When Skin Speaks Louder Than Words
What prompted this reflection is something I find deeply troubling: in today’s political climate, innocent people are being arrested and jailed, not because of the content of their character, but because of the color of their skin. And the irony is hard to ignore.
Some of those who view Brown or Black people with suspicion, who treat darker skin as threatening or inferior, are sometimes the same individuals who proudly exhibit a tanned complexion year-round. They’ll spend a lot of money in salons, on tropical vacations, or at tanning booths to achieve the golden skin tone they find attractive on themselves.
Yet when that same skin tone is natural and it belongs to someone born with it, it becomes a reason for fear, rejection, or punishment.
I’ve lived this contradiction. On my father’s side, I’m French, and blond hair, fair skin, and pale blue eyes run in the family. My mother was Asian. From her, I inherited a skin that tans effortlessly and deeply. In winter, I’m a pale olive. In summer, when exposed to the sun, I turn a rich, dark bronze without even trying, and I never burn.
As a child growing up in a white community, I was often teased and made to feel “different.” I longed to blend in, to look like the other fair-skinned people around me. But later, when I moved to Paris, everything changed. There, tanned skin was fashionable, even glamorous. Suddenly, the very skin tone that once brought me discomfort became a professional asset. As a model, I even used tanning sunbeds in late winter so I could be “runway ready” for the bathing suit season.
That’s when I first became aware of how arbitrary and superficial these beauty standards are, and how deeply rooted they are in class, culture, and colonial history.
In many parts of the world, including my mother’s native Vietnam, the opposite standard still holds: lighter skin is prized. My mother, like most Vietnamese women of her generation, avoided the sun at all costs. To be tanned meant you were a laborer, someone who worked outside, someone of lower status. Pale skin, on the other hand, was a sign of refinement and privilege. This mindset is still deeply entrenched in many societies today, where skin-lightening products are widely used.
And for centuries, that was also true in the West. Until the 1920s, pale skin was associated with wealth, nobility, and the luxury of staying indoors. Tanned skin, by contrast, suggested you were a farmer, a servant, or someone who labored under the sun. That changed almost overnight in 1923, when fashion icon Coco Chanel returned from a Mediterranean cruise with a sun-kissed glow. Suddenly, a tan meant leisure. It meant you could afford to vacation by the sea. Hollywood and the beauty industry quickly caught on, promoting tanning as a symbol of health, vitality, and glamour.
However, even as the trend shifted, the double standard persisted. Tanned skin was now fashionable as long as white bodies wore it. The same features that had once been judged harshly of people of color were now being celebrated when imitated. That contradiction has only deepened over time.
We live in a world where darker skin is admired in some circles and judged in others.
A bronzed look might earn compliments in a beauty ad or on a red carpet, but in everyday life, that same skin tone, when natural, can lead to being profiled, harassed, or even arrested.
This is not just unfair. It’s a deeply rooted hypocrisy, one that continues to hurt, exclude, and endanger people whose only “offense” is being born into the wrong shade.
I don’t write this to blame or divide. I write it to awaken. To invite awareness. Until we truly understand how color has been used to measure human worth, we can’t begin to dismantle the system that perpetuates this practice.
Skin is not a crime. It is not a trend. It is not something to exploit or fear.
It is simply part of who we are. Each of us is unique, beautiful, and worthy of dignity.
Even spiritual figures have not escaped this distortion. For centuries, Jesus has been portrayed in Western art as a fair-skinned, blue-eyed man —an image shaped during the Renaissance, when European artists reflected their own likeness onto sacred figures. However, historically, Jesus would have been a Middle Eastern man with brown skin, dark hair, and dark eyes.
And it wasn’t just Jesus. His mother, Mary, has long been shown as pale and delicate. So have Mary Magdalene and many of the other key figures surrounding him. These depictions reflect cultural ideals more than historical reality, revealing how easily sacred imagery can be reshaped to fit cultural expectations.
Until we become aware of these illusions and how they’ve shaped our world, we cannot begin to heal.
Our shared humanity has always mattered more than our physical appearance.
When we remember that, we open the door to compassion, to truth, and to one another.
And through that door, Love can enter.