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“Whiteness, like herpes, lingers forever. If you travel across South Asia, for example, you'll look at all the ads promoting beauty products and ask yourself why everyone looks like a white person from New Jersey with a summer tan. In fact, beauty is still often measured by saaf rang, or clean skin color, which refers to "light skin tone." Fair & Lovely cream sells like hotcakes all around South Asia, even though everyone knows it's bullshit and doesn't help make you either "fair" or "lovely." You can never wipe off the brown no matter how hard you try, no matter how hard you pray, but, still, people aspire and hope maybe, one day, one bottle will contain a magical elixir that takes them to Whiteness.” — Wajahat Ali
Whiteness, like herpes, lingers forever. If you travel across South Asia, for example, you'll look at all the ads promoting beauty products and ask yourself why everyone looks like a white person from New Jersey with a summer tan. In fact, beauty is still often measured by saaf rang, or clean skin color, which refers to "light skin tone." Fair & Lovely cream sells like hotcakes all around South Asia, even though everyone knows it's bullshit and doesn't help make you either "fair" or "lovely." You can never wipe off the brown no matter how hard you try, no matter how hard you pray, but, still, people aspire and hope maybe, one day, one bottle will contain a magical elixir that takes them to Whiteness.