But they are still alot of them out their and this is in canada

I visited India recently and found that most people are racist as ever, but deny being racist (I was in Mumbai). They look down on darker skinned people and treat them as inferior. This probably has to do with the caste system which is so entrenched in the culture. My wife is a while American and was amazed to find this racism, especially when people tended to favor a lighter complexion. She does not like special treatment yet often received it.

Pity people waste precious time burdened by prejudices and don’t recognize it.

I would like to share perhaps my experience as Chinky Indian.

Well we hear everyday of racist insults and attacks against Indians worldwide,we try to justify it by saying may be they felt threatened(Local populations) because Indians are hard working and they have grabbed all the opportunities over there, blue collar, white collar any kind of job. We make a hue and cry and national newspapers carry news of racism against Indians , recently in Australia and So forth. And every Indians agree to that and SAY Australians are not good enough.

BUT have any Indian ever try to FIND whats happening in its own BACKYARD. Perhaps India is the most RACIST country in the WORLD. They downlook their own people.

I belong to a Mongoloid group fro the Northeastern part of India though We have our affinity with South East asian Countries relating in language, clothing and traditions but by default because of British colonialism have become part of RACIST INDIA. For the last 50 yrs after Independence Northeastern mongoloid featured people are looked down upon as the most lowest RACE in India and usually called upon as CHINKY a derogatory insult slap directly on the face, may be the Indians who lately where WHITE MEN’S BURDEN started feeling the saying towards their Yellow fellow country MAN.

Whatever is happening to Indians WORLDWIDE the INDIANS deserved it.

India is indeed the most racist and sexist country on the planet. It is also officially the poorest and in the top five corrupt countries on the planet.

Every middle class Indian should be ashamed of their role in this.

So much of hatred ….Looks like you have been rejected by “dark exotic meat” (s)!!!

“I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation“.-Lord McCauley in his speech of Feb 2, 1835, British Parliament.

‘Intentionally or unintentionally, the caste system became more rigid during the British Raj, when the British started to enumerate castes during the ten year census and codified the system under their rule.’-Wikipedia

These two events explain why Indians look down upon dark skin. They were taught by the British education system to look down upon everything that is not foreign and not English.

I am half Indian and half English, live in the UK and have been perceived as being from anywhere from India to France. I recall two instances involving Japanese people that I find interesting in regard to this. The first was when I was working for a Japanese company. One of the Japanese women asked me where I was from, and when I told her, she started telling me how at one time male Japanese managers liked to have white (preferably blonde) secretaries, but then, being intimidated by them, they found it harder to tell them what to do. As a result (according to her) they now prefer to have non-white secretaries, whom they feel more able to look down upon. She said they would feel more comfortable with me, because I looked similar to the Japanese.

On another occasion, I got talking to a couple of Japanese women who were on holiday in the UK. One of them started telling me how envious she was of me, because I was so beautiful, whereas Japanese women were so ugly. She said my features were so much nicer because I was European.

Obviously my appearance had not changed to any relevant degree between these two incidents, I had the same features and the same hair, eye and skin colour. But somehow to the person who saw me as European I was much more attractive than the Japanese, whereas to the person who saw me as Asian I looked similar to them.

Of course these are only two incidents but they do suggest that simply the idea that someone is European, rather than a natural preference for a certain look, has a lot to do with all of this. Which hopefully means it is not just innate and can change.

Some very interesting cultural comments.

Firstly, it is incorrect to use the term racism when it comes to discussin prejudice based on skin colour alone, as an indicator of physical attractiveness. Racism is prejudice against a group of people, for being that group, for every aspect ad characterictis that the group reporesents. I’d prefer to say that in India there is definitely a bias towards fair skin colour. What is ironic and hypocritical is that probably 70% of the Indian population is wheatish to dark skinned, with maybe less than 10% actually being fair skinned. It is even more hypocritical that in the southern states, where there tend to be more darker skinned people (owing to climatic and geographical factors), this whole bias for fair skin is as ingrained into spciety, as it is elsewhere in India.

I don’t accept that having a preference for fair skin is the same as having a preference for other physical characteristics, like breast size, height, build etc. Society does have pre-defined perceptions of what constitutes attractiveness, but skin tone does not factor in that general global perception – it is things like facial symmetry, eye definition, shapliness of the body, hair, etc. Its has been proved that these phyical factors that affect the perception of attractiveness in others (again, this differs slightly from society to society) – they tend to be linked with biological, horomonal and physiological reactions witin the body and brain. E.g., a woman with an hourglass figure triggers off hormones within most males cos the hourglass figure represents an optimal bust to hip to waist ratio, from the point of view of the fertility of the woman. Simialarly, facial symmetry provides an asthetic appeal, the inverted V athletic body shame in men is appealing to women cos of that represents virility within men.

Anyway, point is – skin complexion preference is more a social thing, driven more by societies acceptance, social values and what they attach to the concept of having fair or dark skin.

Skin colour is somethign that one is born with and to have a pre-meditated prejudice against darker skin is