“My relationship with a skin whitening cream and that journey began at the age of 11 when I used my pocket money to buy a skin whitening product instead of my favourite chocolate. I will do anything to look like I belonged to my family.”
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Welcome everybody and thank you for joining this Mishcon Academy Session where I am going to be interviewing Shweta Aggarwal. This is part of a series of online events, videos and podcasts looking at the biggest issues facing society today. Just to introduce myself, I am Daniel Naftalin, I’m a Partner here and I am Chair of the Employment Department at Mishcon de Reya and I will be hosting today’s event. So about Shweta. So Shweta Aggarwal is an anti-colourism activist with a colourful life, a computer science engineer by way of background, her passion is dancing and writing. She grew up in India and Japan and after moving to London in 2000, she can a Bollywood Dance Company, ThreeBee; bold, beautiful and very Bollywood. If you read the book you will see B’s have a resonance in her life, alongside working at UBS in their IT department. As a creative director for 10 years, some proud moments involve her troop being semi-finalists in Britain’s Got Talent in 2010 and being invited by the London Olympic Team to audition for the final ceremony. A new passion emerged when she wrapped up her dance company to prioritise family life. The lack of representation in children’s books inspired Shweta to launch the Dev & Ollie series of picture books based on festivals in India. Her books are popular in schools and libraries round the world and Shweta has been awarded the Asian Woman of Achievement for Arts & Culture in 2016 and was invited by her, the late Her Majesty the Queen to Buckingham Palace for the UK Indian Year of Culture in 2017. Her awakening during the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 lead to her to pen her raw and honest memoir, ‘The Black Rose” which was released in December 2022 and the book has resonated globally. Today we welcome her to Mishcon de Reya.
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Thank you.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
We plan to take questions at the end but if you’ve got any burning questions as we go along, please feel free to put your hand up and we’ll try and incorporate them during the session.
So um, can you start by explaining the concept of colourism to an audience not all of whom will have an innate understanding and certainly not a lived experience of what’s involved.
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Sure. Um, firstly thank you so much for having me here, thank you for inviting me Mishcon um, it’s, it’s a great honour to be able to address this topic um a difficult topic um, so I hope that it’s okay for me to be very candid and I hope that you don’t mind me using terminologies and words um, such as white, black and brown to describe certain communities, only for the purpose of, of um, being able to explain the, the topic and you know, and putting it in context um, but not obviously in any other manner. Um, colourism is basically discrimination of prejudice that um, individuals of a certain community base um, because of their dark skin tone and it usually is something that you see within an ethnic group or race. Um, but that’s not to say that you don’t see colourism from somebody outside of the race. So what I mean by that for example is, say if somebody of, say, say a white person was repeatedly discriminating against a person of colour, black or brown um, by differentiating or discriminating between the certain skin tones of those two peop, between those two people for example, um promoting the lighter skinned individual or hiring the lighter skinned individual versus the darker one even though they have the same credentials, that is colourism experienced from outside of the community. But it tends to be from within the community.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Thank you. So I, I read your book when I was on holiday and I, I was asked to read it by Nadim as part of introducing this session um, and I really didn’t know what to expect. I mean I thought this is going to be really, really heavy, it might be quite um, difficult to read and in some ways it was, it was a very raw and emotional um, book about your life but it was very, very easy to read. I mean in some ways you get very invested in your experience and the way you, you deliver the story is a bit of a page turner in some respects. Um, and we’ll get on to some of that personal story a little bit later but, but the title, ‘The Black Rose’ is obviously very evocative um, what did the black rose symbolise and why did you chose it as a title for your book?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Um so firstly thank you so much. I really appreciate your feedback and the fact that you enjoyed reading the book, it’s, it’s a heavy read so the fact that you chose to read it on holiday, means a lot. Um, but at the same time the fact that you found it an easy read and a page turner, that means a lot to me as well. So thank you so much for that. Um, why did I choose the title, The Black Rose? Because I felt like it represented the anomaly that I was in my family. Um, and one specific incident in my life um, which I will explain a little bit about right now um, in a nutshell I went to boarding school at a very young age, at the age of 6. I was enrolled in a boarding school and my parents moved to Japan. And at that boarding school there was a gardener, a really frail old gardener um, who was plucking out these roses and he wanted to put this, you know, he wanted, he was plucking out all of these roses for a bunch and then he looked at one and he just said, he, he threw it away and I asked him, I said, ‘well what, what was wrong with that rose?’ – and this was me at the age of 7 at this boarding school – and he said, ‘oh it’s too dark, it doesn’t belong in the bunch’ and that really resonated with me because my parents are both very, very light skinned to the extent that my father didn’t even look Indian, he looked Italian, he looked yeah, European, very, very light skinned, jet black hair, light brown eyes. My mother’s very light skinned, so is my brother. Among 22 members of my paternal side of the family; the brothers, the sisters, their spouses, their children, I’m the only dark skinned person in the entire family and I was ten shades darker than I am right now as a child. I was ten shades darker. So I was the anomaly um and the black rose in that sense, that incident really resonated with me and I just knew when I recalled that incident whilst writing the story that that’s got to be title of the book.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
So, so you describe this incident at your boarding school at the age of 6.
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Mm.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
I mean 6 is, is quite young to have any sort of understanding, appreciation of the issues and, and what even you know, that you are experiencing some form of discrimination. What, what was your earliest experience of colourism and how did that then play out as you started growing up?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Um, yes so I mean it was a very traumatic experience having had to go through boarding school at such a young age and that too when I was all the way in India and my parents were in Japan and back in the day, in the 1980s I only spoke to them once for 3 minutes in total every fortnight. I only saw them once a year when they sent me a ticket to see them on an annual basis and that was it. Um, my first experience of colourism without my parents by my side for me to be able to make sense of what had happened was when an aunt told me um, I was dancing away merrily as, as you know, as I’ve always done from the age of 6, I love dance um, on this table top um, ‘She’ll Be Coming Down The Mountains When She Comes’, to that as well and she just yanked me and she said, ‘come down, um, look at you, you’ve turned from black to purple’ and I didn’t understand what she meant by that. As purple as an aubergine, that’s what she said. Um, and I didn’t understand what she meant and another aunt then jumped in to defend me and she said, ‘well let her dance, what’s you know, what’s wrong like, let her enjoy herself’ and she said, ‘well what is she going to gain out of this, it’s not like she’s going to become a Bollywood actress anyway, she’s too dark to be one’ and that’s exactly what I wanted to be back then as a 6 year old. That really stung the very first time I was faced with colourism but I was also faced with colourism not just based on my colour but also essentially told that several careers are out of reach. I can’t do something because I’m dark and you know, and I felt that sense of inadequacy um, but the second, if you don’t mind me sharing another one?
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
No, no.
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Which actually hurt the most and I still well up when I talk about this is somebody I describe in my book as the Wicked Man, who was 60 something years old and he was my grandfather’s best friend and he used to visit for tea daily because his shop was round the corner from, from my grandparent’s place. And he asked me to, well my aunt asked him, asked me to serve him tea one day and I, so I did and when I took the tea to him he literally just pushed me away and he said, ‘go tell your aunt to make this stronger, I want it as dark as the colour of your skin’ and even as a 7 year old I remember processing that and thinking there is something so, so terribly wrong, hurtful about this comment and as a 60 year old man, that too you know, from, coming from a 60 year old man to a 7 year old child. Sorry. That does um, that still hurts and it’s um, something that I find myself repeatedly going back to when I talk about my first experience; that one is the worst experience.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
But one thing you, you um, come across reading the book is the, the sort of casual colourism. It, it’s not you know, I think in our environment people probably or most of the time appreciate when they are saying something that is so overtly discriminatory about something um, I mean I understand as well the subconscious discrimination in different forms but the language that’s frequently used was so overtly colourist and, and in your family and amongst friends and was there, was there, were there people in that environment who were chanel… challenging that sort of language? Because it didn’t come across that way in the book, it felt like you were very much alone in this environment and everyone was sort of saying, ‘there, there, don’t worry about it, it’s just you know, nobody means anything by it’?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
That’s exactly what it was, that’s exactly how it was. Nobody challenged the remarks, the choice of words like ghali and, which means black and galore which is essentially a nickname for the same thing, black. Um, I was called the ugly duckling, I was called blackie um you know, one bully in my school went as far as to calling me a bastard child because I didn’t look like I belonged to my family but nothing was challenged at all because it’s just, it was almost kind of like either people were immune to it or colourism was accepted. It, it’s, it’s how they rolled and sadly in society in the South Asian community we still see that quite a lot and it’s, this is, I think this is partly the reason why when I started writing my story I wanted readers to understand that these are not just words, it’s not just a joke, these words matter and they stick.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Did, did your family realise at the time or your friends, understand how upset these comments were making you?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Um, so my father, there is an incident in the book where I again describe where the wicked man is you know, spewing abuse on me again and um, my father finally actually overhears him because he happens to be in India at the time and he stands up for me and he gives my, this wicked uncle a piece of you know, his mind and he never, ever says anything nasty to me after that um but aside from that, I don’t think that there was anybody who challenged it. Um, I mean if there was anybody who did, it was almost like they were shut down immediately like the other aunt who challenged it when I was dancing you know, on this table top. Um, and then of course there’s the whole age authority. If there’s somebody older than you in our culture, you dare not say anything to them, even if they are wrong. So there was a lot of that as well uh, growing up that I saw.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
So could you tell the audience what it was that, that finally inspired you to, to write the book of your experiences?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Um, so my daughter actually was the very first uh, person to inspire me uh, she called me out uh in Thailand and she saw me, she caught me red handed buying a skin whitening cream and I had a conversation with her and I felt like the biggest hypocrite because I you know, to my child obviously preached that you should be happy with who you are and you know, you’re beautiful exactly the way you are but obviously for me, the um, the colour bias was so deeply ingrained from all the experiences that I had that I, all I cared about was looking lighter. Um, the second experience was the tipping point and the real massive, big awakening and that was during the Black Lives Matter movement. Um, not to say that my daughter didn’t you know, shake things up for me but I think it was also to do with the fact that I felt like I could just brush it aside and carry on um, which is again wrong I know and that’s what I did um, I kind of promised her that, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah I promise you this is awful, what I did is terrible and I’ll change’ and then I just went, well she doesn’t need to know my little secret because I still, I couldn’t change myself basically. Um, but the Black Lives Matter movement hit me really, really hard because I faced someone else outside of my family and what I mean by that was, I attended a protest in our local area in Rickmansworth, one of the very last ones on the 20 June and I asked my kids and my husband to like you know, go very passionately with me and, and create these posters and banners and, and then I was talking to a black man in the middle of the pro..., after the protest and I remember I had a red cap on and whilst I was talking to him, commending him for sharing his experiences, some terrible ones of like physical violence against him, I remember zoning out and just thinking about shifting my cap because I didn’t want to catch the sun and that moment hit me really, really hard. I felt like the biggest hypocrite on the planet thinking I don’t have the right to be here. I can’t be fighting racism if I’ve given in to colourism and I’m still worried about my skin tone because racism and colourism there is a very large intersection and after that I just had sleepless nights with guilt and shame and it was that hypocrisy that lead me to writing The Black Rose, after all these years.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And can you just explain a little bit more about why moving your cap was related to colourism and also talk a little bit about how you came to use skin whitening products?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
So the one thing that we are repeatedly told, particularly as South Asian women, not so much men because men, it’s great if they are tall, dark and handsome although dark is not to do with skin tone um, in the traditional sense and the English you know, idioms um, Indian translation, everything dark means skin tone dark. Um, whereas women are only ever meant to be fair and lovely, like the cream and the reason why I was more focussed on shifting my cap was because I am repeatedly always told, don’t catch the sun, you’ll turn dark, don’t catch the sun. The first thing that I have to experience as a comment or the first comment that’s made rather, every time I returned from holiday and I am on a video call with family is, ‘uh what happened to you, you turned so dark’. That’s it. Not how was your holiday, oh it looks like you had a great time, that’s it, that’s all they care about. Um, so that was the reason why I was so focussed on shifting my cap and not catching the sun. My skin whitening you know, my, my relationship with the skin whitening cream and that journey began at the age of 11 when I used my pocket money to buy a skin whitening product instead of my favourite chocolate, Five Star back in the day in India. You still have them, you still get them um and I remember the desperation uh, again because of one final incident that happened and I just, just told myself that’s it, enough is enough. I will do anything to look like I belong to my family and as an 11 year old girl, I didn’t know any better and that’s all that I wanted to do and skin whitening creams were everywhere; on billboards and Bollywood stars were you know, promoting them and, and being you know, ambassadors of these products and I didn’t think there was anything wrong in using a skin whitening cream because even at beauty salons they were suggesting bleach every couple of weeks to lighten your skin. And uh, yeah, age 11 was the first time that I bought one.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
So presumably staying out of the sun and using these creams became quite a feature of your, of your youth and your adolescence?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Uh huh, yeah.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And that impacts on how you interact with, with friends, what you do on holiday um, how you enjoy yourself and presumably this is experience shared by, by you know, millions of children in your situation?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Yes absolutely um, so I mean this sounds so ludicrous now that I think about it right um, but the tube is like that big, literally that big and all you do is you, you have enough to just put on your face right, that’s it. Did I care about the rest of my body looking 10 shades darker than my face? No. I didn’t because this was all I wanted to look lighter so that I look like I belong to my family and was I even looking at the rest of my body. Absolutely not because I could cover it up somehow or the other and you know, this is where people judge you. So I carried on with the skin whitening creams until 45. The day I attended that protest, that cream finally went in the bin.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Right. Right. So, so you attend the protest, you realise you’ve got to do something to address your, your personal relationship with colourism. Part of it is obviously um, stop using this skin whitening cream but another part of it was writing the book. So how did you then go about the process of, of writing the book and was that a cathartic event for you?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
The most cathartic thing that I have ever done for myself um, I have healed, I have grown, I have helped others. I, I like to believe uh, as little as possible or as big of a way as possible. Um, to help them heal with their experiences of colourism or to even educate those who don’t know about colourism or understand colourism because it’s not something that they see within their community. Um, the process was the most challenging thing I have also done in my life um, because it’s a very personal story so it wasn’t easy to, to pen. But having said that, the flip side and ironically is that it was the easiest thing to pen because it was my own story and so the challenging part was recollecting everything and putting that in words and putting that in words to the extent that for readers, because I wanted to make a difference, for readers they are able to picture that and that means that you have to literally write it as vividly as possible and described it as vividly as possible rather. I used to close my eyes and I’d have tears rolling down literally with eyes closed and often times I had to get up, leave my desk and then go for a walk or something. It took me two and half years to write the story because I just couldn’t face certain incidents or certain trauma um, yeah it was a hard, difficult process. But I am, I am so glad that I did. I have absolutely zero regrets, in fact I wish I’d done it sooner um and I know how much I have grown now as a person because I’ve not just unlearnt colourism but I’ve unlearnt so much more internal bias towards so many other forms of discrimination um, not just colourism.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Was it a lonely process writing your book?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Very um, a very lonely process but having said that, my husband, my children they were there a lot, you know, along with me the entire way, reading one paragraph to begin with at a time and they were like can you at least write a chapter for your husband to read. Um, they were really supportive, thank you. Um, and my mother uh, this was the challenging part actually, my father’s normal, my mother and my brother had no idea what I had been bottling inside and what I had buried because that’s another thing that we find in our South Asian culture, we don’t talk about trauma, we don’t talk about things. So when I landed in Japan at the age of 9 after two and a half years at boarding school, there was not a word spoken to me about, we’re really sorry, what have you been through, how was life there. Just land, get on with it. When I started speaking to my mum about certain experiences, because I wanted to be true to my story and I could recall certain things, for example, on my brother’s, how I started sleepwalking and I had visited Japan, I hadn’t returned home. I remember that being a visit as opposed to returning and the reason why I was petrified was because I was going to be sent back because my brother went missing under my watch and that means that they would never ever have me back again, that’s what I was you know, telling myself and I’d built this up in my head and when I asked my mum she was absolutely shocked and she said, ‘how do you remember this?’ and I said, ‘well I guess this is what you call childhood trauma um, it sticks and it stays you know and I just wanted to check with you’ um, and I think from that point on she started to understand how much this had impacted me and she started to ask me questions and say, ‘okay well so tell me more. What did you experience when we were not with you?’ and I told her about this wicked uncle and then initially she got defensive and because he is somebody who is related to my grandfather, as in best friend and you know, the classic response is, oh I am sure he didn’t mean it that way. But I think she started to understand, actually these words do matter and it’s not just a joke and in fact if anything, she started to understand and appreciate how she was on the positive end in terms of positive bias because my mother is light skinned and her sister, Sangita, that I describe in my book, is my skin tone. Actually even darker than my skin tone. And then she started to understand how Sangita must have experienced it and 2 years later she was here at my book launch and she actually spoke a few words um, and she said, ‘I wish I had understood back then what it does to a child and I just wish for this book to make a change you know, for other people to read this’.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Well there’s a real honesty that comes through the book, I mean I think it comes partly due to the fact that you disclose so many things that you know, I am sure you hadn’t shared with anybody. I mean the feelings of rejection when your brother was taken to Japan and you were left in boarding school. You talk about your father’s death um, there are lots of issues in there which you know, I am sure you wouldn’t share with people casually so, so that is partly what makes it so readable but again it sort of, it lends the authenticity of the experiences as it comes off the page. Um, and in terms of your perceptions of beauty and self-worth, have they changed since publishing the book?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Uh yes, my goodness a 180° shift. I kid you not. Um, I, my, my husband will confirm this. When we got married I used to straighten my hair um, because curly hair was not seen as uh you know, well it was seen as unruly. Um, I used to wear light brown contact lenses to look uh I guess it was about proximity to like Eurocentric beauty standards right. Um, obviously very body conscious as well um, skin tone, fair and lovely all the way. Lighten every photograph before uploading it anywhere. Um, I avoided the sun and I would find an excuse to uh, over any holiday, any summer holiday with the kids I’d find an excuse to just be on the sunbed uh, under an umbrella of course and not join them in the pool uh, pretending to read. Um, now it’s just such a liberating feeling to accept yourself the way you are and you know, the hair, the skin, um body shape, everything I’ve got, I embrace the stretch marks that I have on my, my stomach from having two beautiful children. It’s made such a difference to my self-esteem, this unlearning journey and I just really, really wish and want nothing more than for women to just accept themselves as they are and not succumb to beauty standards because I sleep like a baby at night now.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
I mean I was going to ask you you know, if you were to, if I was to ask you what you would want (a) a young girl of your background to take from reading your book um, is this the sort of thing that you would, you would say this is what your response would be?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Absolutely, absolutely. I think what I would love for a young girl to take away from this book is to understand that she is beautiful exactly the way she is. I would like her to embrace self-acceptance and be proud of herself. I would like her to break the cycle and actually you know, in the future, be a beacon of hope for the generations ahead. Um, because there is so much out there that is telling us constantly you’re not good enough, you’re not beautiful enough. There’s so much noise that it is very easy, especially now in this day and age with you know, the media in your face constantly um and I really worry, I worry for the generations ahead and young girls so, um one of the reasons why I wanted this book to be an easy read is precisely for that reason. I wanted young girls to be able to grab this book and resonate with it, read it and feel empowered by it.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And I specifically asked you, how a young girl might react partly because there might be a little more you know, empathy or resonance between the two of you but obviously colourism affects me and women.
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Uh huh.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
But can you just explain a little bit more about how you think it impacts more on women?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
So um, I’ll speak for myself in terms of coming from the South Asian culture. It impacts women tenfold more than men because men are, if they are dark skinned they are seen as the tall, dark and handsome whereas um, women you’re only measured by the fair and beautiful standards and for example, um media you know, representation tells us what our society is right. Um, media also influences our society so it goes both ways. Bollywood being the biggest representation of South Asian culture, you will only and only see light skinned actresses in Bollywood. Priyanka Chopra, the superstar you know, um global superstar, is still considered dark skinned in Bollywood whereas the actors, I would say 90% of the A list actors are dark skinned, 90%. So that’s a clear reflection of society as well and what is happening in India. The skin whitening industry was focussed primarily, well literally only on women until a few years ago where a Bollywood superstar, Sherry Khan started selling skin whitening creams for men. That’s a burgeoning market too but obviously received a lot of backlash um, thank goodness. Um, it’s, there is absolutely no question that when it comes to colourism women are faced with it tenfold more than men. And I, I think that is the case with other societies too. I have seen that in Japan, it was mostly women who felt that pressure um, growing up in Japan I’ve seen that um but other communities I can only infer.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
I mean I’d love to explore of these topics with you but we’ve got so much we need to cover and I want to give the audience a chance to, to ask questions as well. Um, but the beauty industry is obviously a big part of this, it’s obviously incentivised to, to um, affect people’s perceptions in order to sell more product. Do you think the beauty industry has, has changed in recent years? Either to promote more skin whitening or to recognise the problems that come with it?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
The beauty industry I feel like at the moment um, and for a long time actually have just been doing the tick the box exercise. Um, and what I mean by that is that there is a little more representation now. We see a few more shades of brown in like foundation creams etcetera um, in India ironically although there’s a lot more various shades of brown, there wasn’t any brown foundation or anything to do with brown skin tones uh, you know, embracing it, celebrating it up until a few years ago and last year when I visited India was pleasantly surprised to see that women of my colour and darker were actually on billboards of this big brand called Lakme um, and that gave me hope. I was like finally we’re getting somewhere. So there is some change but I feel like it’s a tick the box exercise because the skin whitening industry on the other hand is still booming and what I mean by that is, back in 2020 the entire industry globally was valued at about 8 billion dollars. It’s now projected to, I think it’s, oh yes we’re in ’26 next year um, it will reach 12 billion by ’26, 12 billion. Whereas the tanning industry was valued at only 1 billion dollars back in 2020 and it’s projected to go up to 2 billion by 2026.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And is this because they are continuing to market products or is this driven by social media, I mean I presume that has a big impact on things?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
I think it it’s a bit of both, social media you know, the bigger media, movies etcetera um, and people, people and people’s mind-set.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And what sort of reactions have you had to your book, both nationally and internationally?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
So I didn’t think in my wildest dreams to be honest, as a self-published author that I would be here today. Uh, delivering a talk and you know, being interviewed by you at an amazing law firm like this and uh, you know a few other’s speaking English and so I’ve had, because I honestly thought if I sell 50 copies and if I make a difference to 5 lives that’s success for me right there. And there response has been phenomenal, phenomenal because two things that I have seen on reviews, repeatedly, (1) ‘I saw myself in this, thank you for writing your story, I feel seen’, (2) ‘Thank you for bringing up a topic that is just not discussed enough’ and it’s been resonating from readers all the way from Brazil to Bali. Um because sadly 80% of this world is people of colour so it’s something that actually, even if there’s slight differences in nuances, it resonates.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Mm. But one, but one thing that’s struck me at the back of your book you name some organisations that people can contact if they, if they’ve faced um, colourism or if they want to get involved in the movement to, to resist. Um, but to my mind it seemed quite disappointing that there wasn’t a more active movement or powerful movement and in particular, there didn’t seem to be a particularly strong movement in the South Asian continent.
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Mm.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And it’s, it’s you know, it, are people telling similar stories in India or is this a movement that is moving west to east?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Um, so it is quite sad and disappointing because I haven’t seen much of a movement, as much as I would have liked to have seen. Um, people may share their stories but in a kind of private space maybe um, but not publicly. Um, what, what I find the most disappointing actually is that when people like myself call out colourism, the backlash that I receive is shocking, shocking.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And what does that look like?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Um, so for example, when I celebrated Simone Ashley in Bridgeton and I was so happy to see that you know, brown skin representation um, and then I mentioned like Shira Liedman36.17 and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan from Never Have I Ever and I said, ‘finally whilst you know, Bollywood are celebrating light skinned beauties, we are seeing global mainstream media channels celebrating melanated beauties’. That reel went viral and had like 7 million views. But the comments, more than 1,500 plus comments on my reel were mostly negative saying, and mostly coming from Indians in India saying, ‘What are you talking about, of course we have dark skinned representation, we have Priyanka Chopra. Yeah and that’s all they had. And I, when I called out, I mean don’t get me wrong, extremely, extremely proud moment for me to see this super, amazing popstar, Deljit Dosanjh you know, feature in um, Coachella and become the first uh, uh pop like singer to represent South Asian culture, Indian culture in Coachella. Quite a few of the songs and one in particular had the lyrics repeatedly and the word used as Güero, which means light skinned woman and Güero and Güera means light skinned but also implying beautiful and so I just created something to say, please just change your lyrics like, you know, thank you and well done for the representation, you could just say Soniye which is the same thing but oh my god, I had, I had death threats from that one reel calling out just the one word in song lyrics. So…
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And that’s from people within the community presumably and, and why do you think they are resisting? Is that just the sort of negativity you get on social media or people actually motivated to, to resist progress in this area?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
I think people are, they are actually resisting the change and it’s, it’s so deep rooted. They are resisting the change also because um, I just want to briefly touch upon um, the three other social constraints or ideologies um, that bring us to colourism. Classism, colonialism and castism. Um, very often a lot of Indians will blame colonialism alone for colourism but that’s not the case because, and it definitely shouldn’t be the case, because colourism and castism is something that has prevailed in India from time in memorial and actually classism is something that’s prevailed from you know, prevailed in the world. Japan has never been colonised but you see skin whitening in the industry there is huge and you see it’s rampant. Um, I feel that people resist it because people then have to look within and call themselves out. And they don’t want the benefits of those social constraints to be taken away from them.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Look I could carry on talking for a long time, I’ve got plenty of questions but I think we need to open it up to the audience. Um, there we go, we’ve got straight away.
Audience
Thank you so much for sharing your story, I have been nodding along the whole time from everything from like unruly curly hair to get out the swimming pool because no one will marry you if you’re dark, like I’ve heard the whole, the whole spectrum of it um and I think it’s really interesting especially the South Asian culture where sometimes the description of light and dark are equated to good and bad, about having like sufed skin as white skin and clean skin as opposed to dirty and dark skin um, and especially in the UK we’ve got so many South Asian transplants, what was it like for you in a culture where previously there’s these Eurocentric standards and then you come to the UK where everyone’s doing the opposite right. Everyone wants to get darker and be tanned and they lay on tanning beds and outside in the sun. What does that kind of, how does that, how do you kind of reconcile that in your brain as something that makes sense?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
It well, I mean initially it didn’t make sense. It was something that I was so shocked about, I was just, it didn’t make any sense to me um but, but I also remember feeling beautiful for the first time in my life after having moved to the UK, which is so ironic um and I felt like I belong. Even though I’m in a county that, where I’m the different one. And that’s what, that is one thing that I actually find very, very sad and disappointing about colourism. The irony of it. That you are made to feel like you don’t belong within your own community. But yeah, I hope I have answered your question. It, yeah.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Thank you. Jan, do you want to take one of the ones from online?
Jan, Mishcon de Reya Online
Yes of course, so I wonder if your parents’ colourism towards you was based on their generation, that since they moved to Japan as a homogenous country, do you think they faced similar experiences like yours in Japan which affected their perception of skin colour and changed their attitude and behaviour?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Be happy with who you are.
Jan, Mishcon de Reya Online
We’ve got some lovely comments here; ‘Amazing book, I also read it on holiday. If you could speak to the evil man or your boarding school bully today, what would you say to them?’
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
So the wicked man is no more and I am not going to lie to you, that was the biggest smile the day I found out that he was gone. Um, I wish I could just tell him how his words that he thought are just a joke, impacted me so much that I literally considered myself, I started actually believing that I don’t belong to my parents. And how, how is it okay for him to know, how could he sleep at night knowing that an 11 year old had to succumb to buying a skin whitening cream? I wish I could tell him that. Um, the bully in Japan, it’s very interesting that you asked that because I was just talking to Daniel about this earlier in the other room, um, I went to Japan last year for my school reunion and he was there and we are friends now and actually because I was travelling on my own he really looked after me and he made sure every single day like, I knew what I was doing, what my plans were, even though I was back at home in Corby and it felt like home again and he spent every spare minute that he could with me and he apologised to me and he said, ‘I’m really, really sorry but I know this is inexcusable but I hope you understand that what happened back then was a reflection of how we were all brought up and it’s just you know, I didn’t know any better’ um, and I forgave him and I said, ‘It’s okay and I hope you understand why I have written the book in the way that I have, I don’t mean to shame you’ and I’ve changed the name and his you know, everything, the way that he is described as not exactly how he looks. But I just want this to be something that is educational for people to understand what bullying does to you and how much it impacts you.
Audience
Hi, I just have a question and um, I wanted to get your thoughts on what you think commuters of colour can do to um, can do more sorry to tackle the issue of colourism because I think obviously as you mentioned, it’s actually a lot of times it’s reinforced within communities of colour and um, just by way of example, I mean I’m of Nigerian decent and when I would speak to like, sort of elders in my family and they would talk about growing up in Nigeria and who was, amongst the cousins, were cast as the prettiest um inevitably the person’s skin tone would come up and so she, she was fair and so that was automatically associated would be the most beautiful and I remember my family like we watched a show on Netflix called Indian Matchmaking and the bio data, a lot of the guys always wanted the light skinned woman and so I just wanted to get your thoughts on what you think communities of colour can do more to tackle the issue and just add a little bit of nuance with it as well, in tackling that, how do you sort of bring everyone along because for example, I have half-brothers, um I have half Russian cousins and who are obviously mixed race and sometimes I know people with fairer skin or lighter skin who are within the communities of colour a lot of times people assume that maybe they think they’re better or they think, and actually that’s not always the case, so how do you kind of tackle those issues?
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Yeah, that’s, that’s a great question because there is some resistance right within the community. Um so, two examples, one, my mother, my very own mother. She is 67 and she has been on this learning journey with me. The very first thing that she said to me when I told her that I wanted to start writing this book, she said, ‘what difference is it going to make?’ Exact words, verbatim, I kid you not. Two years later she was at my book launch, my biggest champion, she’s always asking me how it’s going, she’s you know, always makes sure that she remembers which day I am going to which speaking engagement and wishes me good luck. Um, second one, a grandmother from India got in touch with me and she said, ‘I’ve just uh, read your book, my daughter-in-law lives in the UK, brought a copy’ and she said, ‘I was about to give my 7 year old granddaughter a shower and say, come here let me make you güera’ because as you were saying, dark skin is seen as dirty right. She said, ‘I literally swallowed the words after reading your book I had changed my vocabulary’. So I think it, it’s a very simple answer but I think it literally comes down to explaining to people, why are you using such words? Do you understand the impact of these words on the people who are on the receiving end? Why does colour matter to you so much? And the second thing is, my daughter has actually mentioned this to me, and she said, ‘mummy you know what, everything is all about cause and effect, just ask why, and peeling this one layer off after another and keep asking why and then eventually somebody who is extremely colourist will realise how ludicrous the entire thing is and how ludicrous their answers are and you know, they’ll have their answer’. And I said, ‘that’s actually brilliant, that’s gen… that’s a genius idea’. Um, and that’s exactly what I do now, I just ask why because I want to understand their mind-set. Also quite often what happens is they’ve been through it themselves and they end up projecting it on you right. They trivialise it in that generation, they trivialise it. So another example, 70 something year old man was talking to me, trivialising my experiences of colourism. ‘Oh what’s the big deal, I was called this as well and my name is Kishen, which in you know, in the Hindu mythology means Lord Krishna, the dark one, literally his name means black right, blue/black.’ It didn’t bother me when he said something, ‘oh I was called this’ and it didn’t bother me. Five or six times later I said, ‘well clearly it did bother you because you’re 70 something years old and you can recollect everything’ and the penny just dropped on him and he went, ‘oh my god’. And I think that’s what it is, they trivialise it in their own heads but it has bothered them so it’s okay to break the cycle and I think it literally is as simple as that, that realisation.
Jan, Mishcon de Reya Online
So this final question says, ‘Great talk thank you. I would love to hear what impact you think a happy marriage can have on self-acceptance?’
Shweta Aggarwal
Anti-Colourism Activist and Author
Oh good one. Shall I, shall I pass the mic to my husband here? Um, I think all love begins with self-love and I have learnt that and finally realised that and I know that one of the questions that we were talking about earlier was about vulnerability and we often, because we you know, from the culture that we come from we are supposed to like bury our trauma and everything right. We often see vulnerability as a weakness but I feel like if we start to see it as a strength then share candidly, then as a result of that heal and as a result of us healing, encourage others to heal. The bond after that is unbreakable.
Daniel Naftalin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Thank you very much. Thank you very much for attending everyone. Most of all thank you to Shweta for sharing such a personal story. If you thought she was a fascinating speaker, you should read the book because it is amazing, there are copies outside and Shweta will be happy to sign for you if you’d like. Thank you.
[Applause]