Shades of Brown: How does colorism impact South Asian mental health? (Part 2)

Written by Dr. Komal Gupta

Reviewed and Edited by Leah Berk

Photo by Ramez E. Nassif

Colorism is a sensitive issue that is difficult for many of us to acknowledge and talk about. As a mental health professional and a South Asian woman, I feel that it is very important to create a safe and respectful space to identify our own internalized colorism and recognize how it impacts our lives and those around us. The intent of this article is not to represent every South Asian person’s experience with colorism (my experience as someone with a light brown skin tone limits my perspective) but to initiate a discussion about the systemic impact of colorism and the resulting impact on the individual.

South Asians often hear unsolicited commentary and judgment about how “dark” and “fair” their skin is from family, relatives, peers, aunties and uncles. For many South Asians, lighter brown skin tones are associated with attractiveness, “goodness”, status and competence (Tummala-Narra, 2007) and darker skin tones with a lack of beauty, “badness”, lower status and lower intelligence. These skin color stereotypes are ingrained in families, communities and sociopolitical systems that we live in and has a resulting impact on an individual’s mental health. How someone perceives your skin tone within and outside the South Asian community can impact your body image, self-esteem, sense of ethnic belonging and family relationships.

Body image

Skin color stereotypes can affect how you think and feel about your body and how you think you are being viewed by others (e.g., Bhagwat, 2012, Shaikh, 2017). The ethnic and racial communities you interact with do contribute to your beliefs, feelings and thoughts about your skin color. For example, you might view yourself as less attractive or desirable if you are often shamed for your skin color being darker than the South Asian peers or family members you spend a majority of your time with. Or, if you are a racial minority, you might feel disgusted with your skin color if it is often eroticized or makes you feel “othered.” You could also feel and think about your skin color differently in one interpersonal context versus another (e.g., school, religious/cultural community, work environment, home, on social media, on a date, geographic location).

Self-esteem

Internalizing these skin color stereotypes can also affect your self-confidence, how you feel about your intelligence and competence, and your sense of self-worth, according to Dr. Sarah L. Webb, colorism expert. She describes how some individuals with darker skin tones can develop limiting beliefs, such as tolerating abusive behaviors “to earn” acceptance or disqualifying oneself from applying to academic or work opportunities because of low self-worth. In the marriage market in the South Asian community, there is a disproportionate amount of pressure for women with darker skin tones and their families to prove themselves worthy through other means to be considered for a marriage match since being “fair” is considered a South Asian beauty ideal and a status symbol.

If your skin tone has been idealized in the community, it may also contribute to developing a vulnerable self-esteem. For example, some individuals with lighter skin tones might “feel good” about themselves if they often receive admiration, preferential treatment and approval based on their skin color. This might bring up anxiety about maintaining skin color if it contributes to their self-confidence and it might also result in imposter feelings for obtaining life opportunities if they do not feel “seen” for other parts of their identity.

Identity and Ethnic Belonging

Someone can develop insecurities about their ethnic belonging based on social judgments of being “too dark” or “too light,” according to Dr. Pratyusha Tummala-Narra, research professor at Boston University and Director of Community-based Education at the Danielsen Institute. Your ethnicity can be completely discounted or inaccurately assumed based on the shade of your skin color.

Being identified with a specific racial and ethnic group based on your skin color also carries expectations that you identify with that racial and ethnic community (Tummala-Narra, 2007). If you are correctly identified as “brown” and South Asian, you can be faced with assumptions that you follow certain cultural traditions, holidays, etc., which can engender its own type of insecurities. The social pressures to show or to prove that your “ethnic enough” can occur within the cultural group you identify with and under the gaze of other racial and ethnic groups, according to Sahaj Kohli, MA, mental health professional and founder of Brown Girl Therapy.

Examples

• You might feel unseen, dismissed or angry if someone identifies you as South Asian based on your skin color if you are from a different ethnic and racial community or do not identify with the culture.

• You might feel ashamed when one of your South Asian peers mocks you for being too “whitewashed” if you identify with South Asian culture but are not as knowledgeable, or disagree with certain parts of your ethnic heritage.

Painful family dynamics

Skin-tone prejudice and discrimination within your family can result in a range of painful and pleasurable feelings, complicated family dynamics, and traumatic stress. Having your skin color idealized or devalued by family members in explicit and implicit ways can bring up pleasurable feelings like joy, omnipotence, and pride as well as painful feelings like guilt, envy, fear, and rage. Alliances can form between family members based on similar skin tones (Tummala-Narra, 2007), which can create a variety of painful family dynamics such as sibling rivalry, power struggles, and scapegoating.

Colorism within families can also result in emotional and physical abuse, neglect, and/or abandonment (Dr. Sarah L. Webb). Abuse can occur for individuals who have lighter skin tones and for those who have darker skin tones depending on the family and sociocultural context. For example, someone can experience traumatic stress reactions due to being scrubbed viciously with bleach on a regular basis in efforts to lighten a darker skin tone. Or, another person might be anxiously preoccupied with maintaining or enhancing their lighter skin tone by any means necessary in efforts to protect themselves from abuse. In situations of neglect, family members might ignore the child with the unwanted skin tone and deprive the child of any love, attention, affirmation and resources so they internalize this view of themselves as “bad.”

Summary

Skin color stereotypes are systemically perpetuated in the South Asian community (and other racial and ethnic communities) and in turn, can impact body image, self-esteem, sense of ethnic belonging and family dynamics, to name a few areas. In any efforts to make changes with our mental health, it is important to consider how internalized colorism can play a role. To learn more about how colorism is systemically perpetuated, refer to Part 1 of this series.

References

Bhagwat, R., (2012). The relationship of skin tone to physical and mental health outcomes in South Asian Americans. Dissertation.

Shaikh, M. (2017). Struggling to escape colorism: Skin color discrimination experiences of South Asian Americans. Thesis

Tummala-Narra, P. (2007). Skin color and the therapeutic relationship. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 24(2), 255-270.