The insidious reasons for a brown girl’s self-loathing won’t be surprising to any woman of color. I cannot rightly compare my own struggles to those of another minority, as each ethnicity comes with its own baggage and the South Asian experience is just one variation on the experience of dark-skinned people everywhere. As parents and grandparents often do in Asian countries, my extended family urged me to avoid the sun, not out of fear that heatstroke would sicken me or that UV rays would lead to cancer, but more, I think, out of fear that my skin would darken to the shade of an Untouchable, a person from the lowest caste in Indian society, someone who toils in the fields. The judgments implicit in these exhortations–and what they mean about your worth–might not dawn on you while you’re playing cricket in the sand. What’s at stake might not dawn on you while, as a girl, you clutch fast to yourself your blonde-haired, blue-eyed doll named Helen. But all along, the message that lighter skin is equivalent to a more attractive, worthier self is getting beamed deep into your subconscious. Western ideals of beauty do not stop at ocean shores. They pervade the world and mingle with those of your own country to create mutant, unachievable standards. Padma Lakshmi
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More Quotes By Padma Lakshmi
  1. We arrived from New York after a daylong slog through airports and planes and traffic. It was 10: 00 p.m. local time, but my body had no idea if it was night or day. Krishna was hungry, so I found some leftover dosa batter in...
  2. Once in a while we burned a wok trying to make our churan, and Jima, Bhanu, or another matriarch would banish us from the kitchen. “You should’ve told us, ” they’d say. “We would’ve helped you.” You’re not getting it, Neela and I thought. This...
  3. Simply being born female in our society is to grow up being told your worth as a person is tied to how slim and attractive you are. Even for those of us lucky enough to have evolved parents, the message is still driven home by...
  4. I once asked her if she was happy. “That depends on what I am able to get done today, ” she said, laughing. She told me that the completion of her daily tasks was the only thing she felt she had control over. They were...
  5. But because divorce was so unheard of in middle-class Indian society, people looked at divorcées with a sort of incredulous shock and wonder, as if they were somehow criminals. They were ostracized from everyday life because of an invisible scarlet D hovering over them. Meanwhile,...
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