> Posted by Joshua Goldstein, Principal Director for Economic Citizenship & Disability Inclusion, CFI
Last June, in my hotel room in Delhi, I read in the Sunday edition of the Times of India that hiring white girls to work wedding parties is the new status symbol in Bangalore. Though this might sound surprising, alabaster skin as the ideal of beauty (and the status that goes with it) is neither new to nor specific to India. This is not a trivial matter but a deadly serious business.
One need only look at skin whitening products, like Unilever’s “Fair and Lovely”, which are great sellers in the beauty product category in India, Bangladesh, and Thailand—indeed, in 30 countries around the world. The Unilever Sri Lanka website reads: “Today, 250 million consumers across the globe strongly connect with Fair and Lovely as a brand that stands for the belief that beauty empowers a woman to change her destiny.”
I first think of a close Indian-American friend, now living in India, who believes that the woman he married was only still in the market when he met her because her skin was too dark to merit matrimonial consideration– in spite of her beauty. Lucky for him. Or another colleague from an upper-class Indian family who told me that as a little girl her mother had her use “Fair and Lovely” and that today as a young woman in her twenties her mother will say to her reproachfully when she goes home: “you are looking a little dark”. On the matrimonial page in the Times of India, just scanning, I see, over and over again, parents advertising “fair, slim girl”, “fair and handsome boy”, or “wheat-colored girl”.
Women who choose skin whitening products are not doing so because they are silly or vain, but because they are trying to advance their matrimonial prospects in order to optimize the survival and success of their offspring. So rather than condemn them, we need to change society so that the evolutionary strategy to become as white as possible no longer conveys an advantage.
Discrimination based on skin color has a deep and terrible history around the globe, not least in my own country, the United States of America. While much progress has been made all over the world in civil rights, which has sharply reduced official discrimination, it is clear that the culture of discrimination is much harder to eradicate. The question arises: what should microfinance institutions do? How much responsibility do they have to combat the scourge of racism? Overtly, most microfinance institutions prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or ethnic identity, and the Client Protection Principles promoted by the Smart Campaign enshrine that standard. However, inevitably, staff attitudes and behavior (not excluding senior managers) reflect the culture in which the institution operates.
Focusing in on microfinance, here are a couple of examples, if any are needed, that such prejudice continues. A case study from Caroline Shenaz Hossein of York University on microfinance in Guyana uncovered biases among branch managers and staff that limit access to microfinance for eligible entrepreneurs. The case study covered nearly 100 individuals and focused on Albouystown, a slum of Georgetown. The research suggested that race, class, and gender prejudices were pervasive. Micro-lenders, most of whom were Indo-Guyanese, openly admitted to a lending bias against Afro-Buyanese hucksters (informal traders and vendors).
These exclusionary behaviors appear to apply to donors in the microfinance sector as well. A study from Kiva showed – to no fault of Kiva’s – biases in the charitable microfinance lending practiced on their site. The study demonstrated that lenders on the large peer-to-peer lending platform appear to favor more attractive, lighter-skinned, and less obese borrowers, with all other factors equal.
Through my purely anecdotal observations of MFI operations in Latin America, I have noticed that lighter-skinned people often make up the higher echelons of management in microfinance institutions. (I hope one of my readers can either provide some substantiation of this claim or cite examples that show how wrong I am—which would please me to no end.)
In any case, MFIs do not seem to be an exception to the racial prejudice that pervades the societies in which they operate. Hardly surprising but something they should become more conscious of and try to remedy.
International development professionals and microfinance practitioners have too often had blinders on when it has come to bearing witness to, and struggling against, the blatant and subtle discrimination based on skin color that is a defining, oppressive reality in many of the countries where we work. This sobering reality needs to infuse our consciousness or we may be unintentional accessories to further injustice.
Have you read?
The Difficult Crawl Towards Non-Discrimination – Financial and Otherwise
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For Vulnerable Groups and Minorities, Naming Is Claim to One’s Identity
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February 24, 2015 at 12:30 pm
John Gitau
Josh, it is prejudice. It comes in may shapes and forms. It is a learned human characteristic that we have to live with. It cannot disappear. It grows with focusing on it. It subsides by ignoring it or legislating against it. The world Development Report-Mind, Society and Behavior has an apt description of its basis as Mental Models-the frames through which we see everything. It has a lot to do with what we learned from others as we grew up or as we live. We cannot unwind upbringing to re-learn or unlearn.
Prejudice in microfinance is so insignificant compared to prejudice everywhere else. Who is supposed to do something about it? Nobody. Because anybody who is allocated that role has inherent potential for prejudice in one way or another. It might be a man who is professional in loans processing but abusive to his wife as a result of gender prejudice. So, leave everybody alone but apply laws equally- they manage prejudice to a large extent.
Look at it in another way. The one who is prejudiced might not be any different from the victim. Both are dehumanized. It is not the prejudicer to cease prejudice, the victim has the onus of disregarding the prejudice by working on self image. Competition in the world is not limited to economic resources. It spreads to psychological and emotional resources. Prejudice is a manifestation of that competition. If human beings fight in wars for resources killing one another and we find that justified, why do we frown at psychological wars not as lethal as gun wars?
A Kenya living in America may complain of racism. But when he gets onto the social media, the insults he hurls at fellow Kenyans from a different tribe back home are unbearable. And he is oblivious of the fact that the racial prejudice he is a victim of is not any different from the tribal prejudice he subjects fellow Kenyans to. Double standards. Irony.
Just like the poverty and the gap between the rich and the poor that we found when we were born, prejudices is here to stay and we shall leave it around when we pass on. But we shall make our share of noise, just like those who preceded us and are now part of the greater majority. You may wonder, does it mean we do nothing about it? Well, do what you can when you can while realizing that changing mental models is not easy because they are societal safety mechanism and part of living.
Sorry Josh, I don’t share your optimism that something needs to be done in microfinance to reduce the existing prejudices. What you saw in India is what it is. What you wish to see antithetical to that reality is wishful thinking.
February 24, 2015 at 1:25 pm
Joshua Goldstein
John, all great comments. Still while there is no completely eliminating de facto prejudice, as it is part of our shared humanity, I am less pessimistic than you that at least de jure prejudice can be modified as I have seen in the United States.
As a child in the sixties, a black American had to go to a separate water fountain than a white in our nation’s capital, Washington D.C. It was illegal for a person of color to marry a white in many states. This has changed legally and some hearts have changed as well. Many hearts really–or in your language mental models.
I believe that as flawed as the United States is as a republic with our tragic legacy of slavery, our union really is more perfect today.
(Most recently the wide acceptance of gay Americans has been a transformation that has come so quickly that even the most optimistic advocates of this cause were surprised.)
What I see in many of the countries I travel to is a complete lack of awareness of the role color prejudice plays in their society and that is why I am trying to get a dialogue going on this topic. In a self satisfied way, they see it as the original sin of America and don’t recognize it in their midst.
More rich exchanges when we meet in Kenya, if not before. Thanks and please keep your always fascinating comments coming. I would be interested in your riposte to this.
February 24, 2015 at 3:58 pm
John Gitau
Thank you Josh. We already have one point of convergence- legislation can lead to changes of heart or as you put it, ” this has changed legally and some hearts have changed as well”. Laws are powerful because they are aligned with how the mind works-avoiding pain and moving towards pleasure. When forced to conform because we fear the consequences, that leads to change in behavior. It starts with tolerance, which is sufficient enough or a good start to change of heart( transformation?). I take it that tolerance isn’t the complete absence of racial prejudice but a prejudice management regime.
I am curious to know from you what you mean by the modification of de jure prejudice. Is it the tolerance I am implying or it is something that would trigger a transformation?( a stage in the transformation process) Indeed, modification is an interesting word. I am listening to it in the line of what the Global Progress Reports suggests that some change in behavior can be effected by simple tweaks. What tweaks can we have that can kick in the modification you have in mind?
“Our union is more perfect today”. Is it as a result of legal whipping that yields changes of heart or union of convenience based on the three principles of co-existence-commensualism, reciprocity and symbiosis as sociologists would explain? But I see your point that, compared to how worse the situation was before with outright racism, there has been great strides made and this must be as a result of deliberate interventions-primarily legal.
Before we get shocked or surprised by any transformation, we need to understand the underlying triggers. The transformational acceptance of gayism shoudn’t be shocking if we understand human hypocrisy around sexual matters.( frown openly but be inclined internally). It is like polygamy being accepted transformatively with men getting surprised about the speed.
Isn’t the lack of awareness of the role of color prejudice good? ( what we focus on grows. And isn’t ignorance bliss sometimes?). If I go to a Chinese village and the villagers see me as a human being from another continent as opposed to a black inferior guy from a dark continent, aren’t they ignorant of prejudice, which is a good thing than Indian villagers would accommodate me while aware of racial prejudice thus hypocritical acceptance of me?
February 25, 2015 at 5:13 am
Paul Rippey
Josh and John, All good comments. Thanks for bringing this up.
In my own life, I always thought that my wife and I raised our children without pushing them into pre-defined gender roles. We probably did better than the preceding generation, but when I see how my enlightened daughter and her enlightened husband are raising THEIR son, then I realize I still have a lot to learn. I think the mountains of racism, sexism, nationalism, religionism – are very tall. They may not even have a top. All we can do is keep climbing.
I saw this article in the NY Times the other day and totally recommend it: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/opinion/research-shows-white-privilege-is-real.html
Things like this article are useful for me – they help me be aware of all my prejudices.
February 25, 2015 at 6:09 pm
Joshua Goldstein
Paul, John, Sebastian, thanks for your thoughtful and penetrating comments. In terms of truly overcoming ethnic or race divides in a society, John has gotten me thinking about the difference between countries like the United States and Canada that are defined and reshaped by one wave of new immigrants after another– and most of the other nation states in the world that are much less fluid and static: countries in Europe for example that have a terrible time integrating foreigners into their cultures. In fact the sense of foreigness never really passes. My mother was a Jewish refugee from Germany who spent the World War 2 years in England. She once said to me that she could have lived fifty years in the UK and never been accepted as British whereas in the US she felt as American as the next person after a matter of a year or so.
I think of what the late TonyJudt said about Europe after World War Two. Compared to the Ottoman Empires and the Austro Hungarian empires prior to World War 1, which were polyglot and ethnically quite mixed, post war Europe is largely made up of nation states that are ethnically “pure.” The war that broke up Yugoslavia in the nineties completed that process with Serbs, Croats and Bosnians separating into their own kind of fortress states. And look at the Middle East. A wise and deeply humane Israeli Justice recently advised a young Israeli man and Palestinian woman who had fallen in love to move to the United States if they were to have a chance at happiness. His point being that neither the Palestinians or Israeli’s could stomach the mixing of bloodlines. So John’s pessimism about breaking down barriers between “races,” tribes or ethnic groups seem sadly too true in most societies.—
The exception are societies that are defined by waves of migrations and the tolerance, however imperfect that can be achieved over time. Only in such countries can acceptance of increasing diversity, have a chance to flourish.
Oh, Foreign Affairs magazine in its just published March/ April issue, devotes itself to looking at ” The Trouble with Race,” drawing on many thinkers from around the world. to help take a deeper look at this. Haven’t read yet but looks like there is a lot of great stuff there.
Thanks again all. Let us keep the conversation rolling.
Josh
February 25, 2015 at 5:17 am
Sebastian Dinjens
@John: if only it were so simple to embrace our blissful ignorance.
I think you have a great analysis on the role of prejudice in society, which to an extent is also quite a useful tool to simplify our ever more complex societies. That said, people have deeply embedded behavior tied to deeply held beliefs. So deeply held that most people are not aware of them.
As an example, police officers are more likely to shoot African-Americans than they are to shoot Caucasians. This is something not to idly observe, but something to combat. Sadly there are many other examples, about many different minorities.
(http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1798&issue_id=5200)
The only way to discuss prejudice is to acknowledge that it exists, don’t judge it too harshly (I prefer the term prejudice over the term racism in most cases), but be aware of how it impacts our *actual* behavior. I agree that we should not try to change human nature, but we should try to mitigate the harmful consequences it has on people. The law is all about limiting harmful human behavior.
One eye-opener is this Harvard test to measure your own degree of prejudice. This opens up the realisation that we don’t follow the racist/colorblind dichotomy. We’re all prejudiced, and we need to talk about it.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
February 26, 2015 at 3:07 am
John Gitau
You say it so simply and so well, Sebastian that I want to hang onto your statements to make a remark. That people have deeply embedded behavior tied to deeply held beliefs, so deeply held that most people are not aware of them, makes them deserve sympathy than condemnation. In fact, deep beliefs are convictions and as we know, convictions are not any different from instincts that drive animals. So, just like it is in the nature of a bee to sting, it is in the nature of a deeply prejudiced person to hate and discriminate. If a soldier after a year of intensive “how to kill” indoctrination(what we euphemistically call military training) can kill fellow human beings effortlessly, why would we assume that a person who is prejudice-indoctrinated over a lifetime would just drop prejudice at the drop of a hat? Sebastian, your point makes me think boldly that, indeed, prejudice is a mixing hazard(racial, tribal, sexual etc). It is a human tragedy and comes with the territory. It is not in the lion’s nature to graze with zebras, it makes a meal of them. In my country, baseless tribal hatred is worse than the racial prejudice I read about.
You also say that “the only way to discuss prejudice is to acknowledge that it exists. We need to be aware that it impacts our behavior and it is something to combat while not judging it too harshly. We need to mitigate its harmful consequences”. Last year, my nephew joined a university in America for his graduate studies. It was his first time out of the Kenya. What came in my mind instantly was the racism he might encounter in America. My piece of advice to him was never to allow any comment or treatment to reduce his self image. That, I told him, is the best asset he has and if he allows anyone to erode it, he has himself to blame. What was clear in my mind when I was dishing out the unsolicited advice was that, prejudice of whichever kind is a battle of the mind (self image and esteem). Perhaps we notice as much prejudice as our self image and esteem allows. So, a co-existence buffet of some sorts.
Perfectly said that “we are all prejudiced and we need to talk about it”. The question I have is whether there is evidence that talking about prejudice reduces it. We ordinarily notice more of what we become aware of. I am now wondering whether my advice to my nephew didn’t do more harm than good because, more conscious, he will likely pick racial prejudice easily. Will the prejudice intensity demolish my nephew’s local self image whose strength he may also not know? Only time will tell.
Thank you Josh for your further help to the debate. The dichotomy of the purist states versus the immigrant friendly ones is helpful in understanding prejudice. The perspective drove me to the kitchen and in the hilarity of imagination, I couldn’t help perceiving how cold water sprinkled over the boilingly flaring tea in a pot instantly silences it( we cook tea by mixing tea leaves, milk and water and placing it on the cooker fire and the evidence of its readiness is when it flares up). And in another example, how cold water poured into an almost cooked meal in a pot makes it soggy( like reversing the cookedness as the new water robs the meal the heat it has taken long to build). In this analogy, new immigrants bring with them fresh naivety and irritability that flares up racial prejudice even more, taking away the tolerance gains. But, agreeably, human beings tolerate what they constantly get exposed to and aggressively resist what appears strange to them.
Please do share with us the content of the magazine, Josh, when you get hold of it..
February 26, 2015 at 3:25 pm
Sebastian Dinjens
@John, I’m thoroughly enjoying your eloquence!
On your question, whether there is evidence that talking about prejudice reduces it: I simply do not know. I would love to read an academic paper on it.
As an individual, I feel the awareness and the discussions about it help make my own prejudices milder. This may be a consequence of my personality, perhaps for others it would make it worse. But for me, and others around me, I have found that talking about prejudice changes the discussions from “Other people are racists” to “I have prejudices that can harm or limit others”. The famous examples of CVs of different ethnically attributable names that reach different success rates. Even those belonging to a minority are found to discriminate against those in their own ‘group’. Each individual has a prejudiced demon to fight – can we fight it if we are not aware? I certainly could not imagine so myself.
February 25, 2015 at 8:43 am
John Gitau
Hi Paul! Your mountain analogy is spot on! The conclusion is even more powerful ” All we can do is keep climbing”. Thank you for the article reference. It confirms what is already known and which is unlikely to change any time soon.
Let’s be honest. Since prejudice cuts across many facets of life and nobody is immune from it, isn’t that a consolation? It would be worse if we only had one form of prejudice. The saying ” those who live in glass houses should never throw stones” is a stark reminder that when it comes to prejudice, nobody can claim innocence. A white woman who batters her broke white husband is not any different from an Arab who treats an African domestic servant like a slave. And an African man who is considered no more than a monkey by his Chinese colleague may not deserve any sympathy if in turn he treats his wife like a lesser human being. Both use illogical explanations to justify their prejudices.
Parties to various forms of the prejudices( unless they are children or living with disabilities) are dehumanized and are attracted to each other by the prejudice that brings them together. I mean, an abusive man attracts to himself a woman with low self esteem( that makes the abuse possible as a manifestation of gender prejudice). The robber and the robbed share a frequency and that is what brings them together. The robber has intensive desire to rob and the robbed has the crippling fear of be robbed. That creates a frequency congruence.
Like diseases, prejudices are with us to stay. But they can be reduced over time through laws.That which has no logical basis may not be alleviated by logical persuasion. But research is useful as it will help create laws to help contain the vice.
I desire to know one thing from the psychologists: Can exposing a prejudice help in reducing it( as a pattern-interrupt mechanism) the way human control dramas get busted and reduced?
February 27, 2015 at 3:55 am
John Gitau
In financial inclusion, when financial services providers are hell bent to exploit their customers, we have three tools that come to the aid of consumers: Consumer protection laws, consumer protection advocacy/ lobbying and financial literacy. Financial services providers are innovative and dynamic and it is difficult to vet every product they create for exploitation. So, the better bet is equipping consumers with financial literacy so that they are able to vet every product that is sold to them.
Likewise, prejudices of all kinds and forms are difficult to monitor or control. Like financial services providers, prejudiced people are difficult to pick out and manage. So, we have prejudice management tools such as: prejudice protection laws, anti-prejudice advocacy/ lobbying and prejudice literacy. If I were to teach prejudice literacy, my best subject would be Self Concept. No prejudice, in my thinking, can penetrate a thick self image and self esteem. And that cuts across all prejudices.
Geo-politically, see how fortified the tiny Israel’s self image and esteem is. Israel’s prominence and ability to marshal support from America and Europe is based on its bigger than life self image. Compare Israel with Africa’s size giant and resources rich Sudan, crawling in inferiority complex and busy abusing its low self esteem population. Sudan’s self image is rotten.
In my country, the president and his deputy were ICC indictees. See what they achieved through their super self image and esteem. Even in their vulnerability, they pulled a fast one through their Go East strategy that left America and Europe confused about the geo-political implication. Britain was the first to break the pariah rule, followed by America. It was not for Kenya to plead for acceptance. No, it was for Kenya to use the important resource it has- its strategic position in the world political-economic game. I can opine that the Kenya’ leadership, through their prejudice literacy were able to overcome the ICC indictment prejudice.
We all know how women all over the world had to fight for their empowerment in a war against gender prejudice. It was not for men to drop their gender prejudice, rather it was for women to fight for their entitlement. Today, we have more women in leadership that ever before, thanks to gender prejudice literacy that advocacy keeps invigorating.
My point is that in prejudice literacy, it is upon the victims and potential victims to learn how to fortify their self image and esteem so that no prejudice will have space in them. This, combined with anti-prejudice laws become important tools to manage prejudice.
Josh, we are fortunate that in microfinance, the context of this post, we have consumer protection laws( that should address prejudice as well), consumer protection advocacy and watchdogs( which should pay attention to prejudices inherent in financial serviced delivery) and financial literacy( which should have a topic on prejudice- how to pick it out and fight it).
March 28, 2015 at 12:56 am
Caroline Hossein
Joshua! Thanks for sharing this piece on Guyana. I have more cases of bias against people of colour in microfinance. I think its great the Centre is looking at these issues. How can we chat one day?
March 30, 2015 at 4:23 pm
Joshua Goldstein
Thank you very much Caroline. My email is . I would be delighted to speak with you and am grateful for your research on this topic and your interest.