{"id":165,"date":"2020-08-04T14:42:47","date_gmt":"2020-08-04T18:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/projectcolorism\/files\/2020\/08\/IMG_1689.jpg"},"modified":"2020-08-09T11:01:27","modified_gmt":"2020-08-09T15:01:27","slug":"img_1689","status":"inherit","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/projectcolorism\/stories-of-pc\/img_1689\/","title":{"rendered":"Seema"},"author":19727,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"class_list":["post-165","attachment","type-attachment","status-inherit","hentry","entry"],"description":{"rendered":"

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From the moment she had any cognition, Seema says, she knew that she was dark-skinned and that it was not desired. Being the darkest girl in school, Seema experienced traumatic instances from kids not wanting to play with her and not wanting to line up behind her because they thought they would get dirty by simply being close to her. There was constant bullying at school, rejections from boys she liked, and regular snide remarks about Seema\u2019s \u201crowdy\u201d and \u201ctom boyish\u201d behavior from neighbors. Seema started feeling like, \u201cthe world validated that no one really likes you, and it is true what others were saying.\u201d With several instances, some unrelated to colorism, Seema resigned to thinking that she would simply live \u201ca life of service\u201d and even became suicidal at one point. Her friends in college helped her move away from those thoughts, but the comments from others never really stopped. In one instance, Seema was putting together a fashion show for her college and even trained some to walk the runway, and in return they would tell her, \u201cyou know how to walk and you know everything [about modeling], but you can\u2019t be a model right, because you’re dark skinned.\u201d After graduating, Seema went to China and several people there wanted to take pictures with her because they found her skin \u201cunique.\u201d She said, in a \u201cweird tokenized way, I felt appreciated. I\u2019m not ugly, I\u2019m just unique, and unique is great.\u201d She then moved to the US and noticed several Black women embracing their skin color and found her confidence through them. When she returned to India for a visit, a makeup artist requested her to model for them because they wanted a model with her skin color. Today, Seema is an engineer and models part-time and recognizes that, \u201cexternally the world has not changed, but I\u2019m trying to change it for myself.\u201d She laughs about the \u201cparadox\u201d that the industry \u201cfully obsessed with looks and perfection, showed me I don\u2019t have to be obsessed with it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n"},"caption":{"rendered":"

From the moment she had any cognition, Seema says, she knew that she was dark-skinned and that it was not desired. Being the darkest girl…<\/p>\n

Continue readingSeema<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n"},"alt_text":"","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":750,"height":937,"file":"2020\/08\/IMG_1689.jpg","sizes":{"medium":{"file":"IMG_1689-240x300.jpg","width":240,"height":300,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/projectcolorism\/files\/2020\/08\/IMG_1689-240x300.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"IMG_1689-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/projectcolorism\/files\/2020\/08\/IMG_1689-150x150.jpg"},"full":{"file":"IMG_1689.jpg","width":750,"height":937,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/projectcolorism\/files\/2020\/08\/IMG_1689.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1","keywords":[]}},"post":28,"source_url":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/projectcolorism\/files\/2020\/08\/IMG_1689.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/projectcolorism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/projectcolorism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/projectcolorism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/projectcolorism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19727"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/projectcolorism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"wp:attached-to":[{"embeddable":true,"post_type":"page","id":28,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/projectcolorism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}