Skin Colour

Michael and Jermaine Jackson, no reason - i just love them both and i love this photo!

I have a Hong Kong friend who used to live in Australia. When we went out in the sun, sometimes she would take an umbrella so she wouldn’t get too dark, even though she had the most perfect skin I have ever seen. I used to laugh at her going to such lengths not to get darker. But then I realized, I am exactly the same! I used to have that same obsession with skin colour, but in reverse. Most of my life I have wanted to be darker. It’s not because of vanity and the need to be tanned. It’s to do with identity and what I am supposed to be. My mum is white and my dad is black. It’s quite common nowadays. But for some reason, I came out white. I tan easily and I have an olive complexion, but still I look really white. My sister, in contrast, is very dark. She has black eyes, black hair and toffee skin.

There’s nothing wrong with this. Could we both help it what we look like? But it has created an unequal balance. Nowadays, it’s ‘cool’ to be black. My sister describes herself as black. In fact, I describe myself as black – because although my mum is white – it’s more about finding the side you most identify with and I identify mostly with being South Sea Islander and Aboriginal.

Because I identified mostly with my black side, I felt an urge to cave into pressure and look like what I identified with. I used to want my green eyes to turn brown and wanted my hair to be a mass of black curls instead of dark brown waves. I wanted my skin to just go that one shade darker so when people looked at me they would see me for who I am. I went to a South Sea Islander church but never felt accepted into the youth because I felt I was too light. This feeling heightened when my sister started going to church and automatically got accepted (I know this is probably not the reason but it was my feeling at the time) It was a stupid paranoia that came over me and kept nagging at me. Like a voice speaking to me – “you’ll never get accepted Amy, you have to be darker…you have to act darker.”

I remember going to see a Vanuatu group perform at church and I was talking to this lovely man and the first thing he said when I showed him my family was “Oh! I thought you were a white girl!” I laughed it off of course but it almost came as an insult. My mum teases me that even she is darker than me and I used to take it the wrong way and think that she was messing up my identity – as if I magically couldn’t be South Sea Islander anymore because of my skin. I think that’s why I started becoming even more interested in India – because sometimes I felt it was a culture I was closer to and would be more accepted into. It’s a stupid thought but I used to blame all of my social acceptance issues on the fact that I wasn’t dark enough.

But my mindset is changing. I’m not so insecure. I went back to my home for Christmas and realized that my little identity crisis was nothing to some others were having. My sister, for example, is obsessed with acting almost black American and strives to make many black friends. One time we were talking about identity and she said, “Amy, You have barely any black friends!” So I carefully told her she didn’t know what she was talking about. How do your friends make you what you are? I have many Indian friends but does that make me Indian? She feels pressure to act how she looks like to feel accepted into her group of friends.

I went to a beach down in Sydney on the weekend and my friend (who is an Aboriginal girl with a white father) was taunting me and saying – “Amy, are you going to get a sun tan?” and I said, I didn’t care because frankly I was just trying not to get burnt. Then she began teasing me saying “Your such a white girl.” It was annoying to me because right at that very moment I realized. Skin colour means absolutely zilch. Does the fact I am paler than my sister mean I don’t have the same blood running through my veins? Does the fact I have lighter eyes mean my dad is suddenly not my dad anymore?

I identify with my black side because it is a side that has been oppressed and continually has been subjected to racial discrimination. I want to be in that minority and stand up for what I believe in. My skin may be fair but that doesn’t mean that I can’t stand up and be who I am.

Skin colour is always going to be an obsession around the world. But I think I’m going to grow out of my stupid need to be darker and be who I am. God made me this way and I’m going to stay this way!

Luv Amy