Skin whiteners labeled racist

[Liberal_in_LA]

y Sara Sidner
CNN

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Cosmetic advertisements in Asia are targeting men with blunt campaigns aimed at skin color that one lawmaker labels racist.

In one TV commercial, two men, one with dark skin, the other with light skin; stand on a balcony overlooking a neighborhood. The dark skin guy turns to his friend and says in Hindi, "I am unlucky because of my face." His light skin friend replies, "Not because of your face, because of the color of your face."

Suddenly the light skin guy throws his friend a cream. It's a whitening cream.

It is one of several television commercials aimed at men in Pakistan and India. In the end the darker skin actor is shown several shades lighter and he gets the girl he was after. Most of the ads end up that way.

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Skin whiteners were once targeted only to women. Now the products are a hot commodity for men.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/09/india.skin/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

[KingFlorez]

1. That's pretty bad

It obviously is the norm to push identity issue in India. It's pathetic when any tries to change their skin color.

[tammywammy]

2. That's just sad really n/t

[itsrobert]

3. Coloring your skin is big business in the US of A

It's called tanning.

[Sparkly]

7. True... Weird, isn't it?

And of course, there's the quest for straight hair, and lighter hair colors... And now you can change your eye color with contacts.

[Abe66]

4. Remember the President talking about seeing an ad for this kind of shit when he was a kid?

I can't begin to imagine the effect that must have had on an African-American child.

[treestar]

5. that sucks

he should be proud of the skin he was born with

[LoZoccolo]

6. Best /Onion/ article evar! n/t

[Journeyman]

8. "Whence all this passion toward conformity anyway? --

diversity is the word.

Let man keep his many parts and you'll have no tyrant states.

Why, if they follow this conformity business they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but a lack of one. Must I strive toward colorlessness?

But seriously, and without snobbery, think of what the world would lose if that should happen.

America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain... our fate is to become one, and yet many--this is not prophecy, but description."

Ralph Ellison
Invisible Man