i've lived with Shadeism stalking me my whole life and i find this video to be so brutally honest and accurate that i worry the gut instinct response from too many viewers will be complete and utter denial:
"that may happen to OTHER people, but I would never fall prey to that!"
many decades ago when i was in kindergarten in scarborough, i remember my east indian family being terrorized by an equally east indian neighbour simply because she was a shade lighter skinned than my sisters and i. i remember that same neighbour partnering with a british child from two houses away as they both used their delicate pink chalk to scrawl vicious racist epithets on our driveway. i remember how such incidents led to my sister being found vigorously scrubbing her face with soap and with tears streaming down her cheeks. when asked why she was doing this: "i want my colour to be lighter".
now, just the other day, i had to cut off an east asian student in my Global Citizenship class from his intolerable comments about africans despite the fact that he has many african-canadian colleagues in the same class.
although i pray this video opens some eyes and motivates some questions, my sadness toward the human condition often drowns my hope.

Wow to your wonderful video!!!

Thank you my ladies and Derek for sharing such a wonderful and truthful video. I know what it is to be a dark skin black woman and accepting my skin wasn't easy. Today I help people with their selfesteem and one of the big issues is shadeism. You women did an excellent job documenting this information and I am possitive many people will learn from it. Thank you so much for your hard work and my God bless your mission.

Love and Blessings,

Sandra Graves

Wow... Just wow... I mean, I knew this was an issue in many parts of the world, but I didn't know about the historical ties to the Hindu Gods..

Amazing Job Ladies! Keep it up:)

Arab women join this group, with also the "good hair/bad hair" issues inherent in afro/asian brown cultures. Fuller lips vs. thinner lips, wider noses vs. narrower noses, and the disdain rather than celebration of those attributes deemed less "european" continues its epidemic level of self-hatred.

All are a result of sustained colonialism, as was so beautifully illustrated in this film. It breaks my heart to see the author's niece going through the same thing, so beautiful and bright, and yet brings a smile to my face knowing that there is someone in her life who has the ability and desire to help her change her own self-perception.

I hope she grows into her beauty with power and celebration.

well... men have issues too. men coming to canada from asian coutries are way shorter/smaller than avarage canadian male population. Nowadays it's becoming a trend among asian women to date other race men who are 'bigger'. Even I can bet anything all of the women who participated in the documentary will think twice to date a man 1 foot shorter than her. I personally consider dark skinned women are very pretty. But I want to stretch one thing that our attraction to opposite sex is ingrained in our biological system so much that no such documentary or public awareness can really change it.

Brilliant. Culturally sensitive and a great educational tool.
Thank you.

Thank you for bringing that to the forefront. Very effective.

Thanks for the film.

The fact that this issue even exists is AMAZING. Humans are supposed to be different from animals in our ability to think and reason ... but this is a demonstration of lower-level human notions: ones that ascribe beauty to an organ called skin. How amazingly ridiculous. How can some folks be intelligent in every other way ... yet fall for the beauty standards of their oppressors & ancient notions of attractiveness?

I'm so glad my parents affirmed me and I encourage all parents out there to affirm their children with the last breath they have. Please, please, please don't be dumb enough to plant thoughts of inferiority in your children based on the skin they had no control over & shouldn't change if they could.

You got GUTS for addressing this issue!

That was an excellent video! Thank you for directing me to it. I wish that they could have spoke more about ancient India, because very few people are aware of how the original people there were dark hued people who migrated out of Africa... and settled there, until the invasion of lighter hued people much later in history.

I'm glad they mentioned the color caste system that is apart of European imperialism that was implanted in every land that was invaded and conquered. Today everyone is still receiving this social color caste indoctrination through the media's television, movies and images projected in magazines and books, which is why very young children are heavily impacted by the effects of this conditioning. I'm sure you've seen the video, "A Girl Like Me." youtube.com/watch?v=YWyI77Yh1Gg

President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez mentioned this in the past and it is also mentioned in the video, "South of the Border." It's a very interesting and eye opening film.

youtube.com/watch?v=qoRjmYm6ry4

Sadly, people are psychologically convinced to avoid speaking on the subject. These taboos run the fear that someone is watching or listening and it would be considered wrong to speak of the roots of it or how it continues to shape our minds, young and old.

Hey Amanda, Its Yunus here. I just wanted to say congrats for making an awesome and extremely educational documentary. Keep the spirit and spread the world sister! Check out some of my own little efforts in dispelling the myth that Africans only play drums /percussion: youtube.com/watch?v=A65rpKJGHiI
In this documentary, I also attempt to show the complexity of african music traditions as part of the enduring intellectual and creative foundations of the continent. Aluta continua!

Great documentary, just a thought. To be light or white skinned is not to be “far”, that suggests that to be dark skinned or black is to be unfair, with is what the colonial system wants you to think.

I was born in New Orleans and the light skinned/dark skinned still continues today. I love this documentary and plan on sharing to everyone I know. Awesome that you've found your voice so early! Kudos mon chere!

This is such a moving video! I am so happy that this was made. I will be sharing this with everyone. VIVA LA MOVIMIENTO!!!

The beautiful little girl in the video broke my heart when said she needs to become white.

This topic was touched on in a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell called "Black Like Them".

But your short documentary did a MUCH better job of exploring the issue. Yes, better than Gladwell.

It would be a tragedy if this video didn't receive wide spread viewing and coverage.

Great Video !

Wonderful! Most certainly an issue that needs to be dealt with on an international scale.

to nayani and all the other fierce womyn in this video--thank you so much for this piece.

i work with a youth group for youth of color and white allies, that does video work around social justice issues. it is always inspiring to see such solid work like this. i am going to share it with them and hopefully we can have a discussion about it.

solidarity/never stop!
~alex

Excellent documentary, thank you for making it. I live in Bangalore, India and here in India you witness shadeism every single day. For example: if you watch an ad on tv, it's clear that they've set up the lighting such that the actors' skin appears lighter. We must keep speaking out about this.

Thank you for posting! I really appreciate it! ;)

who gave you permission to invade my thoughts and make the documentary of my life? All kidding aside...this was great and simple and straight forward. All those beautiful young women and the silly shi@ we have to go through for nothing...stuff that doesn't really matter at all beyond the recognition of the wonder and beauty of diversity.

Ladies and company, thank you for producing this very educational short film about shadeism. I knew that the color chart existed and wide spread, but I never thought that it also existing in Southern Asia.

I run a community website called Blasianton.com; please let me know if I am able to feature this film for my community members. thanks

this is amazing!

Powerful film! Thank u for making this. This film generates great dialogue.

I just saw the film on Saturday at the Empowering Women of Color Conference at UC Berkeley. What a powerful film. Like the doc, the room was full of women and a sprinkling of men of many different backgrounds. We had a wonderful discussion that could have gone on for days. I look forward to seeing the film when it's finished and will help with setting up screenings. Thank you so much. Yvette
kpfa.org/womensmagazine

great film, great topic. hope that it's exposed to many, many people.

there is one thing i want to dispute though: saying that the ramayan portrays a war b/w a light skinned hero and a dark skinned villain. i don't argue that art work in india (inaccurately) portrays deities as light but the actual book itself does not say this anywhere.

the ramayan describes multiple times that rama, lakshaman, and sita are "dark." likewise the in the mahabharata which features krishna (which means "black complexion") all the main characters are described as dark and beautiful, including the main female protaganist draupadi.

as for the "evil and dark" ravana, ravana is not referred to as evil in the ramayan. the ramayan says he holds the wisdom of 10 men and that he was rewarded with blessings from Shiva (God) for his devotion. his one act of evil is kidnapping Sita and this is why there is a big war. it's not an issue of light skinned northerner (since Rama is explicitly described as dark in the text) vs. dark skinned southerner.

I also want to point out during the times of ancient India there were no light skinned northerners. 1500 BC and before that time, white ppl were in swamps and caves. the majority of the world's civilized population was black and brown and the idea of light northern indians is something made up by white historians in the europe - the same ones who said egyptians, incans, and mayans were white.

Thank you everyone, for your feedback! We really appreciate it. We are currently working on a feature-length documentary, so all of your comments and sharing is very crucial to the project moving forward.

Excellent documentary
The whole fair and lovely type ads also invade our arabic channels. the more westerner you look the more "chic" you are. it's depressive. I feel like most of these movies and music out there are sending people a message: you want fame and fortune? lose 30 pounds and lighten your skin!
On a technical point of view, i loved how you added the words on the screen, beautiful.
directing and editing is very pro.

i would love to see the artistic expression against shadeism, like D'bie Young for instance, an excerpt of her play, Lost lyrics projects, etc.
the other side would also be interesting to see, if you can talk to a magazine editor and ask them if they would put a dark skinned model without photoshopping her etc. (the dove soap ad that shows us all the changes a model goes through before publishing her picture)...

i am very exciting and impatient to watch the long feature
best of luck, you have my support all the way!
PS: you should have facebook, twitter pages and a website, so we can spread it easily!

Hi Farida!

You can actually connect to Shadeism through different web formats.

Facebook: facebook.com/shadeism
Twitter: twitter.com/Shadeism
And our website is simply shadeism.com

Thank you for your support!

Check out my blog article which addresses how this info affects specifically the African-American community:

meeshe011.blogspot.com/2011/05/skin-color-and-hair-texture-black.html

11 videos, 2 poems, 2 articles plus more links in the comments section below the article.

It is truly a wealth of information about this topic for those wanting to know more!

Something about Rama and Ravana needs to be corrected here. In the Ramayana it is stated clearly that Rama is dark skinned, with broad nose and think lips, where is Lakshmana is lighter skinned, with a thinner nose and lips.

Rama and Krishna are india's two main heroes in Indian mythology, yet they are rarely protrayed faithfully in popular paintings. They are both painted a blue or a grey tinged white color. The name Krishna itself means 'black', and he is described as having the complexion of rain bearing cloud. How that turns out as white simply beats me.

Indians need to work on their skin color issues as much as Africans of the diaspora

We are all a shade of brown and we are all beautiful! Thank you for addressing this topic with class, dignity, heart, and diversity. Oh, and your niece is adorable!!

Thank you ladies SO much for making this. It not only effects women of color, but white women as well. I had a friend in high school who was lighter than me in the summer (She was a mix of african and native american) and I would joke with her that "I was blacker than she was." I am so embarrassed that I used to say that to her after watching this documentary and I'm ashamed at how it might have made her feel.

It's funny, isn't it? The white girls are tanning as not to be called "pasty" and the black/brown girls are bleaching as not to be called "dark" and associated with evil/bad.

Why can't we just accept ourselves/each other?

Wow... This was definitely educative. Most dark skinned people really feel less of themselves due to their skin colour but I love to see myself as unique and blessed. :)

Shadeism is an issue in East Asia as well. Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese and others all strive for lighter skin tones. The desire for lighter skin goes back centuries if not millennia in China (for example). Modern TV in East Asia is chockablock with ads for skin lightening creams and women often hide from the sun.

Solid!

Amazing =)