Fighting Colourism and South Asian attitudes on dark skin

"I was depressed & suicidal because of how I was treated because of my skin colour."

In this episode, I speak with Seema Hari, who is a model, a Software Engineer and a powerful activist fighting colourism.

Seema talks about growing up as a dark skinned Indian girl and the awful way she was treated by teachers and adults around her. She talks about slowly worked towards loving her own skin colour – to become a model and an activist fighting hard to change South Asian attitudes towards dark skin. Seema is a passionate activist fighting colourism in South Asian society, constantly challenging Bollywood actors and government policies.

Together, we explore the South Asian fixation for fairer skin, with millions spent on skin lightening creams and bleaches. We talk about:

The idea of beauty attached to skin colourHow the Hindi word for beauty ‘gori’ translates as whiteHow our South Asian obsession with light skin damages life on so many levels

MORE ABOUT SEEMA:

Instagram: @seemahari

RESOURCES

Want to explore more about the issues discussed in this episode? Here are some articles/resources that you might find interesting:

Dark Is Beautiful

Guardian article

BBC article

NPR article

The Star article

Mentioned in this episode:

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