You must have heard about “Black Lives Matter” as a slogan on news or on social media since it's such a big movement. It has had a worldly impact.However, does it really matter in South Asia since we as a society never talk about it even though we experience it in our everyday lives?

You may call it racism or just mindset of people here. This is one of the stereotypical thoughts of our society. We might not even realize how racist we are and how we promote it in our everyday lives, may it be at home, media, workplace and even at schools.

From our childhood, we have been hearing the word “gora chitta” (milk-white skin-typically a synonym for "beautiful") or “sanwala” (dark brown to dusky skin complexion), this is actually a discrimination of white and black people in our society and an example of racism. We usually describe people by these words. We should also not forget the big part media has been playing in this. Whenever in a film or drama or even commercial, there is a heroine or main character, its supposed to be fair in complexion and if there is a side character mostly maids, they are supposed to be dark in complexion. Now this might not seem as such an issue but it has been creating a great impact on our minds from our childhood.

Another problem is with the beauty standards the society has set for everyone, such as being fair is the only way to look pretty. Girls are taught from their childhood to not go under sun so that they don’t get darker in complexion. They are told that if they want to look pretty, they should be fair in complexion and this forces them to use cheap fairness creams and lotions which can destroy their natural skin. We may not seem to realize or focus on such small things but they are shaping the way we think. We may not be saying this out loud but deep in our hearts and minds, we still believe that white people are superior than black.

People who face racism and such judgements because of their dark complexion can go into trauma for years thinking that they are not worth anything or are inferior. This shows how we fail as a human society in not realizing that our complexion is God gifted and people who have different complexion are beautiful, valid and can be successful wherever they go.

All this needs to stop and we can start by not judging people with a darker complexion, by treating them the same way we treat others, by not describing them as someone who is “different” than we are, by teaching our children that we are as a whole a human race and there should be no discrimination by color of complexion. Each one of us as a whole society should think about it. Only by this we can create a peaceful and prosperous human society that actually respect all people of any race.