How did we all seem to come to this conclusion?

 

There was a report today on "Morning Edition" on NPR about people in India supporting a multi-million dollar industry, lightening skin.

Yikes.

How sad.

This, on the news and pictures of Sammy Sosa who is reported to have lightened his skin--for whatever reason--much like, it seems, Michael Jackson, so many years ago.

It fascinates me that we, as a race, have, for the most part, most of us on the planet, come to the arbitrary decision that lighter skin is preferred.

I can understand one society or culture doing it--think the French in, what was it? The 1700's, to a ridiculous result and look?

But how did most of the planet decide lighter skin was "better"?

Really. I don't get it.

And what gets me now is that I thought we were beyond that.

There's a lot of us "pasty-whiteys" out here who would like to even be able to tan, let alone be a shade or two or three darker. The NPR article seems to suggest that, while we whiteys want to be darker, the Indian people want to be lighter. Another case of "I want what I don't have" syndrome, possibly.

As a species, we'd be much better off, sociologically and culturally, if we didn't assign any assumptions to the color or shade of our skin, to say the least.

And unless this is a really bad photo, how does Sammy think this is an improvement?

Link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120340646