Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Whoʼs the fairest of them all?

- Sujatha Rao

This answer to the question in the title is what caused all the trouble in the enduringly popular fairytale SnowWhite and the Seven Dwarfs.

We all grew up listening to this fairytale of the beautiful little princess Snow White with a skin as white as snow, her jealous stepmother who tries to get rid of her, the seven dwarfs who help her and the handsome prince she ends up marrying in the end.

The magic mirror in the fairytale in a way symbolises ‘the mental bubble’ the queen lives in, which made her view ‘beauty’ as one thing, and one thing only.

While fairy tales are supposedly about fantasy, unfortunately this particular question seems to keep playing out in various versions even today, as the unquenchable thirst for the ‘fair’ skin is continuing to manifest itself in the present twenty first century in what is known as ‘Colourism’.

Colourism is a phenomenon wherein people are discriminated against the others simply owing to their skin shade.

History of Colourism

Throughout history and across the world the colourism negatively impacted socio-economic status leading to inequity, a few examples of which are as follows:

The Global Story

A ‘brown paper bag test’ was reported to be a common practice whereby a slave owner would compare the skin of the African American slave’s skin against a brown paper bag. If the skin was darker than the bag, the slave was not admitted for any indoor work and was banned from having access to certain privileges.