Unfair pro-white publicity for cosmetics

I was pleased indeed to read Shakib Lohani's piece entitled "The Colour of My Skin" (TDS, Nov. 7). The notion that 'white is beautiful' is the result of the British rule of two hundred years or so in which white was associated with pure, holy, beautiful and black with the opposite. The virulent racism we see in the 'white' world today is the true legacy of colonialism.

Some companies are making lots of money by offering cosmetic remedies to this deep personality deficit which disallows us from taking pride in our own colour. Young women constitute the worst victims of the insidious 'fair/white' campaign. The bleaching products to whiten skin being used by young black women were banned in Europe and America decades ago. We should demand a proper investigation into the physical and psycho social effects of these products to determine whether it too should be relegated to the cosmetic dustbin of history.

Kumar Murshid
BRAC University