Film stars who advertise fairness creams for money, today saying ‘Black Lives matter”

On one hand, outrage continues to grow over the death of George Floyd, on the other hand, Bollywood celebrities are raising their voice against racism and supporting the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement following the death of George Floyd.

The heart-wrenching incident took place in Minneapolis in which a 46-year-old African American was brutally killed by a police officer. Video footage of the incident went viral on social media in no time.

Following the incident, people expressed their outrage over the heartbreaking incident and thousands of people thronged the street to ignite the incident. Massive violence broke out across the USA. A huge crowd reached out to the White House to demand justice for George Floyd.

Several people strongly condemned the death of George Floyd. Bollywood celebrities including Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Kareena Kapoor Khan also condemned the brutal incident and raised their voices against racism in the US. But the two Bollywood actresses are now receiving criticism from a section for being silent on issues concerning India, and not looking into one’s own backyard before condemning a global event.

Not just netizens, even actors like Abhay Deol and Kangana Ranaut asked the celebrities why they remained silent when riots took place in India and why they did not utter a single word.

Actress Kangana Ranaut has lashed out at the ‘hypocrisy’ of Bollywood celebrities once again. Speaking to the BBC, Kangana said, “The Indian celebrities they’ve been endorsing all kinds of fairness products and today shamelessly they stand and say black lives matter, I mean how dare they? Our industry even shies away from casting darker actors for characters that are supposed to be fair-skinned. Why is no one asking them about these million-dollar deals that they’ve been doing with all kinds of fairness products and how come suddenly all black lives matter because racism is deep-rooted and when you have commercialised such events that is the lowest humanity can hit.”

Actors such as Priyanka Chopra, Disha Patani and Sonam Kapoor have been endorsing fairness creams in India for a long time. But Kangana has never endorsed any fairness product. Speaking about it, she once said, “My sister (Rangoli Chandel) is dusky, yet beautiful. If I go ahead and be part of this campaign, then, in a way, I would be insulting her. If I can’t do that to my sister, then how can I do it to the entire nation?”

Like Kangana, Abhay Deol also slammed all celebrities for endorsing fairness creams in the country and asked them to look inside before saying ‘Black Lives Matter.’ The actor had even shared how fairness product companies had changed some of the terminologies to avoid criticism.

Writer, historian, and activist Dharam Sikarwar is a very active author The Youth. He writes on national and international issues, environment, politics. He is an avid book reader as well.