Umm...was that racist?
2014-06-03
I recently travelled to Inner Mongolia with my husband (white American), coworker (white American), and her boyfriend (a very dark skinned Thai). Why am I specifying the race and ethnicity? I'll tell you why. As is a common experience for foreigners, while the four of us were waiting for our train, a Chinese man asked if his adorable daughter could take a photo with us. We said yes and she stood in front of us and they took the photo.Totally normal, right? But then they showed me the photo and they cut my Thai friend's face out of the photo even though he was clearly part of our group.
I instantly felt very uncomfortable, but I couldn't put into words (English or Chinese) at the time why I felt weird. Later, the Chinese man said that my friend's skin was as black as an African person and I realized that I thought that is why they cut him out of the photo.
So two questions--why do Chinese like taking photos with foreigners, specifically white foreigners? And why did they cut my friend out of the photo?
I wouldn't say Thai people are darker than an average Japanese or Chinese person (I'm sure Japanese people would take it as an insult though!)
Thanks for the recommendation. I know that even within these dark skinned races like Thailand and India, they idolize people who are so pale they could pass for European. In America, being tan is considered very beautiful, but only to a certain degree.
Yes, I have noticed this fascination with pale skin and I don't understand it! It is true that my husband is white, but I married him because of his personality, not because of his skin color. Truthfully, I found dark skin to be very attractive.
A taxi driver started talking to me about how ugly black people are.
-Haha, I don't agree with you.
-I haven't seen any beautiful black person.
-How many black people have you seen? Not many, yes?
-Not many...
-That's why you're talking like this.
-They're so ugly.
-
Colorism is everywhere in the world, but in Asia maybe more prominent? Not sure. Even black and brown people do the discrimination, Indians especially. If you're interested, here's a black girl writing about the documentary Dark Girls, and the comments section gets aggressive http://www.xojane.com/issues/dark-girls-documentary
African here... It is not just the Chinese that want to run away from dark skin, even the dark skinned people want to be light skinned...even in Thailand or Africa, there is a race to lighten up as light has been taught, throught subtle and overt means, to represent beauty ...even the Bible speaks of 'Whiter than snow I want to be' the devil is dark, evil is dark... it is a simple association... i guess Ivan Pavlov's experiment was right...
For example...the fact that you think your husband is white, is itself indicative of what you have grown up on...if you see me you would say...black man, even though only my hair is...in the end, if i accept to be black, i can be everything...evil, devil...and definitely not in the photo...
But again, Asians are not keen on Asians...i go around with Koreans and they are not treated like foreigners...
But dark skin is unusual too, isn't it?
Ugh, that is awful. Such different perceptions of beauty! I find Indian people to be very attractive.
I suppose I understand where those stereotypes stem from, but why was there a need to cut my friend out of the photo?
You are right, as an American, we are very sensitive to racial issues because of our national past with slavery and discrimination against African Americans.
white skin- unusual
dark skin- low class
On QQ a random guy started insulting Indian people to me for no reason, he was calling them "f***ing ugly" and I was bothered by his attitude+the language he's using and was so angry. Of course I deleted him, and I guess for some time he was confused that I might be Indian...
I guess it's the old-fashioned images make some of us act like that, white people like Euro or America are wealthy and pretty, dark or black skin such as Africa are poor and less educated.Although this racist thoughts will make you people uncomfortable, but it's definitely doesn't mean that we dislike them, maybe we just not as sensitive about race as you are.
Comment