Anti-Blackness in the Panjabi community

Kala shah kala, mera kala hai sardar, goreyan nu daffa karo

Dark-skinned, dark-skinned, my beloved is dark-skinned, the fair-skinned can get lost

These are the lyrics to a popular Panjabi folk song traditionally sung at weddings and other such celebrations. Although the song itself is progressive and encourages society to change its views around colourism, this month, a Panjabi language film entitled Kala Shah Kala is being released and features the main lead in blackface. The character is shown to be struggling to find love due to his kala rang (dark colour).

This is not the first time the Panjabi film industry has done this to tell stories about the issues dark-skinned Panjabis face. The 2016 film Bambukat featured the female lead in blackface to tell the story of how her family treats her differently than her fair-skinned sister. Countless Panjabi songs speak of the ideal woman being slim, shy, and above all fair-skinned. Some singers even sing of their “progressive values” saying they would be okay with dating or marrying a girl with a dark complexion. Beauty is synonymous with fairness.

So, we need to talk about anti-blackness in non-black communities of colour. Today, I will be speaking specifically about the Panjabi community.

Many South Asian communities struggle with what is referred to as the “colonial hangover”- an obsession with fairness and whiteness, a desire to increase their proximity to whiteness in whichever way possible. This is also referred to as a desire to continue ghulami (slavery) for the white man even after the British left South Asia. The Panjabi community is no different.

Young children (mostly girls) are stopped from playing in the sun lest they get too dark, and are told that no one will marry them if they are not fair. Fairness creams and skin bleaching products are consumed in enormous amounts to satisfy this obsession with white skin. My grandmother’s sister is in her 70s and still uses a skin lightening cream called “Fair and Lovely” daily. She recently sent some to my 80 year old grandmother and encouraged her to begin using it as well so that she would look less dark. Dark skin is considered so ugly and undesirable that even in old age people actively try to get rid of it.

In the diaspora in North America parents tell their children to stay away from black children in school because they think those children are a bad influence and will corrupt their own children. By refusing to associate with black people, many first generation Panjabi immigrants try to appeal to white people and increase their proximity to whiteness to gain social power. Under white supremacist systems, it benefits people to assimilate and act as much like the ruling class as possible.

Many non-black people of color take advantage of the model minority narrative to show mainstream society (white people) that although they are not white, they are better than black people because they are better at serving whiteness. The stereotypes that Asian children are good at math and computer science are embraced because it makes the communities look productive and non-threatening to white supremacist systems.  

On the other hand, second generation children born in North America are engaging in more and more appropriation of black culture. While their parents wanted to gain social power in the land they immigrated to, the children grew up seeing and experiencing racism and violence from their white peers and became alienated from mainstream society. They learned to identify more with black culture than white culture, and quickly began to convince themselves that they too were black. Panjabi kids in North America began to consume rap music, dressing styles, wearing their hair in corn rows, and appropriating African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). Many have convinced themselves so strongly of their own blackness that they see no problem with saying the “N word.”

Perhaps one of the most visible examples of this appropriation is Lilly Singh, also known as Superwoman, the YouTube sensation from Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. As others have mentioned, although she is of Panjabi heritage, she frequently wears her hair in corn rows, uses AAVE, and mimics the accents of people from Trinidad and Tobago to promote her own brand and make money. It is important to note that once she is no longer creating content to profit from, she can stop “being black.” When it is more profitable for her to look white, she does so. When making appearances on television shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and Chelsea, the cornrows, clothes and accent are gone. Instead, we see straightened hair, mainstream clothing and her Canadian accent.

None of this is remotely acceptable. While on one hand people pretend to be black to gain cultural capital, this same group is able to stop being black whenever they want and many times perpetuate the same sort of racism upon black communities that white people do by perpetuating stereotypes. I have heard Panjabi men often talk about how they want to date black girls but they would never marry a black woman. They participate in the hypersexualization and dehumanization of black bodies the same way as others.

Following the death of Trayvon Martin and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, many second generation Panjabi children sat down and talked to their families about the anti-blackness in their community for the first time. For some, it helped change minds. But it was not enough. Anti-blackness not only still exists in Panjabi communities, it is thriving. We have to call it out every time we see it, no matter how uncomfortable the conversation is and how many people are offended.

In my own family, when my grandmother describes a beautiful girl, she will always mention that the girl was fair-skinned. It seems fairness is a prerequisite for beauty. This is where I began calling her out some years ago. Each time she says it, she looks at me and stops herself now that I’ve done it more than a few dozen times.

It is imperative for Panjabi communities to realize that we are all hurt by white supremacy. Instead of knocking others down, we need to get better at showing solidarity and using our privilege to advocate for black people and black causes. To start doing that, we all need to take the responsibility of calling out our family and friends when they participate in anti-blackness.