The Gori Story!

So, we rose up as a nation, in protest of Shilpa Shetty being racially discriminated upon.
Each one of us felt it was us that Jade Goody was targeting, by virtue of each one of us being Indians. Great sense of unity!
But…how hypocritical are we? Do we not, even today, discriminate based on caste or religion? Do we not have schools ‘preferring’ children of one religion or caste over the other? The discrimination may not be in black and white print. But there is a hidden undercurrent of discrimination everywhere.
Oh and did I forget discrimination based on skin colour? White is beautiful, we are taught. There are young girls who aspire to become the next beauty queen by slathering layers of ‘Fair & Lovely’ on their faces, because the ads show a dusky (read ‘ugly duckling’, based on her skin colour) girl transform into a gorgeous swan after 6 weeks of using the cream. A digression from the topic of discrimination but I couldn’t resist putting this wild thought down anyway. Is the ‘Fairness Creams’ market trying to educate us that applying these creams on our face will suffice to turn the skin colour of the entire body to fair and therefore beautiful? Has anyone ever thought how funny someone would look with a white face (assuming that the creams really give the user ‘chamakti safedi’) and a dark neck, torso, arms and legs?
Ok getting back to discrimination, do we still not see matrimonial ads proudly proclaiming that the girl is fair and therefore beautiful? Do we not see wannabe grooms advertising for a fair and beautiful girl?
Bollywood too seems to go by the notion, ‘White is beautiful’. How many dusky women (with the exception of Bipasha and a few others, because they had some other saleable attributes) have you ever seen grace the silver screen?
The same bunch of people who show a ‘preference’ to fair skin will preach on talk shows and every opportunity available in print media, that beauty is skin deep and that you cannot judge a book by its cover.
If fair was beautiful, why is tanning so popular in the West? Why do people pay hundreds of dollars to go to tanning salons to get a nice, tanned complexion that we Indians have been blessed with from birth?
Agreed that discrimination of any kind is a social crime and should be protested against. But should we not clean up our home turf first by not discriminating against anyone on the basis of caste, religion or skin colour, before accusing others of discrimination?
Just my thoughts…