anjalee

Unfair & Lovely: “The Palace of Gold”  by Amrapali challenging Asian beauty standards with brown models

This photoshoot is dedicated to all the South Asian women out there who are often underrepresented in media simply because the color of their skin doesn’t fit South Asia’s unreasonable, fair&lovely, eurocentric beauty standards. As we all know, colorism is huge in India and Pakistan. Our society has come to the point where people talk about fighting oppression and uplifting women, but no one actually does anything about it. In this photoshoot I wanted to help represent darker skinned girls in the media, and address an issue through fashion photography.

Little girls grow up with their mothers bantering them about their skin color and how a man would never want them because they’re too dark. This does not help a girl’s self confidence, and it’s important to teach them from a young age that they’re beautiful and worthy in order to prevent them from being a self conscious teen. It’s also important to teach other girls that are lighter skinned to support these girls. In high school, a South Asian boy my friend had a crush on said that she was “too dark” and basically implied that’s the reason why he wouldn’t want a relationship with her. Comments like these are what destroy girl’s self confidence, especially when they’re young, vulnerable and lost. Support and help your sisters!

With the rise of young South Asians taking their pride in jewelry and colorful clothes to Instagram, it’s important not to romanticize the culture. Every culture has it’s good and bad, and although it’s totally fine to appreciate and be grateful for the good, we shouldn’t be silent about the bad especially if we are privileged. While our own South Asians are constantly romanticizing our culture, but not acknowledging it’s dirty laundry they are also promoting social marginalization. Women are treated horribly, LGBTQ isn’t a thing (especially in Pakistan), and more of our afro-south asian brothers and sisters are murdered on the streets the longer we stay silent. Instead of bringing light to these issues, our culture keeps quiet.

- Photographer Simrah Farrukh