Bias against darker skin: Colorism gnaws in Britain’s minority communities

Whenever Samantha Symonds went to visit extended family in Singapore, she was always called “the English one.” Her Singaporean mother would regularly praise her for having “lovely tofu skin.” What they had all really meant, as Ms. Symonds recalls, was that she was “the pale one” in the family, loved and overly cherished for her fair complexion.

That sort of societal pressure is colorism, a form of discrimination distinct from racism and specifically focused against darker skin tones. And unusually, it is often born from within communities of color, and perpetuated by wider societal norms and habits.

The debate around what colorism is, and how it is perpetuated, has opened up in Britain following claims by Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess

Colorism at homeEurocentric beauty standardsSlow changes