Guess what I did for a couple of hours today?
OK, I’ll help because you can probably guess from the title. 🙂
I did what I NEVER did before in my life. I was checking up my skin color via internet. And I was not let down. If you have already did this, you know just HOW MANY pages exist on the place I call Zee Intertnetz. Let me tell you how much. A whole lotta too much.
My thought process went from oh, let me just take this quiz, to “What the actual hell they are talking about?!” As a person who grew up in a place where 99% of the people fit into a certain category, just range from a bit whiter to a bit darker, I can not define other people based on their skin color. I have seen maybe a few Asians and three (?) black guys/two black girls (!) in my entire life…
They are sure a rare species here and if they grew up here they are very likely to end up working for a modelling agency. The only people who are specifically defined by their characteristic skin type here are Gypsies and people from Kosovo. And with shame, I have to admit that “Gypsy” here stand for an insult, less of a worth, poor man or woman. About 95% of Gypsies in Croatia are poor, living in poor conditions, having a lots of kids, selling clothes on the ground at bigger bus stops and generally, not paying attention to school, education and manners. The biggest problem is getting families to understand how school is good for their kids and that with investing in education they can provide better living standards for their daughters and sons. Who am I kidding now, they simply have no money to send kids to school and that’s how they get labeled – cruelly.
With that being said, I see people as people. Black skin fascinates me, brown skin fascinates me, Latina skin, Asian skin, that beautiful Native American’s skin and all in between fascinates me. You fascinate me.
I was in a complete shock when I found out that there is a good Latina and a bad Latina, that Asian people use soaps for whitening their skin from a very young age, that brown people do not let their skin get in direct contact to sun, that black people use hair products to straighten their hair, and you get it, that BEING WHITE or WHITER is the goal of many people in the world. I hear about white privilege but what I don’t understand is why we created it? Because rich and influential people were white? Because colonialists were white? Why?
My skin tone is a bit unusual and I have heard question like this:
- Are you really white?
- Are you a half black-half white?
- You look Asian… Where are from?
- You look like a Latina! What are you?
So yeah… what are you is the question. WTF.
The answer is – I’m HUMAN.
But I felt each and every one of them flattering, and I’m being completely honest right now. I cherish them like compliments. Do I look at them that way because I AM WHITE, or because I never felt what is like to be stigmatized by the color of my skin?
I am telling you, this is a topic I want to discuss for quite some time. So, by this post, the theme is not addressed – it is OPEN. I am ending this post with the amazing speech of an AMAZING actress Lupita Nyong’o.
