Instances such as ‘George Floyd’ murder in Minneapolis, that too during Corona pandemic, make us all feel disgusted, disappointed & guilty that we all somewhere let him down. After giving it some thought, more than the solution, movement in the right direction seems to be – to continue protesting for the same age-old human rights – no matter how messy, irritating & damaging the outcry can get. We deserve to experience all the inconvenience of the fuss created by rallies simply bcoz of the malicious and maniacal mindset we all have allowed to prevail – either knowingly or unknowingly
Sadly, incidents such as these set us all back to stone-age. These are the times – we need to be grateful to the power and impact of social media for consistently putting such issues on global map. Also, heard from close quarters – a person who is living there for 7 years and been a witness to daily on goings, it’s sheer luck that the video made it to mainstream news. Such racist incidents are a common sight and get swept under the carpet. In absence of reporting, data never projects the real ground reality. So all the insights derived from inadequate and inaccurate data, claiming reduction of crime and improved law & order is just a joke.
We have had enough of all the goody-two-shoes kind of shows put up on media by thought leaders, people in power, influencers/celebrities etc. Even a child can see through the absence of authenticity in such talks & tweets. It’s easy to preach spirituality and make ‘take a deep breath’ kind of statements from the comfort of home and newsroom studios especially when the blow is not personal. When the pain hits home – is only when we realize and understand the beast like behavior of the color clan & why they are unruly at times
We all love to spend our days as calmly and as lovely as possible. But, for some, there is no choice than to rebel and participate in protests not to bring about change but to save their lives. Just imagine the amount of fear & inhibition in children of color. There can never be a level playing field with such mental shackles put on few segments of society. It is gut wrenching to see the above pic and also, if one is sensitive, it answers the root cause of social imbalance that we all are still propagating to our future generations. Gap between haves & have-nots – not just in terms of money but basic privilege to be treated like humans is growing. Glue the gap or gape at gloom
My favorite culprit word ‘conditioning’ that has allowed the beauty standards to sustain for so long is somewhere the underlying foundation for all the chaos and clutter. We have attributed goodness and nobility to lighter skin complexion and proportionate slender structure. Mental image of devatas (gods) and asuras (demons) are evidently + literally associated with white and black color respectively. Any monster’s visual is usually projected having dark mocha skin, disproportionate silhouette creature with rough and tough entangled hair, big lips and yellowish sharp out-of-place tooth – stereotypical to the silly heights. Even a planet that is meant to test people by making them suffer so that they become humble i.e. Mr Saturn/Shani is black in color & cold in behavior.
Every girl on earth would have dolled up in black many a times as it’s the go-to color for any occasion. Black shade is the most appropriate and classy choice when it comes to business formals. Any lass saying no to LBD (Little Black Dresss) is quite unheard of. Every closet’s must have is a black attire – tried and tested safe formula that can successfully hide all the flab of our body. When it is such an essential and loved color all over the world then why are we so mentally blocked when it comes to black skin. Same color that hides our flaw somehow mysteriously becomes a flaw when it is a skin color – to an extent where we treat blacks as pariahs & they are constantly told through gestures that they are surplus to requirements
Violent version of any goddess is usually black and scary. Let’s just for a moment – attribute asuras/rakshasas (demons) the handsome Tom cruise look and George Floyd cast as devatas/Greek god. Whole game gets reversed. We will gradually stop to judge or have prejudice based on someone’s outer facade. We will get used to the fact that a kind or a killer soul can be present in all colored individuals – whites, wheatish, reddish, black, brown whatever. High time we have mediums of influence such as magazine covers, movies, musicals, theatre, school book stories, paintings, religion, mythology narratives etc project both good and bad with wide array of appearance representation. Re-imagine lord Rama looking like Ravana and vice versa with inherent qualities being the same – whole perception of mapping vices & virtues with looks & color changes. Govt proposed law to fight against fu*k*ng fairness creams & weight loss ads is a welcome move
Longest running stage show ‘Beauty and the beast’ sort of tried its best to break the beauty myths but ended up promoting the same – there was no need for the beast to become a charming prince at the end. She was slowly developing affinity for the beast’s warm qualities. Blackmagic is considered weird – anything negative has prefix black. Why not call it whitemagic ? We are just used to associate anything repulsive with black & that makes an entry into our psyche and sadly stays in our subconscious mind. We all are so badly maligned by generations of ‘white color superiority’ concept that – the only way forward seems to be a ‘cri de coeur’ – to throw spotlight on the injustice. Unfortunately, we are left with no choice than to shout the popular slogan – “Viva la revolution”
Note : Cri de coeur – passionate appeal, complaint, protest; Viva la revolution – long live revolution;
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