Before coming to Indonesia, I knew that in countries like India, there was a need by some people to have as white skin as possible and that there were many practices that could help one achieve that. Yes, I am gonna write about skin color, a very chill and non controversial topic.
I quickly found out that skin whitening is a big thing in Indonesia as well, with people buying skin whitening products and wearing full covering cloths at 30 degrees (although there might be other reasons behind that). The need for white skin, although not a positive side-effect of social norms, is not very surprising to me. I mean with the majority of top grossing movies, many famous models and even athletes being white, it is not wonder that people are pushed to believe that white skin is more beautiful. It is also not that we, in the west, are not going even to cancerous extremes for a good tan. People often want what they don’t have and what they are told they need. There is also the colonizing past of the country, which had certainly left many underlying scars, one of which might be manifesting with skin whitening, but I don’t feel very qualified to analyze it further. What did surprise my however was the names given to the products or the adverting of them, with logos like pure white or white beauty. How can you name your product something implying white superiority, even when taking about a skin tone and not feel ashamed of yourself?
This trend was also ever present in television. Although I would admit that I have not spend many hours in front of Indonesian television and this observation might be easily disputed, I would have to say that the presenters in it are much more fitting with western standards than the percentage of people you will see on the street. Except of the lighter, if I may, skin, which many have, the majority of women are not seen in hijabs, despite them generally being, outside of the small box. That is not to berate them for showing people that are considered beautiful in television, everyone, everywhere, will have attractive people as presenters and not your average Joe, so that is a global issue. That is to say that it seems that the more «western» you are, the more beautiful you are considered, or so it seems, even though Indonesian people have their own looks, which are and should, be equally attractive.
I know that it is very easy to be labelled as an SJW, which talks about non-existent issued with this article, but the truth is that trends like that show, that «white privilege» and even supremacy doesn’t only exists in obvious «Please speak English» ways but also in small ones. Even though if we, as white people (which is clearly a very wide and general term), do not necessarily cause this privilege, we are still the recipients of it. And even though it seems that this is a very small and insignificant issue, when people do not consider themselves beautiful because of their inherit skin color and they go to great extents to change it, then is shouldn’t be.
The Indonesian Chronicles 