Here's why we love the #UnfairAndLovely campaign

"I'm always told to stay out of the sun so I don't get "kalo." ***** that. I love all my browns. #unfairandlovely"- a Twitter user
Here's why we love the #UnfairAndLovely campaign
Here's why we love the #UnfairAndLovely campaign
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“On #unfairandlovely day, to the Aunty who said my fair skinned son was "lucky" to not look like me: SHUT IT!,” Anuja V wrote on Twitter last month alongside the picture she posted of herself with her son.

Anuja is one of the many people of colour who have recently taken to social media to celebrate the darker shades of beauty using the hashtag “UnfairAndLovely”.

Unfair and Lovely was the brainchild of Pax Jones, Mirusha Yogarajah and her sister Yanusha Yogarajah- all students at the University of Texas.

It started when the Yogarajah sisters, whose parents hail from Sri Lanka, featured in a photo shoot by Pax, who is black, focusing on colourism.

“We decided to name the series Unfair and Lovely in order to address the hyphenated identities of people of color in the West, and colorism in the black and brown communities,” Mirusha told GlobalPost.

 

#unfairandlovely | By Pax Jones

A photo posted by Unfair & Lovely (@unfairandlovely_) on

“Pax asked us [to take part] after noticing that even many of the advocates/activists addressing racism in the black community who had a large following had light skin. We discussed it, and I noticed the same thing in the South Asian community — activists and advocates with a large audience against racism, sexism, fatphobia, etc., usually were lighter skinned. So this photo shoot occurred, and then we created a hashtag," she said. 

She further mentioned that the campaign is “for ANY person of color who is darker skinned — Black, South Asian, Latinx, etc.”

Another campaign that Mirusha is a part of is the Reclaim the Bindi Week (March 8 to March 18) which “fights cultural appropriation by promoting those who identify with the bindi reclaiming their cultures across social media platforms!”

 

#unfairandlovely | art by @prettymuchkavi

A photo posted by Unfair & Lovely (@unfairandlovely_) on

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