajasthan um and then my parents moved to Japan when I was six years old and as a six-year-old you can imagine that feeling of Abandonment because I was enrolled in a boarding school you know as a six-year-old you don't understand why right obviously it was to do with education my parents couldn't afford my education in Japan at that time when they were moving so it took a while for them to be able to afford private education so it was about over just about two and a half years I would say that I was in a boarding school and when you're already going through you know very low self-esteem and insecurities and anxiety and that sense of Abandonment to then be told by your um extended family that you've been left behind because they're ashamed of your color I mean that is chroma that is childhood trauma on a whole different level right to to be told that and that that stuck and from that day on I started seeing people for their color the first thing that I would notice as a six-year-old is somebody's color oh she's fair and she's pretty and she's beautiful and oh she's dark so she's not that pretty and beautiful and that is this that sort of bullying it just stays with you and that wasn't that wasn't like the end of it when I moved to Japan I had the same thing um throughout my life I've always been compared to my parents and I've been told things like you don't look like you belong because my parents are both very very very light and we're talking my my father was uh pretty much as light as Indians could could get um and my brother is also very fair so I was called like the black sheep or the family as such for my color um the Bad Apple the ugly duckling you know the black sheep I mean you name it all these sort of phrases were applied to me in school um and then at one point a brown boy called me Blackie even though he is a brown boy himself and we weren't very you know far apart without with our skin tone and I think for women particularly I I do feel I have to say that the pressure is tenfold because of this narrative and because I mean that's a whole different conversation that we can have um the kind of sexism and the dichotomy that you see in the narrative that you know men are it's okay for men to be dark and and not for women and women have to go through the the kind of um fairness uh you know process um and these dark men are demanding Fair wives you see them in matrimonial ads in India even today you see them where that's one of the top kind of five things I would say listed wanted Fair wife so things haven't changed I just visited India recently in December and there is still so much work to be done to eradicate colorism and to eradicate this this mindset and this as you just mentioned white supremacy which is internalized um in Indians yeah I mean you would think that they would you know they would banish the thought right you like you know be disgust because as you just mentioned they were colonized by white people but the opposite seems to be happening and skin whitening products are thriving I mean the the industry is thriving the sales are skyrocketing um almost 50 percent of any cosmetic product in India um skin cosmetic products in India have some sort of whitening agent together wow that that's you know one thing I can say about about us here you know for the most part that you know we had movements to say I'm Black and I'm Proud you understand what I'm saying and that's that because we needed that living in a system of anti-black racism and white supremacy we were told the same thing dark is ugly lighter is better you know they had a thing like the brown paper bag test here in America if you're darker than brown paper bag you wouldn't get a job you understand what I'm saying um wimp dark-skinned women in America have dealt with the same issues as well uh being you know treat it less than and lighter skin has been you know women have get have gotten some time you know a lighter skin privilege it has happened here in America I mean but that's when you live in a sense of an anti-black racism and white supremacy we understand that and we have been tackling that and still fighting that you know head on but I will say even though you know some sisters that may deal with some you know colorism one thing I don't see the sisters doing is using uh bleaching agents at least here in America now I know some of that goes on on the African continent when that's very unfortunate but it seems like in India and correct me if I'm wrong you don't have a well I'm Indian and I'm proud and and we we're nationalistic about you know India and we love our culture we love our people it sounds like you because you can't have that and internalized white supremacy at the same time because bleach and cream wouldn't work if you love yourself it sounds like a lot of self-hate so actually there is something that I want to talk about in um with regards to that that there is a lot of nationalism in India when it comes to everything else when it comes to being Hindu and and the religion there when it comes to their politics when it comes to um you know all sorts of other body issues and all sorts of other um you know feminism patriarchy all of that hold on hold on did you just say feminism oh boy okay continue when it comes to colorism so even the Indian you know film industry um and I'm I'll talk about Bollywood because that's what I've seen you know from North India that's what I was exposed to and and I am still today you don't see dark skin representation even though there are ample North Indians including myself for example who are more melanated but the darkest as such that you will see is Priyanka Chopra and Deepika so these actresses are nowhere near uh in terms of their you know skin tone um as as dark as you will see some quite a lot of North Indians but that representation in Hollywood is just not there and every time I call it out I get people bombarding me with messages saying of course there's representation oh have you checked out you know bipasha Basu and Rani Mukherjee but guess what they're exactly the same skin tone so they just don't understand that there is a need for representation for more melanated women like for example Simone Ashley from Bridgeton um or children from Bridgeton so they just don't see that it's like they don't see that color they don't see beyond that color and it's even in Bollywood movies like there's there are movies being made about um you know bisexuality uh transgender um uh you know uh wait hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on wait a minute y'all y'all got all that going how how y'all got all that going on but you talking about being fervent in Hinduism how's that going on um there's a lot of that going on um and there's a lot of tension between um uh the kind of the Hindu community and the and the Muslim Community there as well um and then of course you know I mean India's is a wonderfully diverse place right there's a lot of languages and there's a there's a lot of religions and actually overall if you see you know within the kind of thousands and thousands of years of History the country hasn't um hasn't been divided um but the states are pretty um secular and you see a lot of tension between the communities there was of course the kalistan movement which was the Sikhs wanting to separate from India uh Kashmir of course has been fighting for its own independence um and then now you know there's a lot of movement going on between and sorry a lot of friction going on between the Hindu community and the Muslim Community so they're you know they boycott literally things um actresses and actors for saying something or even wearing something um that is revealing because it's against the um the Hindu culture or the in the tradition if say for example um an actor who's uh of you know uh Muslim background will say something he's boycotted he's immediately he or she immediately so all of this is going on but when it comes to colorism there's literally a mind spot it seems like nobody even cares when I was in India recently I saw in one day about seven ads behind um one of those you know like um Indian rickshaws behind the Richer uh which is like a three-wheeler um with a white baby with blue eyes blonde hair advertising fertility clinics wow that doesn't even make sense to me that doesn't even make sense because if I was to go to India you know eventually I you know lord lord of lead me there because I know that I gotta go there because I know there's black people there that I got to go see I know it's black people there black people all over the world right I gotta meet my people but with that being said I would be shocked if I'm in India and I see a whole ad with a with a a Caucasian baby I'll be shocked yep I saw it like 20 like every time I visit India I kind of have this hope that things will change and then I see all these things and nothing has changed from a lady who's advertising a pressure cooker to a lady who's advertising a car you know there's all still fast games uh people that you see um that are inclined facing roles like receptionists and hotel staff for example or uh air hostesses they're all you know light-skinned ladies um you don't see many dark skinned women in the front in the Forefront in terms of like you know client roles that have client interaction well a major question let me ask you a question because you said you even use skin bleaching products correct I did yes in the past what what was in your mind at the time to say I need to go buy a product that's going to literally chemicals on my skin that can even give me cancer or other things right with your skin where where were you in your mind to say this is my Saving Grace let me go buy this um I didn't even know I had no idea there was no such thing as Google to be able to like see what you know to Google the ingredients of any product that you're applying um the beauticians at every beauty parlor that I went to said to me oh you you should bleach twice a month twice a month right and it used to stink it's it's got this really horrible pungent smell and it obviously like tingles and burns on your skin and I I remember just thinking once like is this good for me surely this is like almost burning my skin so is this good for me but at that time I also remember feeling so desperate wanting to fit in wanting to belong because wherever I went people would question that I actually belong to my family and my parents for my parents um that you know especially from the age of six um having had that sort of traumatic experience being told that you were left behind because your parents are ashamed of your color I I just account I succumb to that insecurity and I really really wish that I could go back in time and I hadn't but then the other the other problem that we have with colorism and these products is that they're so they're widely uh widely sold right and you've got the biggest Bollywood celebrities endorsing them they are the face of this product we're talking you know from Shahrukh Khan advertising Fahrenheits and to uh Priyanka Chopra advertising fair and lovely we've got you know these people are who you look up to and these people if they're telling you and they're endorsing these products and the narrative from the these screens are the um fair is beautiful and it's such a strong narrative because what they do is they they had this um uh image of a lady on there on their tube in four different shades and going from darker to lighter and it's almost like telling you well you are ugly if you are not fair so because these creams and these products were everywhere because they were being advertised by huge huge celebrities and and styles that you look up to because at that time we didn't know what these ingredients are and there was no way of finding out and of course because of my own insecurities and you know low self-esteem and um all these like different reasons I carried on using them and I've used them for decades without even thinking about what it is doing to my skin um it only um I only stopped using them in 2020 after I started writing my book and after I kind of almost decided that I'm going to become clean it's like a drug you know literally you become addicted to it because the The Narrative is constantly sold in that way that only fair is beautiful so hello hello so you mean it when did you first start bleaching 1990 what so to be very honest the first time I actually bought a cream from money that I had been saving was when I was about 11. 11. so what year is that so that would be 88. so so you've been bleaching for oh Lord that's a long time yeah over 30 years yep on and off yeah Lord Jesus so so you finally realized in 2020 that wait a minute this stuff isn't good for me let me ask you a question have you had any kind of therapy I think writing my book has been my biggest therapy it's been the most cathartic thing I've ever done um because for so many reasons firstly whilst writing the book I realized what this narrative had done to me as a child because I've written it from that uh perspective and I've taken the readers on this journey from like the age of a six-year-old all the way to 45. and how I kind of you know just literally was oscillating between wanting to fight colorism and and succumbing and I was on the Seesaw constantly um also because you that desire to fit in and that desire to belong was Far stronger than worrying about what the products are doing to me at that time and sadly I know this sounds really silly right but no it doesn't sound silly it doesn't sound silly to me because this is the evil of white supremacy and internalized white supremacy is that there are people who do horrible things to themselves and let's think about this you have white women literally cooking themselves and tanning beds to get your color yeah risking their health to get your color I know yeah people that got your color naturally they don't want it and white women want it like do you kind of see the connection is unreal yeah it's it's the biggest irony of my life that I actually was more appreciated for my color and people were celebrating my color here now whatever color you are even that like you know from a white person's perspective for them to say oh your color is beautiful I wish I could turn as easily as you could and I used to take that as a compliment but the point is they also also it's not I shouldn't have taken that as a compliment I should have just been happy with my natural color so that's also something that I've written about in the book like you know these are not compliments these are just them wanting what you have and the grasp of course you know the other side they of course they want melanin I mean oh boy you really want to go deep into that you mean they they have ways to even Harvest melanin but that's that's a conversation of a different day um but you know when they tell you that is because your aging process is going to be slow due to the amount of melanin that you have as long as you're not out there using drugs and eating horribly you know not being around stress negativity if you just like live a peaceful life as much as you can and take care of yourself you're gonna age slowly when they tell you they really would like to have your color they mean that because they would love their Asian process to slow down and do to their genetics you know we talk about the women in particular for sure what other men too the aging process is faster so yeah yeah that's why they don't like about women your color definitely they don't like about black women you know they hate anybody or even some Hispanic people some Asian people that's darker like your darker skin Asians uh that the age slower you know yeah they would love to have that so I mean how I look at it you know okay whatever but but but but with that being said you stopped in 2020 he didn't have any effects on your health uh thankfully no um it did take a while and I kind of cheated a couple of times because the first time that I actually felt it um was in was during a holiday in Thailand in 2016. when my daughter caught me buying a cream and she asked me very innocently like why are you buying the screen and you know she was nine at the time so she obviously could read and she was a you know very uh switched on child yes yeah and she um she asked me why are you buying the screen and you know obviously I was dumbfounded and that she caught me because I wasn't expecting her to be right behind me I asked my daughter to kind of carry on um with my husband and I was just kind of you know having a little stroll through all the um stalls in Thailand and that's also the first time I realized that this is not just an Indian thing this is actually everywhere now in Japan the fair is beautiful narrative also is rampant and there are a lot of products in Japan um in terms of skin whitening products so you know you name it creams um but growing up I didn't know that so I only kind of started learning about these things when I started researching for my book and in Thailand when my daughter asked me I was dumbfounded and I didn't know how to respond so she's she's very I mean even even you know till date you can't fib and you can't she you know you have to just tell her the truth and so it I just blurted it out as I said it makes you fairer and she said well why do you want to be fair you tell us to be happy with who we are so you know but why are you buying a cream then um and it it really hit me hard because I realized I was just being such a such a hypocrite and that was the first time that I kind of really looked within and I started telling her my whole story and I said look it's not that simple it's not that easy you know we have insecurities and I started actually telling her my entire story about boarding school and the things that were said to me also partly because I didn't want her to um not appreciate when somebody has insecurities and how they deal with it um because she let's be very honest goes to um uh well at that time she used to go to a school that was predominantly white and she was the minority so she would have had her own insecurities to do with color and so when I started kind of narrating the story to her and I told her everything that's pretty much how I actually took the readers um through the book as well that's how I started writing it that the first time I had this moment of realization and that you know I realized that I was being a hypocrite was 2016. and then after that I I promised her that I wouldn't use the creams but I cheated I I lied to her like it was an addiction by that time you know so like I just couldn't shake it off and I used it but maybe not that frequently but I still continue to use the products um and it's heartbreaking this is after my book is already out there and it's written the most heartbreaking thing that I heard at my book launch which was a complete surprise because it was really sweet that my kids wanted to say something at the end and it was unplanned and they came up to the podium and they you know shared how they feel about the journey I've been through and then she confessed and she said I have used my mummy's creams and I went through these insecurities and I am so proud that she's doing this and I don't you know I'm proud of my color now and I don't want to ever think about those creams again I wish if she had told me this years ago then I would have I would have stopped a couple of years ago and it's the most heartbreaking thing to to have heard that you know you you think that you think that you you've kind of fought it off and you know colorism is not going to touch you now but all it takes is for your child to find the cream and if your child finds the cream and those products then colorism finds her and I I really really want people to take that away from this interview and understand please please please avoid using these products because the narrative that you are um essentially selling to your child by using such products is that she or he is not beautiful enough just as they are wow I'm just you know I'm listening to that and and you know I know you said your book is therapy and it can be right it definitely can be you know I write books as well but I mean based off of the time that you'll be dealing with this you know and now you say your your daughter or I think your daughter correct the one that found the cream and you said she ended up using it yeah okay with you know I really believe that you know this I say consider it I think therapy is really an order because for how long it was and you don't want your daughter to go down at that road right like like for me it's like it baffles me to to even hear that because like I said listen I was calling names too growing up I was called dark as night I was called Blackie I was called tar I'll call all kind of names were people winning my own Community right but that's still kind of like what they would do they kind of roast you a little bit but uh uh because I grew up in a time period where uh people laugh about this where you had the the time of the light-skinned Brothers like like you had you your prince and your Elder bars and all these people you know these people and then later dark-skinned Brothers came back in around the 90s or so you know dark skin Brothers kind of been okay but where they at because you know back in the that part of the 80s had the light skin Brothers um but you know for me you know I had issues with my code at one point in time right but then I realized wait a minute I got this way God made me you know I'm happy with it uh I love my skin color I love it and and that's it but I'm never in my mind thought that okay well let me see if I could be you know lighter my my in my mind what I've had you know in this country at least is not even being lighter but like how would it feel to be white so I can get all these privileges so I can do whatever the hell I want everybody to give an excuse for it um I can be mediocre and still get uh a big loan at the bank you know I can get a job no need education just show up cause I'm white you know there's more sort of thoughts that I've had right but I never said oh I want to try to look white it's just not going to happen because in this country it don't matter if you got a white parent if you got one drop of black blood you are still considered a negro in this country at the bottom line um but yeah from what you're saying um for me this hearing is quite it's quite sad you know I'm just saying just just being realistically um and yeah I really hope you you know can get you know more healing from that because it's been so long it became literally a lifestyle you know yeah absolutely yeah but but even though after dealing with all of that right now let's go let's go back to what we say in the beginning why are black people the problem that's my thing because recently and maybe you know the reason why um the Indian government was you know deporting Mass deporting Nigerians right um I've heard some story not all Indian people because I want to make sure I don't say oh but it's not all but there are some that do have anti-black racism so out of all that you told me about colonization skin bleaching internalized white supremacy you know all different things has been done by body you know Indians being taken into the African continent to be indention servants in these colonies even in Africa right and they're still there to this day some of them and I've heard stories you know out of South Africa you know that they had became racist even Idi Amin at one point in time Uganda had kicked out Indians could do all the racism they was doing over there and even certain business practices in Uganda right yeah so but but the question is why is there an issue with us if some people within your community don't even like themselves we didn't colonize you we instill your resources we didn't you know violate no word I'm trying not to say the women right so why love the white supremacist and hate the black man and black woman why so I this is my personal opinion um sure it really is so unfortunate but I think it does boil down to color and it boils down to Indians having this mindset that black people are are not um uh successful and they're darker so they're not as beautiful um and they're just not that um uh you know kind of worthy almost I mean I hate to say this but that's the mindset that I have seen in people and also because we were talking about castism and um classism in India right so you know castism the word for castism in India is called Varna v-a-r-n-a Varna literally means color so now correct me if I'm wrong you know we're talking thousands and thousands of years ago I don't think they meant color as a red green yellow and blue the back then right they they probably had this whole Cask system based on people's skin tone and if that's the case then that is a very very very shameful system to begin with anyway and castism of course there's you know there's brahmins and then there's the shattrias and the um so the brahmins are like the priests and the people that uh you look up to in terms of giving you uh religious knowledge um and helping you with salvation Etc shatrias are like the Warriors and kings and queens Etc um and then other vaishnas uh which is um the business class um and then the sudras which is the labor class and then another class was added which is called the dalits which is The Untouchables can you imagine um and generally speaking people in India they still follow the caste system um very very passionately um I was shocked for example to be going out for dinner with you know a reasonably close friend here in the UK um who I've known for the last two decades since I moved to the country didn't realize that he's actually into casters and himself um and over dinner we were talking about some issue and he said oh it all boils down to the cast that you belong for you know belong to and your education very casually mentioned castism now I know that there's no you know black people in terms of like the cast Where do they fit right but it boils down to them looking down upon black people for their color and the the the poverty that they think you know is there in Africa and so therefore classism and the fact that Africans were slaves for a long long time so the Indians were slaves too exactly yeah yeah that's that's what I'm trying to get like when people look people who were literally colonizing you say for 200 years who do you think was building up the place for the white people in in India it was not the white people the white people's crossing their legs drinking tea and and telling you do this do this carry that dude like I don't I don't understand that but but it is but what I'm saying is just even looking at you you and my mother is the same color the same skin tone literally so how was someone even your same skin tone just my mom's just black you know black American of course and you're Indian how would my mom be less than than an Indian person that has the same skin tone that that doesn't even make sense just even listening to what you're saying it doesn't mean it doesn't make sense well let me ask you a question about this though in India because I've heard the caste system is real oh I heard they they have what they call that honor killings too behind that stuff yes the women yes yeah yeah yeah and I also heard that men could violate women and get away with it behind honor yeah why is that acceptable it's it's really really shameful it's disgusting it's I just don't understand why but yeah it happens and unfortunately these men get away with it and politicians are perpetuating the sort of behavior when women are violated and politicians you know on a huge huge social platformer saying things like well of course it had to happen because you know she why was she dressed that way or you know why why was she trying to get married into this cast when she knows that she comes from a lower class like just well I'm still proud of my head about this girl I saw I saw it was on uh the daily mail out of India and she was gang violated this was a a teenage girl she went to the police and the police violated her oh how the hell the Heritage would that go on because I that do that to a girl woman child Etc let me see if I can say this in a very I I think you just need to go meet you know uh uh the devil I think I think music will meet him personally um you should not be walking around here in in civilized society you know I absolutely agree um I mean if I had in my way these people would be punished extremely severely um but you know it's it is the Old Testament that's what they need you know you remember the Old Testament with the Lord say to happen to people that committed sin yeah give them stones that's sick to me oh that's sick how could you do something like that and then you get away so it couldn't be me it could be my kid because okay the law ain't got to do nothing I want to find out every last one of y'all who it is and I'll deal with you that's I'm pretty sure that has happened these things happen and I'm not proud of them um you know India it's a very large country well in terms of population we're talking 1.4 billion people now right correct there's a lot of uh desperateness there's a lot of um chaos there's a lot of um political unrest there's a lot going on I mean generally speaking the country is running really well like I'm actually quite surprised like you enter a country with 1.4 billion people and you're like okay this everything seems to be you know working everything's fine but you know you hear of these stories stories and behind the scene what's going on and you know it's it's heart-wrenching and heartbreaking and it disgusts you yeah so so to me it sounds like black people shouldn't be the problem of nobody they got a whole lot to fix on their own over there right yes there it is yeah there's a lot of fun a lot of work to be done but there and I've been talking about internalized racism among South Asians a lot actually on my Tick Tock page and Instagram as well and I'm like I'm sorry but you can't you can't point fingers at others you can't call out systemic racism when you're actually not kind to your own kind it's it's like a woman uh joining a feminism you know protest and putting her husband and son on a pedestal at home like actually plenty of them do that believe it or not especially in the white Community they'll be the biggest feminist and go home and got a husband but yeah but he'll tell black women and and other groups of women outside of white yeah you need to be a feminist you know that sort of thing unfortunate unfortunately that has taken root in my community unfortunately and that's caused a lot of problems but you know you know with with that with that being said in itself I just like you know I'm just shaking my head at some of this you know stuff that's going on here and what you're talking about just my opinion I think due to your your history you should be a big Advocate speaking against um skin lightening creams highlighting I'm not saying I'm just just talking in general highlighting it going to war against the companies exposing the ingredients like I've been usually because who else won't talk about it if you got a 30-year history with it who else 100 yeah and I have been doing that and what I'm also trying to do at the same time though is change mindsets because I think if you if we go after the companies and the companies you know say we will achieve like Banning a certain product right if it's still here and you're still obsessed by that narrative that fair is beautiful you're gonna find other ways you you're going to find homemade remedies you know which again I've seen my aunts do over time that's true you're gonna put it on that's true but this but this is where you go with that it's not about the people that's not going to change it's about the people that may hear the message and say you know what man I didn't think about it like that oh wow she's dealing with this because not only it can help people in India but it also can help people in the Caribbean because there's some there's some black women in the Caribbean that bleach yeah some black women in the African continent that bleach right that I do know of you know they talk about cake soap in the Caribbean and all that sort of thing right so I think that it's not about worrying about people who's not going to change it's it's worry about could you save at least one could you save ten could you save a hundred you can't save everybody not all gonna be saved even the scriptures teach that but that's what might focus at even what I do it's not about everybody it's about the people that you can reach 100 and that's the that's exactly my objective behind this book uh in terms of spreading my message I've had people review the book saying you know brutally honest um holding a mirror after my own unconscious biases um you know I'm a changed person after reading this book I've got uh white people who actually didn't have any idea about colorism and you know people who actually genuinely care about colorism and and what uh colonization has done to the South Asian mindset and not even Foundation let's be honest right we're talking about this white supremacy and then there's the rest of the world so basically if you're not white you're a person of color if you're a person of color then you're constantly and uh you're constantly I'm sorry to interrupt you but that's one term I don't like is per person of color um we all are individual groups of people we in all our communities should be respected I think it's so disrespectful to say we're White and the rest of you are just people of color like really that's white to me that's white supremacy because they came up with it not you yes that's why Supremacy to me to say Indian people don't shouldn't be reckoned you know called out black people African people different Asian groups different Arab groups these are individual groups of people with history lineage uh got families Etc and you're going to throw them in a box oh yeah you people of color but we white that's why I don't like that term no 100 agree yeah and that's how white people look at other people right um they see everybody else that is not white as in they put everybody in this one box you know person of color unfortunately people have started believing that and literally we're talking from Once you know you and from like you know the United States to to Europe after that you get into the Middle East even the Middle Eastern countries are obsessed with skin whitening even yeah well because white supremacy unfortunately the doctrine of white supremacy is global it is a global Doctrine unfortunately because white supremacy has control of the world at this moment even because it's a it's indirect white supremacy and it's different it's direct white supremacy which I live in right in America I live in direct white supremacy Indians deal with indirect white supremacy and internalized white supremacy I think internalized white supremacy is worse now what I mean by indirect white supremacy sure all you leave is an Indian Etc but how far are they going to really go sometime in the in the western world is really having hands in your country still even though they got Indian leaders you understand what I'm saying that's me that's why I mean like an indirect even if a white person go to your country and commit a crime then a lot of times he'll get a slap on the wrist uh and and let and just Deport it versus let's say if an African person went to your country it'll be held to pay you understand what I'm saying oh 100 yeah um I have no comments in talking about talking about white women who have found themselves in India and they're they're totally you know kind of like embraced the culture and the language and everything fluent in these speakers they wear Indian clothes they're married to an you know to an Indian man living in the Indian family etc etc oh my God they're put on a pedestal honestly they're put on a pedestal but if a black person was to do the same thing would the black person be put on a pedestal well let me ask you a question I'm curious to know this because this is kind of what I've experienced and heard throughout the world Africans or they treated one way in India and black Americans treated another um that I have to say I don't know no no because from what I have seen personally and any what I've heard from many Travelers is that if a person's African and and I don't know why because we you know like I said I'm African descent I mean live in America but it seems like when black Americans travel we get a different reaction I guess coming from America versus or even if they come from the UK right a black person from the UK right um go to a different country versus one of my you know African brothers and sisters that go they get a different reaction that's the only reason I had asked that question probably got to do with the language and again that's also the same you know we have the same issue in terms of light white supremacy and internalized racism right you speak English you're educated okay um so yeah so they you just I mean Hindi is such a beautiful language it's the most you know one of the oldest languages in the world you know developed from Sanskrit Sanskrit is being taught all over the world in you know the top universities in the world and yet when you land in India I speak fluent Hindi and I'm trying to speak to somebody in Hindi and they'll respond in English wow when I was 13 years old and I went to somebody's house for dinner and I was trying and trying and trying just to be speaking in Hindi and you know normally and this kid did not respond back with one word of Hindi he just spoke only in English yeah you know I've heard it yeah I've actually heard of that on the African continent too like when you when they go to school like a lot of times they have their own local languages but in school they won't a lot of times want them to speak English and just recently you know I remember uh Julius malema shout out to our brother Julius malema he was pushing you say hey we need to be learning you know Swahili should be the NAT should be the uh the language for the continent because that is an African language Swahili you know and he even had some pushback of people saying that you know believe it or not um but you know so I get exactly what you're saying you know white supremacy has definitely had its evil influence um all over the world like I say white supremacy is a doctrine of demons and I've always said publicly it is Hell spawn basically just everything you said you know and how it's affect people worldwide but you know tell people show people about your book tell people how can they get your book they probably say Okay I want to check this book out you know let people know thank you I'm can I just add one more thing about white supremacy around the world so I grew up in Japan right um it's never been colonized right never um but they're so obsessed with whiteness over there that I remember vividly when I was growing up in my teenage years kids were dying their hair blonde they were wearing blue contact lenses and white people if they stepped you know into the country oh my God they were treated like God so whereas you know Indians sometimes like I remember being stared at because I was so different darker skin tone color your hair um I I found it very unsettling um fair enough at that time back in the 1980s they didn't actually maybe see a farmer ever in their lives so you know I guess you look um but it's about how you look right and when you look at a white person I I.E American that look is completely different so yeah I just wanted to share that like it's everywhere it's not just countries that have been colonized which is so so sad because it's kind of just spread um even without any reason um but yeah anyway I just want to yeah I I understand it because that's that's more so the wider skin Asians in Japan because you look at a person like from Thailand the Philippines Cambodia those Asians they are treated horribly because of their darker skin Asians versus the white-skinned Asians like your South Koreans your um like you say you're Japanese some of your Chinese as as whiter skin I mean they want to get rid some of them do eyelid surgery to get rid of their eyes and it's all kind of things so it's just not indians there's a whole lot of people have been affected but you know that show people your book tell people how they can get to it so this is a book that I have written it's called the black rose um it took me about two years to write because I've never written before um but it's literally me pouring my heart out sharing a message about colorism and what it does to you um as a very young child and how it brainwashes you into believing that only hair is beautiful and I've taken the readers through a journey um from the age of six all the way to 45 and which also includes uh me kind of uh getting rid of my addiction and and getting clean as I say um and and and the fact that I am proud to be the Black Rose uh you know 45 but I love my color now I enjoy Beach holidays I don't wear any caps unless of course I want to protect my skin in terms of harmful rays but the reason earlier used to be protecting myself from getting a tan now it's got nothing to do with that I've stopped using the creams it's been two years now and I'm so proud of myself and I really really really hope that if you do get your hands on this book that it helps you with your healing Journey too it might be painful to begin with because it will trigger certain experiences that you might have been through but I think that we need to walk through that pain in order to heal um and that's what I've done with this book so please help me fight colorism um please stop using the products never mind this book but just stop using the products please and embrace your melanin and wear it with pride all right ladies and gentlemen uh we'll make sure to you know we'll get a link from sweater here and we'll make sure to put that with P you can click it and go buy the book I think you should buy it and hear you know white supremacy is affected not just black folk but it's affected everyone outside of white whether they admit it or not either they're going to fight against it are they going to succumb to it so you know thank you for joining us on the show today we greatly appreciate it and uh it was great to have you thank you so much thank you thank you time and um helping me spread my message uh fighting colorism and yeah I really hope that our two communities can come together and fight us together because you know as they say we're stronger together

Channel: African Diaspora News Channel

Views: 301,041

Keywords: Phillip Scott, African Diaspora News Channel, African Diaspora, The Phillip Scott Show, Phillip Scott Audio Experience, news, africa news, world news today update, trending news in united states, international news update, world news updates now, africa news update, south africa news update, viral news update, The Black Congregation, video, sharing, camera phone, video phone, free, upload

Id: mW4WdgozJmw

Length: 60min 32sec (3632 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 15 2023