John Hope Bryant, the black centrist head of Operation HOPE in Los Angeles, California, writes about an ad he saw in Asia: "Traveling through South Korea on our way to Dalian, China, we came across this interesting advertisement in the Seoul, South Korea international airport. As you can see for yourself, it advertises techniques and cremes to help 'whiten' one's skin. We had to do a second take at this advertisement when we first saw it, but this is a norm it appears throughout some Asian cultures, including some Korean and Chinese; a desire to have the whitest skin possible. We also thought it interesting that the model depicted here is not Asian, but obviously Western, and obviously white (Caucasian). While I was mildly offended when I first saw this, and remain somewhat puzzled by the obsession with 'whiteness,' I don't believe this has much to do with overt discrimination or racism. Basically, it's not personal (to me or African-Americans, or those with darker features). It is a preference, no difference than the preference of others in the United States to 'tan,' naturally or unnaturally, until their skin is almost to the point of being irreparably damaged."
My response: It is self-hatred. The ad has a white, Nordic-looking model and not an Asian model for a reason. I've read that about 40% of South Korean women bleach their skin to conform to this white supremacy standard.
Images From Seoul, South Korea
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1 comments:
actually it has nothing to do with that at all or most Asian cultures have always desired a pale white skin. It was a sign of how rich someone was. Most Ancient Asians never saw a or even new of Europeans. But as contact with Europeans grew it just made it a lil worse.
You should realize most Asian countries have a superiority complex and tend to dis like non Asians especially white people, this was probably just an attempt to ease away the discrimination
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