The best thing about the monsoon season is that you can never fail to notice if a day is a bright, sunny, beautiful day. Like yesterday. It didn't rain the whole day and I could get back to the office from lunch without having to cab back because of a sudden heavy downpour, which was usually the case for these past few weeks. It is such a rarity to see a clear blue sky here and a couple of my colleagues and I were just gazing at the sky. There were really white, fluffy clouds and the best thing about clouds is they could be anything you make them out to be, anything you want them to be. And the warmth was so comforting yesterday, I just wanted to stay out in the afternoon if I could.
This is difficult to write, but it's definitely an important one amidst all the conversations we've been having lately. Growing up being brown/Malay wasn't easy, especially when it became ingrained in me that having a darker skin tone by default, is less desired than fairer skin tones. In childhood, I couldn't recall having to endure comments about my skin colour. Thankfully amongst children, these values ascribed to lightness and darkness didn't yet come to the fore. This consciousness became more obvious since secondary school. And it was tough and painful. I've been in a sports CCA since secondary school and I couldn't really avoid not becoming tanned. What hurts the most was even my peers at that time would make comments about my skin colour without even realising the damage caused from these words. These comments I recall, were sometimes made under the guise of humour. I was called 'budak hitam' (literally means 'black child') and even ...
Comments
Post a Comment