racism sucks.

What's the opposite of vellaikkaari? I get so upset at being called whitey all the time, but I think it's time to think about the flip side of vellaikkaari. I think I've got it bad being called whitey? That's nothing. Because white skin is what is privileged here; "fair" skin is all the rage. Fair skin is what is considered beautiful, and the whiter the better. We in the U.S. might pay hundreds of dollars and risk skin cancer to get a tan, but that concept is completely foreign here in a place where dark skin is very much looked down upon. The opposite of vellaikkaari is karuvaaci ("blacky"), kaakkaa ("crow"), and even karu vandu (black bug). There are hundreds of other bad names as well. I could probably do my entire dissertation on such hate speech against dark-skinned people.

From literally the moment a person is born here, their skin tone is made an issue. If a child is fair, it is praised. If a child is "black," some folks can't help but be disappointed. You're a woman and you want to get married? Are you very black? Then you'd better have a shit load of gold because you're not going to find a husband without it. If you are a man and you are very black, it might also be difficult, but if your wife is more fair than you it's considered a point of pride, an advantage for the man. Fairness seems to be about the only category in which the woman can "best" the man, as the groom must necessarily be taller, older, more educated, and earn more than the woman. The bride shouldn't be too much fairer than the man, however, as she will be egotistical and difficult to manage.

A friend of mine here is considered very "black." Her mother-in-law has discriminated against her from day one. I guess if you are an evil mother-in-law with low self esteem a good person to bully would be a darker-skinned daughter-in-law. In the beginning of my friend's marriage, her husband bought her gold, as her mother-in-law had stolen her jewels from day one, and she was a happy housewife in the neighborhood, enjoying life. Her mother-in-law, and others in the neighborhood, began to resent her saying, "She's so black and look at how she is wearing that gold and nice clothes! Look at how her husband is keeping up that blacky!" ETC. It's basically looked at as tantamount to throwing pearls to swine, for such a dark-skinned woman to be wearing gold. Why should such a dark-skinned person be enjoying life so much in the midst of persons not as dark as her?

Well the evil mother-in-law got her wish, and sure enough they put enough of the evil eye on my friend that her husband went completely rotten and her entire family life went to hell in a handbasket. Now her in-laws have completely cast them out, and her husband has run off with a prostitute, leaving her to raise two kids pretty much alone. But the greatest insult of all has been the fact that in order to survive she has had to pawn off all her gold. And let me tell you folks, if you aren't wearing a shred of gold and you are dark-skinned, people of greater means than you will often treat you like total shit here. And I've seen it first hand, going around the city with my friends who don't have any gold. It's like seeing an entirely different side of this culture. If you are black and are wearing tons of gold, your skin color can be perhaps overlooked because you are wealthy. Gold can buy you some respect. But if you are black and you have no gold, don't expect to always be treated decently.

I told my friend about racism in the U.S. which she was very interested to hear about. There are a lot of similarities between Jim Crow laws in the U.S. and the practice of untouchability as it still exists in many parts of Tamil Nadu. Remember separate water fountains for blacks and whites? Dalits in Tamil Nadu villages are still fighting for the right to drink water out of cups and not coconut shells. There are human rights groups in India fighting for untouchability to be considered as a form of racism. This is a pretty loaded concept that I won't get into right now, but I bring it up because I think it is something to think about.

It is incredibly distressing to comprehend the self-loathing involved in this sort of racism. My friend was looking at an Entertainment Weekly magazine that my identical twin sent me. Inside there were many African American singers and movie stars featured. Firstly, she was surprised because most people here think that all Americans are white. She was amazed to see African Americans featured in the same pages as white people, just as famous and rich as white people. "Even though these people are black, look how much self respect and self confidence they have," she said. "We don't feel that way here."

Another distressing manifestation of racism here is the fact that many people seem to take heart that "there are people who are even darker than Tamils," meaning Africans. Many of the people who have referenced this to me do not know about Africa, where Africa is, or who Africans are, but they tell me that they have heard that there are people on this Earth who are certainly blacker than Tamils. One time a friend's mother was telling me this, after she praised my skin for being white. Then her daughter said, "But mother, we are just as black as they are." I feel particularly badly for the many African students who are studying in Madurai. I can only imagine how they are treated. As my friend pointed out, "People here will stare at you because you are white, but it is out of surprise. They like what they see. But they will stare at the Africans to make fun of them."

I do think that things will eventually change here over time, but it's going to be slow. There is actually a certain resistance brewing towards this kind of racism within Tamil cinema, but only insofar as the heroes are concerned. The hero of the Tamil cinema gets darker while the heroine gets fairer. There was an interesting scene in a recent film in which they hero is very dark and the heroine incredibly fair. When he flirts with her she scoffs, "Will someone this fair ever love someone as black as you?" to which he replies, "Hey! My color is on the top of your head, and your color is on the bottom of my foot!"