We Are All People Of Colour
By: Benny Lim
Tags: Humanity, Equality, Race, Racism, Togetherness

I never knew the colour on people until I went to school. I really didn’t. And I come from a country that has over 40 ethnic groups and over 200 sub-ethnic groups. If you think about it, that’s A LOT of colour right there.

All I knew was that some had darker skin than others. Some are just really tanned and others needed more blood in their body.

I was a pretty blur kid when I was younger.

Anyway, I’m mixed Chinese and Bidayuh. My dad is the first generation Chinese for his family to be born in Malaysia.

His parents — my grandparents — migrated to Malaysia from China back in the early 1940s. They only became Malaysian citizens much later but my dad and his siblings were all born in the country and were automatically Malaysians. And despite being the first generation to be born here, they don’t feel any affiliation to their parents’ home country. They identify themselves and Malaysians and only Malaysians.

My mom’s side of the family — the Bidayuhs — are an indigenous tribe from Borneo. They, along with the Ibans and Kadazans make up the biggest indigenous tribes in Sabah and Sarawak among the 40 ethnic groups that live in East Malaysia.

I don’t look like your typical Chinese. I’m far from being fair-skinned and I don’t have small Chinese eyes. I have quite a good amount of facial and body hair that seems to be missing in the majority of Chinese people.

But at the same time, I don’t fit your typical indigenous profile either. I’m not as dark-skinned or have as much facial or body hair that the full-bred ones are. I guess being mixed, my genes were split and I got half and half.

I definitely stood out amongst the Chinese because I don’t look or sound like them and I didn’t really blend in with the others as well because I don’t look or sound like them either.

Still, I never saw the others as being of a different colour than me.

The concept of people of colour was introduced to me when I was in high school. That was when I started learning about all the different races all over the world. The Africans, the Westerners, the Middle Easterners, and the Americans (including North and South America).

It was then I learned that they were categorized by the colour of their skin.

The Westerners like the Americans, British, etc were labelled as white. The Africans or the more dark-skinned people were labelled as black. The others were then labelled yellow — which includes the Chinese.

The indigenous people of the world? They were labelled brown or dark brown.

In that context, I’m probably half yellow, half brown/dark brown.

I also learned that everyone else aside from the white people is known as people of colour. So, if you’re not white, you’re someone of some sort of colour.

Which I find silly.

I mean, think about it, are we all not a shade of a colour? Even white is a colour. Just because you’re white, doesn’t mean you’re not a colour.

You are.

We’re all people of colour. Why do we need to differentiate one another with that label?

“Oh, you’re a person of colour.”

Just because he/she is a darker shade of brown.

If you look at the spectrum of colours, it starts and ends with either black and white. Every other colour is in between those two colours.

The most common colour? Brown.

The majority of people in this world are brown. It’s just whether they’re a lighter shade of brown or a darker shade of brown.

I know I’m definitely on the darker side of the spectrum. Looking at my skin colour as I’m typing this right now, I would say I look like a chocolate milk colour. Nice light creamy brown.

Damn, I sound delicious!

But in all seriousness, I didn’t know people were labelled by colour up until secondary school.

And I don’t see a reason why we need to.

My 4-year-old has never asked me why his friends are either lighter or darker skinned than him. All he sees when he meets them are his friends. People that are just like him and are fun to play with. Nothing more, nothing else.

All equal.

At the end of the day, we’re all people of colour. Not just the none whites but everyone. White, black, brown, yellow, we’re all just different shade of colours.

But we’re all the same underneath.

Our blood is red, our bones are white.

And if we can just start seeing each other as equals, I believe that we can finally get rid of unnecessary labels.

We’re all humans — in different shades of nice, vibrant colours.