Fair & (not so) Lovely

A conversation on white supremacy, mental colonization, and anti-Blackness in the Indian community.

The title of this podcast episode, “Fair & Lovely”, is named after a popular skin-lightening cream in India that has further perpetuated white supremacy, internalized racism, colorism, casteism, and anti-Blackness within the Indian community. Source: Mintel (TK)

KFC: Hi, everyone! Welcome to FearLESS. I’m Kay Francesca Coelho and today I’m here with Aparna. Aparna and I first met on Medium — I read an article she wrote and felt her frustration on anti-Blackness in the Indian community. We will talk about that in our interview today. First, I’d like to welcome Aparna on the show. Aparna, thanks so much for being here. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

AP: My name is Aparna, I’m 29 years old. A little background on myself: I am Indian-American, I was actually born in India in New Delhi, and my family moved here when I was just one, so I’ve lived here my whole life. We’ve moved around quite a bit. We first lived in Virginia in the deep South for five years. Then we were in Indiana for nine years. Then right before high school started, we moved to Philadelphia and we’ve been here ever since. I moved to New York City six years ago. I was working for quite a bit — I was in finance for four years, and then I transitioned to the public policy sphere.

One thing I want to mention about myself is when I was working in finance, I was like, I’m really not feeling this, this is not really doing anything for the “greater good”. I wanted to move into something…