The issue of color

Does color matter? Sometimes, and to certain people, indeed it does. Green is associated with life, blue with restfulness and tranquility and red with life.

The most interesting thing, though, from a psychological point of view, is the popular perception associated with the colors black and white. Black is the color of evil and death, whereas white is of goodness and virtue.

Hence the designation "black conglomerates" for dishonest and unethical business enterprises and "white conglomerates" for honest and ethical ones. The terms "black Golkar" and "white Golkar", popular around the time of the last general election, carry a similar meaning.

Knowing Kwik Kian Gie, the person who can be attributed with having made those phrases popular, to be person of impeccable decency and integrity, making racial slurs of such a kind is of course far from his mind. It is simply that such a typification is common the world around. It is something that one does without thinking.

The trouble is that in Indonesia, too, people naturally vary in the color of their skin, which ranges from black to often whiter than the "white" natives of, say, Europe. In between those two extremes, the color ranges from a golden yellow to a rich dark brown.

In daily life, of course, most Indonesians don't give a thought to such typifications. But given the almost universal identification of black as the color of evil and white as the color of virtue, there may be times that such a typification could injure the sensitivities of those Indonesians who happen to be endowed with a skin that is less than white.

Unfortunately, the perception that white is the more desirable skin color for people is being zealously promoted by the cosmetics industry, which keeps bombarding the public with products that promise to turn a person's skin clean and white almost overnight.

While people elsewhere go to all the trouble of rubbing their skin with balms and ointments to get a good summer tan, "when you're white you're all right" seems to be the motto of those cosmetics manufacturers as they try to capitalize on the natural desire for people to look attractive.

Equally guilty of promoting this kind of bias are the film and television industries. Unlike in American films, where black actors and actresses are more and more being cast as heroes and heroines, invariably in Indonesian films and television the hero and heroine have Eurasian features and are fair skinned. It is the rule rather than the exception to see their darker-skinned coactors cast as dim-witted laughable servants or security guards.

People, of course, are entitled to have their preferences. The problem lies, however, in the perpetuation of the idea that black, for whatever reason, is inferior to white, and therefore less desirable. The same is true for other features, such as skin color.

In fact, recent studies have found that race is nothing more than a social concept. The genes that determine a person's intelligence, artistic skills and other attributes have nothing to do with appearance.

It would be good if all those who are involved in the shaping of popular opinion -- the media, and the cosmetic, film and television industries in particular -- could lend a helping hand in promoting a better understanding of the complexities of the human race by casting away their outdated stereotypes and prejudices.