I’ve heard about colorism and skin bleaching in many Asian countries, primarily in South/SE/East Asian countries. I never realized how bad it was until I started traveling around these areas. Nearly every billboard had the whitest looking model, but when walking on the streets nearly everyone was much darker.

I reside in Taiwan. One time, I was given face cream as a gift that contained bleaching agents. I smiled and politely accepted it to not make them lose face. When I went home, I threw it away. There was another situation, where I was doing an outdoor activity with some locals during the summer. It was the hottest part of the say, so I said, “I’m going to sit under the tree to cool off for bit.” Someone made a comment and said “but you’re already black so there’s point in trying to sit in the shade” (meaning, they thought I wanted to sit in the shade to avoid getting darker and not because I was tired and sweaty)

When I visited Sri Lanka, I noticed many people were nearly my complexion or darker. One day, I wasn’t feeling well, so I decided to stay in for the day and watch TV in my hotel room. Nearly everyone on TV looked nearly white. It made me wonder “Where are these people?” because I’ve only seen/met one fair skinned Sri Lankan during my entire trip. Given his eye and hair color, I figured he probably has a white parent.

I personally never bought into the POC solidarity for the following reasons:

1. In my experience, the number of times I’ve been called something negative (due to my race) by white people and non-black POC are about 50/50.
2. Majority of the world’s population would be considered POC. The term indirectly reinforces that white is the standard by lumping majority of the world’s population together, when all of our experiences are different and shouldn’t be viewed in a monolithic way.
3. In a US context, it’s basically a rebranded version of the term “colored people.” “POC sounds like a positive term because it was coined by “progressives.” If right-wingers came up with the idea, people would call it racist.
4. We’re ignorant of each other’s experiences, even to those of the same race but different national origins. While we all claim to hate white supremacy, we surely don’t hold back tearing each other apart instead of truly listening to understand.