Tumblr sometimes enlightens me to things I don't want to know. I definitely would have wanted to know this.

So, apparently Tao of Exo, our beloved golden boys, took a jab on Kai's dark skin tone. "What's the big deal; it's happened before." That's the problem.

Before I get comments/messages calling me butthurt, I am not. I am pointing out something that has been going on since Exo's debut: the constant ragging on Kai for his skin color.

I am in international fan; I know nothing about the complex intricacies of Eastern culture and beauty standards. I only know what I know through fan accounts, videos, translations, and dramas. All I know is that easterns like pale skin. Why is this? It's probably because of the stigma of being a worker in the sun if you had dark skin. Having skin white like rice was and is still highly revered. But rice can be brown too. Brown and delicious.

This isn't to say that Kai is so dark as to solicit this kind of singling-out. He's darker than most of his contemporaries which makes him an easy target. The calling out of skin tone hasn't just been done by groupmates though, either. Television hosts have done it as well. His skin is being made into a punch line and a point of exoticism; Tao said what he said to get laughs. The crowd laughed, guys.

I would just like to take a moment to say that Tao IS NOT RACIST. TAO IS NOT RACIST. TAO IS NOT RACIST. He's an easily excitable nineteen year old kid who has been raised in the east around these kinds of beauty ideals. Just because he's been raised in them doesn't make them right. America was built on the backs of slaves but slavery is gone (although we still have the N-word and all that ).

Colorist ideals aren't just present in the east, either; it's a western thing, too. I'm a light skinned African American who has a friend even lighter than me. I've seen situations where light skin is flaunted over dark skin and for what? It's a skin color. It is a skin color. My own mother has been told that she's pretty but she's so damn black. I got pointed out for getting a tan last summer. 

Excuse you. Rude.

So I could ramble all day, but I basically want to say that we aren't going to ing spitroast Tao over a fire for this. He slipped up, but I want people to stop using eastern culture and beauty standards as an excuse. It'd be like someone calling me or my mother "blackie" and then using the American beauty standards towards light skin, small lips, small nose, "good hair", etc to wave it off as a joke.

It is the same thing.

You may try to defend oppa in the comments below. Or message me. Either way, I stand firmly beside my position.