Some Indians are racist as fuck to other Indians. They have a caste system essentially based on skin colour.
The caste system is not based on skin color. That was a misreading of ancient Indian texts by colonizers in the 1800s. There are darker skinned people of an upper caste background in South India and vice versa in North India.
It is based purely on pedigree / who you are born to.
The caste system is medieval feudalistic bullshit that needs to be eradicated in all forms from every society.
“The British class system is so complex, so riddled with microscopic nuances and unspoken rules, that it functions essentially as a caste system. It is not about how much money you have; it is about an intricate tribal code of accent, vocabulary, and behavior that is almost impossible to learn later in life.”
Anthropolgist Kate Fox: Watching the English
“Class is a skin on the back of caste… In England, the class system is so rigid, so tied to ancestry, accent, and birth, that it functions essentially as a caste system”
Isabel Wilkerson: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent
“Nevertheless, the essential point about the English class-system is that it is not entirely explicable in terms of money. Roughly speaking it is a money-stratification, but it is also interpenetrated by a sort of shadowy caste-system; rather like a jerrybuilt modern bungalow haunted by medieval ghosts.”
George Orwell: The Road to Wigan Pier.
I have to assume this meme is talking about Bollywood, exclusively. Kollywood — for example — is full of Tamil-looking Tamils. Not to say racism in India doesn’t exist; there is a strange pride and passion about it.
Not the female actors.
Whitewashing/teaching that paler is purer and better on one side, and unfair representation so the Western audience with fucked education doesn’t get confused on the other. You know I was shocked at the lack of education I had on the region when I discovered that some African populations below Egypt are white. We didn’t get taught this shit
I feel that annoyance. For example when people call middle-easterners “brown,” happens even on lemmy, but I think it’s used as more of a rhetoric device meaning “non-european” here so it’s not as bad.
They think they’re all Muslims so they can’t be white. Which is funny for many reasons but also was true for parts of Europe that weren’t or were Catholic for a period of time.
It’s the same thing in Brazil.
Is the portrayal in non-Indian films bias or just a consequence of immigration patterns? The Indian immigrants that I’ve met in the USA have usually been relatively dark-skinned.
That you’ve noticed.
I have in mind the people I’ve worked with - I would have known where they were from even if they were lighter-skinned.
I’m a white dude and I work with an Indian guy that’s lighter skinned than I am
That still fits with what I was saying. I wasn’t assigning a negative meaning to it.
I just watched the trailer for the Ramayana movie, and NGL I only had two thoughts; One this looks like of awesome though cheesey, Two why is everyone so light skinned?
I’m a full Caucasian person, most of the cast looks lighter skinned than I do.
In Asia preference toward lighter skin tone existed before race idea introduced. Basically peasants working outside got tanned vs nobles staying indoors, it was class-based discrimination. It’s by no means pretty back then and later meld with western racism and got messier
Colorism predates the modern era in nearly all cultures.
During the Elizabethan era England, women used Venetian Ceruse, a mixture of white lead and vinegar, to paint their faces and necks chalk-white even though it caused hair loss, skin corrosion, and muscle paralysis.
In the early phases of globalization and during the great divergence, white/Western societies began to see themselves as the nobles of the world and their colonies as the inferior laborers. Essentially, it is what you’re describing but on a global scale. This further entrenched colorism globally.
Reversals of this mindset have only happened in the past 75 years.
Yash, who plays Ravana, and Sai Pallavi, who plays Sita, are both South Indian and not typically considered fair skinned. Sai has particularly spoken out against colorism in Indian film industries.
Ya I think that says a lot about that society that they like a certain type.
This is not racism though
Stereotype maybe
For non Indian films, yeah, stereotype. For Indian films, it is racism (as in not the obsolete concept of race, but of judging based on physical characteristics)
I’ll trust you on that. After all, it seems that you’re a westerners, and we know that you invented that shit
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