Racism and thoughts on it :
A very debatable and first world problem is racism . Very harsh truth is, racism is instilled in us from our childhood. If we dig a bit deeper we will learn that society is held responsible for it . But what does it mean by the term “ society “? Society consists of us .
A particular way of thinking is prevalent in us which has been passed down through generations . That way of thinking develops into our mentality . Our mentality is reflected clearly in every part of our life later on . Mentality actually puts our perception and understanding ability within a limited range and it leads to our selective taste and picking favorites .
It leads to us having our very own definition of “beautiful vs ugly “ . It leads to various materialistic society standards . If they are not fulfilled we start criticizing and complaining . Every country has its own society standards . In our country Bangladesh , the most common mentality reflection is that we prefer fair skinned people over dark skinned people . Dark skin is considered as a disadvantage .
This is why many dark skinned people try various ways to bleach their skin . Asia is considered to be the largest consumer market of skin lightening and fairness products . These whitening products lead to decrease in melanin production and increase risks like skin irritations , allergy and deadly skin cancer . 
In whitening products ingredients like mercury, steroids , BHT, BHA, Dioxane, Fragrance needs to be watched out as they can be toxic for your skin . Yet people are still buying these products because they are not confident to be themselves .
Body shaming has also been a prominent topic all over the world . Females are especially vulnerable to this topic since we are being bombarded with perfect body goals and unrealistic standards all over social media . Young girls are getting insecure day by day and are choosing to starve to get their ideal body and look like their favorite model. They are in a constant pressure to lose weight by society also.
Instead of this approach, a proper healthy diet and healthy lifestyle needs to be promoted more . A healthy lifestyle will help us improve our metabolism , strength , energy and make us happier as a person . Just like this , beauty standards are leading people to have low self esteem and mental issues . Teenagers are more affected to matters like this .
Discrimination related to social class is also an extremely common scenario here . People are judged openly for their economic and lifestyle status in every sector including institutions , workplace , gatherings etc . It plays a vital role and affects the social relation . People are treated differently based on their social and economic status . People with lower income range especially laborers are being insulted and exploited financially by their privileged owner .
Even though we are a nation where people of different religion and culture are living together harmoniously , our perspective needs to change a lot and we still have a long way to go in this journey of optimistic development and lifestyle change .
Written by: Tahira Noor
