I remember when my second daughter was born with darker skin color than the rest of the family and I was made to feel as a mother that she was somehow less than my other daughter, less lucky, less beautiful, less. As if she didn’t deserve to wear certain colors,…
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Following on the heels of Mindy Kaling’s black-and-white Elle cover controversy is Lupita Nyong’o’s Vanity Fair cover debate. Within minutes of these two images being released, one Twitter user after another began to point out that these fashion magazines had lightened the skin color of their cover girls.
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Intra-Muslim racism is an issue often swept under the rug in the American Muslim community. Some of its manifestations are overt while its varying expressions tend to be more subtle. In order for us to be the community, which Allah (swt) describes as “the best nation brought forth from humankind” [Qur’an 3:110], we must put forth the same, if not more, intellectual and social energy, in confronting intra-Muslim racism as we do when confronting Islamophobia.
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<< From the AltMuslimah Archives >> Looking into the mirror, I stare at the reflection of my chai-colored forehead; I pause and consider the shades of color slowly descend down my face. Peeking through the brown, a soft pink highlights my cheekbones and the dimples around my crooked smile. The protected skin around my eyelids is the much coveted milky cream color that incites the unwelcome thought of discontent at the shade of my skin.
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The latest Bollywood song blared from the speakers and the crowd at my sister’s wedding cheered in delight. As I laughed with my friends and shimmied my hips in time to the music, I was unaware that a family friend’s son was observing me from across the room. He had attended the event in order to “take a look at me” for a possible rishta (proposal). I didn’t make the cut, however. I wasn’t gori (fair) enough.
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“I often have to wonder [what] my great grandfather, who converted to Islam from Sikhism in Delhi, would [say if he were to] see all this. He broke from his family, lured by the egalitarian and authentic message of Islam. How would he feel if he knew, generations later, [that] his son would be confronted by educated, religious Muslims who are obsessed with skin color?”
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