7 ways Most Indians are Racist

1. Fairness Creams
This one is a no brainer - we promote, support and advertise fairness creams everywhere. Even if these might be on the decline in airwaves, their popularity keeps their makers rich and loaded. Hindustan Unilever's 'Fair and Lovely' alone brings in more than 2000 crore rupees per year to the corporate supergiant.

2. The 'South India' Stereotype/Stigma
South Indians across India are still referred to as Madrasis (an older name for Chennai), even though they speak more than 4 distinct languages and have vastly different cultures. Often the diverse peoples of the region are clubbed into one category, not acknowledging their differences and cultures and treated in a derogatory manner.
If you have ever been to boarding schools or college hostels you will find out that South Indian men and students are separated, mistreated and usually called names related to their skin colour or region (kaalia, blackies, etc.) This attitude reflects across most of "Northern India" where jokes are often made about South Indians and their skin colour and the different sounds of their language.

This prejudice goes much beyond skin colour and affects far more aspects of relationships between people from different parts.

Also read: confuseddesi for YKA

3. Fair Brides Wanted
Matrimonial advertisements, which have advanced with technology hold onto their prejudice of fair brides being better.

#Challenge - find one day of matrimonial advertisements where skin colour is not referenced in at least one ad.

Also Read: Rajyasree Sen for livemint
Also Watch: Khabsoorat Bahu (Play by Nakul Tomar and Chitransh)




4. The Fascination to the west and colonialists
If Indians saw a white person in their area, they stare. They stare and they get fascinated. They try harder to be to the white person's liking. They even go ahead and asslick the white person. Raise your hand if you were raised in India and didn't do this ever. We're all equally guilty of looking up to the west and white people as aspirational. (And some of them might be, but not because of their skin colour.)




5. Most Bollywood Songs

• Gori Tere Pyaar Mein, 
• Gori Gori Gori (Main Hoon Na), 
• Chittiya Kalaiya / White Kallaiya, 
• Gore Gore Mukhde

Also read: Anurag Verma for Huffington Post

6. Attacks on North East Indians, Africans
If you've been aware of the news in the past year, you know that there's been an outrage and protests about the treatment received by North-Eastern populations of India. Fellow countrymen ridiculed and beaten up, raped and harassed for their different facial structure and lifestyle. It's extremely disgusting and discriminatory.

Also Read: Sukrity Gogoi for Campus Diaries

Moreover, the same treatment is given to a growing African migrating population in India - most of who come to the country to study and are harassed, boycotted and even denied housing because of their origins and skin colour.


7. Abuses
Indian abuses might be vulgar and varied, but the fact remains that in most languages of India, the translation of black or dark is an abuse. But fair or gora is not. So much so, that there are specific derogatory words in languages to refer to African populations (which I will avoid using because of their level of profanity - equivalents to the international n-word).

Think Kaliya, Kala, etc.

I offer no further opinions or judgements. All sentiments mentioned here are my own. Images are taken from google search.