By y this time, I’m sure many of you have heard that BRIGHT Magazine will be (mostly) closing its doors today.

It has been a tremendous joy and privilege to found and steward this scrappy little magazine. I started BRIGHT Magazine because I believed the world deserved better storytelling about international development and social impact. I was tired of seeing photos of babies with flies in their eyes, glib assumptions about faraway places in the global south, and thick paragraphs filled with jargon.

I truly believe that BRIGHT broke through those stereotypes, and consistently told sharp, important stories of which I will always be proud.

I am especially proud of the editorial values BRIGHT brought them into the world. From the beginning, I’ve insisted on five values to guide our work: our stories should (when possible) be solutions-oriented, jargon-free, diverse, provocative, and creative.

We have created beautiful work that has deeply questioned what it means to do good. We’ve had real impact with some of our stories, like getting an ICE policy changed that reunited over a thousand undocumented families. We’ve won four journalism awards, including a National Edward R. Murrow award for excellence in writing. Our stories have been part of philanthropic funding decisions. We’ve helped students think through how they can best make a difference in the world.

I’m also so deeply thankful for the audience we’ve built, of curious and globally-minded people who hail from all corners of the world. My heart and inbox have been overwhelmed with the messages I’ve been getting in response to announcing our closure.

The messages are bittersweet, of course, but they underscore one thing I’ve needed to hear: that our work matters. BRIGHT has made a dent in the world, however small and fleeting. I’ve also been so heartened that our audience really seemed to understand, and vibe with, our mission and ambition. This was reflected back to me when I saw the word cloud our readers generated in our recent survey (we asked people to tell us three words they would associate with BRIGHT Magazine):

II want to be honest about the reason we are closing, because I think it’s informative to the sector writ large: our grant money dwindled, and I chose to say no to the few offers of money I received. To that end, I am thankful to be closing shop on my terms.

Nothing can last forever, particularly in today’s harsh media environment. It has taken me some time, but I am at peace with this reality. There is limited philanthropic money out there for journalism in general, and certainly for the topics BRIGHT covers.

In my case, I was raising money from philanthropists in order to create journalism about philanthropic issues. This meant that I was often routed to communications departments, so that I might tell stories directly related to the mission of their philanthropy. They all wanted stories that were journalistic in nature, but with the primary purpose of bringing attention to the issues that mattered to them.

I struggled with how to respond to these offers. As an entrepreneur — and former struggling freelance writer — it felt ridiculous to turn down offers for money. But ultimately, I decided that it deviated too far from the mission I had set out for the magazine. I wanted to build a space that freely questioned the norms and culture of the international development sector, and I worried that if we began to take PR and communications money, our hands would get tied down (even though every potential funder I met promised us editorial independence).

Outside of philanthropy, I was never able to crack financial sustainability. We have tried revenue experiments like live events and crowdfunding, and though they’ve all gone relatively well, they’ve taken a lot of effort — especially for a team as small as ours. It takes money (and other resources) to make money, and that’s hard to do when you’re lean.

In short, I was never able to find the Answer to our financial needs. Frankly, save the stray billionaire that cares about media, I don’t think that Answer exists right now. Digital media is in dire straits, and I am so thankful that I have been able to make BRIGHT Magazine — a tiny, independent, digital magazine — last for as long as it has.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been telling myself (sometimes aloud), “Something can be worthwhile AND difficult to fund. That’s okay. The latter does not negate the former.”

TThere are a few standout moments for me in the last three years, which to me symbolize the extent of our ambition and creativity. Here are a few, in no particular order:

Setting up our editorial values.

Before I moved to Nairobi in 2017, I had the opportunity to participate in a week-long program for entrepreneurs through the University of Pennsylvania. It was deeply meaningful for me, as it helped me reflect on what I wanted to accomplish, and how BRIGHT Magazine fit into my life more generally. We did one exercise where we wrote on sticky notes ten values that were important to us. We then whittled them down, one at a time, until we arrived at our three core values. The three words I discovered are now etched on my heart, and any major decision I make takes them into account.

After I moved to Nairobi and hired a team, I repeated this exercise with them — which became the backbone of our five above-stated editorial values. I talked through our final five values with my board, and we structured ways to ensure we actually lived them.

Publishing “The Reductive Seduction Of Other People’s Problems.”

This remains one of my proudest moments with the magazine. We published this gorgeous, complicated essay by Courtney Martin during the early days of The Development Set, BRIGHT Magazine’s predecessor. It established the tone we were looking to strike with the magazine, and quickly differentiated us from other development publications. To date, it remains one of our most viral and well-respected essays ever published.

Meeting the GHR Foundation.

Thanks to BRIGHT Magazine, I’ve been invited to attend and speak at a variety of international gatherings, including the Skoll World Forum in Oxford, England. Last year, I met a program officer from the GHR Foundation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and we soon drowned our ambivalence about the “development sector” over a drink.

A few months later, they supported us to produce a series about family separation, and trusted us to take it in whatever direction we wished. We ended up, among other stories, publishing a graphic novel that recounted the journey of a 6-year-old girl from Guatemala to the United States with her father.

Our live event in Nairobi, Kenya.

One of our revenue experiments took place last November, in the form of a live storytelling event about innovations in education. Seven speakers — a range of educators, parents, students, funders — were tasked to share stories that started personal, and eventually built up to a more universal point about what works in education.

The evening went better than we could have imagined; we had expected 75 people, and about 130 people came through on a weeknight. I felt in the stories a real blend of head and heart, which I’ve rarely seen in the education sector. The audience was deeply engaged throughout the long program. It showed me that there truly is an audience out there for whom BRIGHT’s values resonate.

Deciding to create a book.

I’ve long been interested in putting together our distinctive stories into a physical book. But while I would personally love a “Best of BRIGHT” book, it felt a little self-important and scattered (that said: you can see our editorial team’s favorite 40 stories here!). In any case, I wanted the book to have a life of its own.

During a brainstorming session, our team came up with the idea to focus on a topic that was familiar and dear to all of us: travel. Specifically, ethical travel. Travel changes us, sometimes in unexpected ways. Is it possible for our travel to leave a positive impact on the lives of others? Is it possible to travel better, more ethically?

Once we nailed down the concept, our team had a lot of fun over the following weeks putting together a crowdfunding video and campaign around it. I should mention that we are not yet finished with the book, and that we are committed to completing it over the next few months! You are welcome to continue pre-ordering your copy (and other merch) here.

WWhether you read our newsletter every week or only occasionally stumbled across our stories, I am so thankful for your support over the years. There are 800 stories that will continue living on brightthemag.com that are a testament to your belief in our vision. Onward and upward.

Talking In Pictures

A BRIGHT Farewell was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Lucy Bernholz

We e live in an era of 24/7/365 charitable asks, whether from friends, Twitter campaigns, or crowdfunding sites. How are we supposed to make the most of this charitable spirit? In a world of shared social challenges, what’s a caring person to do? And if I were to turn the mirror on myself: how should I think about my own charitable giving?

These are questions I’ve wrestled with a lot. I’m a self-proclaimed philanthropy wonk — I have worked in, written about, advised others, and helped track trends in the industry for more than two decades. But that doesn’t make the question of charitable giving any less thorny.

At some point, I’ve realized that before I figure out how to give, I need to ask myself why. Why do I give?

For you, the answer may be straightforward. It feels good. You were asked. You always do it. You enjoy the tradition. You’ve benefitted and want to give back. Your religion instructs you to. You heard that Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg just pledged 99 percent of their Facebook stock holdings and were inspired to reconsider your role in shaping the future. Perhaps you’ve been touched by world events and feel you can’t stand by. Or your workplace matches gifts and you like to take advantage of every possible perk.

All of those reasons have one thing in common. They all derive from the opt-in nature of charitable giving. No one can make you give. It’s neither a requirement of citizenship nor the market economy, no matter how guilty the CVS cashier may make you feel. Each of us chooses whether and how to participate. This is not a bug; it’s a feature.

My own answer to “why I give,” is, quite simply, because I can. Because it’s my choice. Giving is a way to express myself, to signal what I care about, and what I stand for.

Ironically, the very breadth of that reason helps me focus. I don’t look for a short-term, measurable return on my dollar (though I can if I want to). I can support big, existential causes like civil liberties, political change, or the pursuit of social justice — which I know take a long time and for which my dollar is at best a long-term bet.

I don’t have to do what others say (though I can listen). The history of civil society in democracies is rich with causes once unpopular — from abolition to reproductive rights, environmentalism to gun control. More than two hundred years ago Andrew Hamilton noted the importance of this sector as protection of the minority against the tyranny of the majority.

I don’t have the financial resources of the Chan Zuckerberg family, but I do have access to the same toolbox of options for how I use my money for good. If there’s a way to invest, shop, volunteer, protest, or vote to achieve the goal I’m interested in, I’ll do that. I leave my charitable dollars for those issues or organizations where earned revenue is tough or impossible, and sustained action is needed. Once I’ve found the right organizations, I give them money and let them do their work.

There are three other types of donations I make. I donate my time by serving on boards and by taking shifts at the food bank or a local community center. I give blood. And I donate our family’s used clothing, books, and furniture to organizations that refurbish it or sell it as part of their missions. All of these kinds of donations make me feel good and are (usually) fun. Often, it feels like I got more than I gave.

But you tell me — if you give charitably, why do you do it? If you don’t give, why not? How intentional are you about your giving, and how do you think you can improve? How have you struggled with your personal giving?

Share your experience. Tell us what the rest of us could consider when we think about giving.

This article was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on Dec. 15, 2015.

• My Son Is The Reason I Give
• The Hand that Gives

This Is Why I Give. What About You? was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On May 28, thousands of women wearing green scarves gathered in front of the National Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Faces adorned with green glitter, many of them held signs in support of legal, safe, and free abortion.

The women came out to show their support for a bill that had been submitted before Congress. Over the past eight years, similar bills in favor of the legalization of abortion have been introduced, with no success.

The legalization of abortion remains one of the most politically divisive issues in this traditional, Catholic nation. Successive feminist movements have championed women’s right to choose since the 1970s to no avail, in part because the Catholic Church continues to have huge influence on public policy, especially in matters related to sexual and reproductive rights.

However, in recent years, the debate has become mainstream, in large part due to the efforts of the Campaign for the right to legal, safe and free abortion — a coalition of organizations, social leaders, and movements.

The Campaign was created in 2003 during the Women’s National Encounter, an annual gathering where Argentine women come together to discuss gender issues. “One of the ideas that came up was to [create] a big national, federal, plural, and diverse campaign to unify the struggles in favor of the right to abortion,” says Martha Rosenberg, one of the campaign’s founders. Rosenberg is an 83-year-old activist, doctor, and psychoanalyst who has been on the frontlines of the battle of women’s rights for decades. “We took abortion out of the closet,” she says.

In 2005, the organization was officially launched, its slogan reading: “Sexual education to decide, contraceptives to prevent abortions, legal abortion to prevent deaths.” This slogan has become a rallying cry for women across the nation. “Over the past 15 years, the campaign became an important political actor,” says Rosenberg. “We placed the right to abortion in the media and the political agenda, after years of being left aside and being considered a marginal topic that had no political weight.”

When I asked her how they were able put what has been considered a taboo issue on the public agenda, Rosenberg explains that the campaign “used all possible strategies.” Some women wrote editorials for the news outlets and filed lawsuits in the cases where the legal right to abortion was denied. Others taught courses on abortion at universities or handed out green scarves on the streets.

“The green scarf is a construction, a symbol,” Rosenberg says. “It’s not just the right to abortion, but also the resistance to a male-centered, patriarchal society, and a demand for equality of all women.” At first, the campaign distributed the scarves for free at assemblies and demonstrations. Over the last year, however, as the debate became more mainstream and its popularity grew, street vendors started selling the scarves on the streets for 50 Argentine pesos (about $1.20). In response, those on the opposing side created a light blue scarf to express their opposition to the legalization of abortion.

The #NiUnaMenos (not one woman less) movement that born in 2015 to denounce gender violence and the government’s lack of action helped pave the way for the debate on abortion. What started as a hashtag on social media promoted by a group of feminist journalists, led to massive demonstrations on the streets across Argentina. “Feminism stopped being something for a few women [and became] something that involved a lot of women,” says journalist Ingrid Beck, one of the journalists who started the movement. “It became a massive phenomenon … It made violence against women, which was hidden and naturalized until then, visible.”

CCurrently, abortion is legal in Argentina only in two circumstances: if the pregnancy endangers the life or health of the woman, or in case of rape. The first exception was introduced in the criminal code in 1921. Before that bill was passed, abortion was illegal in all circumstances. In 2012, a Supreme Court ruling extended the exception for cases of rape. In reality, it’s still hard to access legal abortion in cases of rape, with doctors or local authorities often intervening to prevent the procedure. Those who seek an illegal abortion can face up to four years in prison, along with the doctors who perform it.

Earlier this year, the debate over the need to make abortion legal was rekindled when the heart-wrenching case of Lucía (not her real name) made international news. The 11-year-old girl became pregnant after being raped by her grandmother’s boyfriend. “I want you to remove what the old man put inside me,” the girl told the hospital’s psychologist.

Even though Lucía was legally entitled to an abortion, her provincial government delayed the procedure until it was no longer viable. Lucía had to undergo a premature C-section after 25 weeks. The baby died days after being born. With the hashtag #NiñasNoMadres (girls not mothers), the demand for legal abortion to prevent what some characterized as child torture took on a new life on social media.

Despite being illegal, women continue to have abortions, often in unsafe conditions. There are an estimated 450,000 abortions every year in the country according to Argentina’s Health Ministry, with close to 66,000 women hospitalized due to complications related to the procedure.

While wealthier women can go to private clinics or buy abortion-inducing drugs, women from low-income sectors resort to unsafe methods — like putting parsley or clothes hangers in their vaginas. “Rich women have abortions, poor women die,” was one of the arguments activists used to defend the bill in Congress.

LLast year, for the first time, the debate over the legalization of abortion took place in the nation’s Congress. A bill to make abortion legal and free for all women until 14 weeks of pregnancy, and later than that in case of rape or risk to the life of the woman, was debated.

The controversy around the bill drew international attention. Margaret Atwood, author of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” wrote a tweet that went viral in which she asked the Vice President of Argentina to vote in favor of the bill: “Don’t look away from the thousands of deaths every year from illegal abortions. Give Argentinian women the right to choose!” Amnesty International also published a full page ad in The New York Times.

The movement in Argentina has had an impact in the region. “The strength of the ‘green wave’ spread through all of Latin America, promoting the social mobilization for the legalization of abortion,” says Ecuadorian journalist Isabel González. “In Ecuador, for example, demonstrations were held to express support for the Argentine movement, but a strategy was also promoted by civil society to make abortion legal in Ecuador, at least in cases of rape.”

EEven if victory for a woman’s right to choose in Argentina remains elusive, the public campaign has irrevocably changed Argentine society. “For me, the scarf is a political symbol that I need to always carry with me. It means sorority,” says Eugenia Mariluz, a radio host from Buenos Aires. Likewise, for Ángela Gómez, a student from Mendoza, the green scarf is more than just a scarf. “For me, the scarf is the symbol of our struggle, it represents our demands,” she says.

As Argentina heads towards presidential and parliamentary elections this October, the issue of the legalization of abortion is bound to be a key and contentious issue. And even if abortion laws do not change in the coming years, one thing is certain: The fight for the right to choose will never go back into the closet.

• Traveling Home Amidst Ireland’s Raging Abortion Debate
• Abortion Is Legal In South Africa — But Illegal Clinics Are Thriving. Why?

Out Of The Closet And Into The Streets was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Jee Kim

Some say the field of philanthropy rests on a fundamental contradiction. It aims to solve social problems and redistribute wealth. Yet it is a product of a system of unequal accumulation, which could be critiqued as causing the problems that philanthropy seeks to solve. Should philanthropy address this contradiction? Can it?

Philanthropy, in its current institutional form, is only about a century old. Since its inception, both donors and the larger public have debated how individuals can deploy their accumulated wealth to serve the greater good. In 1910, when John D. Rockefeller tried to obtain a federal charter to establish his foundation, Congress turned him down. (He had more success with the New York State Legislature, which granted him a state charter in 1913.)

And in 1912, the Commission on Industrial Relations recommended that the Rockefeller Foundation be regulated or shut down entirely, arguing that “the domination by the men in whose hands the final control of a large part of American industry rests is not limited to their employees, but is being rapidly extended to control the education and ‘social service’ of the Nation.”

Over a hundred years later, the field of philanthropy still wrestles with these important questions. As Gara LaMarche asked in the online journal Democracy, “Why are we…hypersensitive to the dangers of big money in politics…but blind, it seems, to the dangers of big philanthropy in the public sphere?”

Yesteryear’s wealth was built through oil and steel, but much of today’s new money is culled through data and software. And though we seem to have entered a virtual world, its effects are extremely physical. In our current gilded era, the fortunes of Gates and Zuckerberg compete with the more democratic processes of government. Their choices affect how our children are educated, who is healthy or suffers from disease (whether or not the abuses of big pharma are addressed), and the mechanisms by which we will or will not tackle climate change.

While the Internet has democratized access to knowledge and information in many ways, the biggest winners are still primarily white and primarily male. Companies like Apple make use of tax havens, even as inequality remains on the rise. Meanwhile, children as young as seven are mining cobalt for smart phone batteries, and families from diverse backgrounds are being pushed out of their homes in San Francisco, where the tech industry has taken over. While the tech industry may be heralding some kinds of progress, it does not seem to be interested in the fundamental causes of inequality.

The virtual world reiterates the inequalities of the physical world. Is philanthropy enough to redress these problems, or is there something more fundamental at stake?

In “The Gospel of Wealth,” written in 1889 as a manifesto of sorts for the beneficiaries of the first Gilded Age, Andrew Carnegie acknowledged vast inequality as the unavoidable consequence of a free market system. He then suggested that philanthropy would ease the pressures created by inequality.

Perhaps it is time for a New Gospel of Wealth. Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, recently cited Martin Luther King, Jr’s insight: “Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.”

In other words, one can and should be wary of the role of rule by plutocracy, even when it seems benevolent. But putting aside the blunt critiques, we are interested in the proactive question: How does philanthropy understand the economic system that is its maker?

We have asked a number of leaders in philanthropy to provide their answers to these questions: Should philanthropy address the inequality of which it is a symptom? And if so, how?

This forum first appeared at the Nation magazine. The article was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on July 26, 2016.

• In Philanthropy, Who Is Actually Broken?
• Philanthropy Needs To Take A Hard Look At Its Colonial Roots

A New Gospel Of Philanthropy was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Cliché but true, our lives are saturated with images. Yet it’s often hard to find that special photo in a newspaper or magazine that will grab the viewer’s attention long enough for them to carry on reading. In Gabrielle Hamilton’s words, “Anyone can cook, but not everyone can be a chef.” It’s the same with photography. I can take good pictures, but it doesn’t make me a photographer, and good images are not that easy to come by.

This is especially true when it comes to the types of stories we tell at BRIGHT Magazine — about weighty global issues like health, education, and gender. For so long, the imagery associated with these topics has been a bit flat, unidimensional. When I came to BRIGHT, I wanted to showcase these stories in a fresh light.

I’ve spent a good chunk of my professional life thinking about how to best tell visual stories. Along the way, I’ve assembled a toolkit when it comes to choosing and commissioning photography and other visual materials. There is no right or wrong way to be a visuals editor, but here are some of the things I consider before working on a story.

1. Know your source

This is journalism 101, but I think it’s important — especially nowadays, when there is a pervasive idea that everybody is a photographer just because they have a smartphone. What we do is editorial, and we need photojournalists we can trust. The bulk of BRIGHT’s images come from established photo agencies, and I also rely on the global vetting of the photo community when hiring freelance photographers.

When I started working at BRIGHT Magazine, one of the things we knew we had to do away with was the use of those NGO-type pictures of kids looking straight into the camera. These images are meant to raise funds for a cause. It’s not the note that I wanted to hit with visuals in BRIGHT. The magazine was created out of the belief that we could, in editor-in-chief Sarika Bansal’s words, “reinvent storytelling about the social issues that matter most. We cut the jargon, avoid tired tropes about international development, and bring panache, creativity, and a solutions-oriented mindset to our work.” Along the way, I’ve tried to stick to that program and publish images that make people think, not just tap into their feelings.

For example, we did a series about Syrian refugees in Lebanon by photographer Omar Imam, a Syrian himself who had to flee his country. He worked collaboratively with each subject to recreate scenes from their dreams, or sometimes nightmares. After seeing their photos and reading their stories, you won’t look at refugees as just displaced people, but as people who dream just like you.

On a graphic level, I stay away from headless, disembodied shots, especially of women.

2. Illustration vs. photography

Sometimes a photograph is not enough. It might not quite get at what you’re trying to communicate. Sometimes an illustration will complement a story better — especially for opinion or idea-based pieces. For instance, we published a story about the concept of “optics,” as it relates to diversity within the workplace. It was a difficult idea to convey in a photograph.

We decided instead to commission a GIF by Calum Heath for the story. That was a mind-blowing moment for me, because the final product was so spot-on, it grabbed the reader right away. It brought to the piece a quality I could not have found in a single photograph, or even in a still illustration.

Another example: A few months ago, we published a story about the skin lightening industry in Africa. We didn’t want to use a photo of an African woman who bleached her skin that said to women, “This is what will happen to your face if you use chemicals to lighten your skin.”

We ended up commissioning Chioma Ebinama, a Nigerian-American illustrator based in Brooklyn, New York. Ebinama came up with the illustration below using watercolors and actual bleach, merging topic and materials in a way that is altogether beautiful, disturbing and thought-provoking.

I think that a photo or an illustration is most effective when it complements the text without repeating it. It’s about bringing depth and a new dimension that will make the piece complete.

3. Humor in photos

When I first met Sarika, she very seriously expressed to me that she wanted to use humor and satire whenever possible. And that can be a tall order, especially given the topics we cover.

One of the photographers we’ve used a lot is Martin Parr, who is known worldwide for his cheeky sense of humor. When we were publishing a story about how bad travel is for the world, Parr was the first photographer who came to mind.

Working with visuals or photography, you need to look at images all the time, browse online, indulge in going to exhibits, flip through books. You need a “hungry eye,” to borrow the words of the influential American photographer Walker Evans. Over time you build your own private library in your mind. I try to know who’s doing what and who’s going where at any given moment. It would be difficult to start from scratch and find a humorous picture like the one above, if you don’t already have a mental rolodex of photographers and know their styles and sensibilities.

4. Diversity in photography

When I started as a young photo editor at Newsweek in New York City, the photo department was massive. We lived the last hours of photojournalism’s golden age and magazines had contract photographers, all of them young white guys. At the time, it seemed weird. I thought, “Why are we sending these young white men, regardless of where the story is? There must be some Afghan photographer who can do this story.” I was naïve, but in retrospect, I was asking myself the right question.

Fast-forward to many years later, when I came to BRIGHT Magazine, I wanted as much as possible to commission local photographers. It’s possible to find good photographers anywhere in the world much more easily than a decade ago, thanks to sites like Women Photograph or platforms like Blink. Of course, it takes some work; it’s not as easy as just sending your buddy to cover a story. But the effort is worth it.

For example, we did a story on a school for blind girls in India. It was important to us to find someone in the region, which is how we ended up hiring Sarker Protick. To this day, it’s my favorite assignment. Protick’s play with light and lightness brought the piece to life, while disintegrating old clichés about blind people. It was the right decision to hire him, not only on an ethical and practical level, but also in terms of the final result.

As newsrooms and magazines downsize, what we need more than ever are editors — people who can cut through the noise and help us see the world more honestly. If you’re still with me, I’m preaching to the choir: we need more qualified visuals editors to commission the right people, find the right images, and help journalists bring their work to life.

BRIGHT Magazine is coming to an end and I’m grateful to have put my editorial tools to such meaningful use. Going forward, I hope to keep sharing stories that are dear to me and keep pushing towards a more inclusive and ethical practice.

• What Would Photography Look Like If It Were Actually Inclusive?
• This Is Not A Documentary Photo Series About Refugees

Talking In Pictures was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Matt Black

Editor’s Note: Photographer Matt Black has profiled over 100 cities across 39 states for his project The Geography of Poverty. In 2016, he went to Flint, Michigan, for The Development Set (BRIGHT Magazine’s predecessor). This article was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on April 21, 2016.

Once a thriving industrial city of nearly a quarter million people, with most residents’ employment tied in some way to automobile manufacturing, Flint’s population has dwindled to less than 100,000 in the aftermath of auto plant closures during the 1980s. The city has demolished over 5,000 abandoned houses in the last decade. Today, not one grocery store exists within the city.

The hometown of General Motors, Flint, Michigan, is today one of the nation’s poorest places, with a poverty rate of over 40% and some of the highest crime and murder rates in the country. Crippled by debt and declining revenues, the city switched from sharing Detroit’s water system to drawing its water from the Flint River, but then neglected to treat the water properly or refurbish the city’s aging network of decaying pipes.

Painful rashes, hair loss, lead poisoning, and at least 91 cases of Legionnaires’ disease have been reported to date. The youngest of Flint are showing signs of lead toxicity, which can have long-term effects on learning and behavior, and 12 deaths have been attributed to Legionnaires’ so far. Organizations and individuals have donated and distributed thousands of gallons of bottled water, but residents still struggle to cook, clean, and keep themselves and their children healthy.

Yesterday, criminal charges were brought against three officials for their role in the crisis. The charges, which include criminal neglect, official misconduct, and tampering with evidence, come three months after a Federal State of Emergency was declared in Flint.

“We still don’t know the end of all this,” said Darnell Ishmel, director of local aid agency Flint H2O. “There are the working poor, and then there are the poor. We are the poor.”

Tim Monahan, a 58-year-old carpenter, caught Legionnaires’ disease in June 2014. “We’d been on Flint River water for two months,” he said. “It was the Fourth of July when I went to the hospital; I was sick as hell. My temperature was 104.6. I cooked. For all intents and purposes, they are getting away with murder.”

“I’m not in health enough to carry water,” said Cynthia Grant, 57. “Cooking, washing, trying to tote water and all that. Who got punished for it? To me, it’s never going to end.”

Above, Tiantha Williams, 38, bathes her son Taylor in a tub of bottled water. She was diagnosed with listeria during her pregnancy, and her son was born two months early. “He’s a miracle baby,” she said. “He came out, he wasn’t breathing.”

“The disease specialist came in and told me I had listeria,” Williams said. “I cooked in the water, I drank the water, and I was hurt by it. The water caused my baby to almost die. We need to fix it. He’s still getting exposed to it because we wash his clothes in it. I wish I could move, but money right now is not allowing it.”

“We’ve kinda created our own Hiroshima,” said resident Chris Gibson, 29. “Generations from now, we’ll still be feeling the effects.”

“I’m just so afraid, I’m terrified,” said Flint native Deborah Hayman, 58, whose granddaughter was born in 2013 and is now being tested for lead. “There’s that fear. About a month ago, I’m going to tell you the truth, it got to me. I thought, ‘I need to see a professional.’ You know what my biggest fear is? That people are going to forget about us.”

“If this city was not 60 percent black, 40 percent poor, this problem would have been fixed already,” said Darnell Ishmel.

“There’s been a lot against this community. The poverty, the crime, the high rates of incarceration — those are the hard things to look at,” said Chrissy Cooper, a development specialist for Catholic Charities.

“Nobody understands what we go through,” said Deborah Hayman, who supervises adoption and licensing at Catholic Charities. “You don’t know, until you have actually lived it.”

Above, Bonnie Hammond, 87, bathes the skin infection on her legs. She moved to Flint in 2004. “You would not purposely put yourself in this position,” she said.

Two months ago, her hair started falling out and she developed the infection. “The doctor said it’s from bathing in the water,” Hammond said. “It has a sunburn-y, tingly feeling to it.”

“People were saying how it tastes bad, it smells bad, it’s a different color,” said Chrissy Cooper. “But the city was saying, ‘The water is fine; there is nothing wrong with it.’ Then the next day they were saying, ‘It can kill you.’”

“This is a place of poverty,” said Pastor Maurice Horne. “Who’s going to notice? Who cares? It’s a big battle, trying to find hope in the midst of a city where there is no trust.”

“Flint is the one that has gone out in the open, but there’s plenty of other [cities] that are no good either,” said Horne. “I do believe that Flint is going to recover.”

“Can’t bathe in it. Can’t cook with it. Now they say you can’t even flush the toilet in it,” said LaToya Jordan, 23. “They say the water in the bottles is no good either. I’ve got two little kids. I don’t bathe them in the water. Most of the time, I just wipe them down with the baby wipes. The whole government is responsible. I want to leave Flint. I’m scared to have my baby here now, and I’m due in two months.”

“We’ve got nanotechnology, and putting people on the moon, and we can’t fix this water situation? Are you kidding me?” Darnell Ishmel, director of Flint H20, said. “We figure out what we want to figure out.”

“You’d never think this could happen here,” said Chrissy Cooper. “This is a city that used to be gigantic, and then we just went down and down, and finally, we’ve hit rock bottom.”

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• Mozambique: Portraits Of Resilience Amid Historic Disaster

The Fall Of Flint was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last month, the world witnessed a photograph that might very well become the defining image of the migrant crisis taking place at the southern border of the United States.

The shocking photograph depicts Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 2-year-old daughter Angie Valeria lying face down on the banks of the Rio Grande. It is a haunting symbol of the individual tragedies many migrants face as they make a long and often deadly trek in search of a better life.

This particular image has become a rallying cry for those on the left who support migrants’ rights — as well as for some on the far right, who blame the father for the death of his daughter.

I remember looking at that photo and being struck by the double tragedy conveyed within that single frame. Yes, the photo itself is heartbreaking: a father and daughter still holding on to each other in death as they did in life. They are figures for our collective pathos. However, the photo also signified to me another, less obvious, tragedy. We will never know who Óscar and Angie really were, the multi-dimensional human beings they were in life.

Following the publication of that photo, some news outlets did an effective job of trying to tell their story, and what compelled them to make the dangerous journey. One could almost hear an editor assigning a reporter: “Go and find out who they really are. Humanize them.”

How do those of us in the media tell the stories of migrants and refugees? What kinds of one-dimensional portraits do we sometimes, wittingly and unwittingly, paint of them? To what extent do we, depending on our political persuasions, either vilify migrants or portray them as pathetic figures — and in the process, turn their stories into what writer Nesrine Malik calls “pornified pity”?

I recently read a wonderful and timely new book, “Lost in Media: Migrant Perspectives and the Public Sphere.” The book, composed of essays and conversations, grew out of the European Cultural Foundation’s project “Displaced in Media,” which worked with young filmmakers of migrant and refugee backgrounds across Europe to try and reframe media narratives.

The fact that many contributors have migration and displacement in their biographies is not by accident. One of the editors of the book, Thomas Roueché, told me by email that “it was important to give space to journalists and writers who are of migrant backgrounds to discuss things on their own terms.”

Unfortunately, most of the stories about migrants that we encounter in mainstream media are not told on their own terms. Their stories are often written by well-meaning Western journalists whose intention seems to be to “humanize” them, so that European citizens can understand and empathize with their plight.

For Nesrine Malik, one of contributors to the book, there is an inherent problem in this type of storytelling. In her essay, “Humanizing Stories Migrants and the Media,” she argues that the stories we read about refugees in the media are often not really about them but about the politics, culture, and agendas of host countries. “‘Humanizing’ is a tricky business,” she writes. “We are always told that migrants need to be ‘humanized’ if they are to be accepted, if an effective counter narrative to the populist one is to be written.”

As a result, there is now what she calls a “cottage industry of humanization” in journalism that places at the center, “the human migrant.”

One might wonder: What’s wrong with “humanizing” migrants and refugees? After all, isn’t that how the reader will come to learn and care about what compels people to risk their lives and leave home? Isn’t it a good thing if the American public really understands what Ramírez was running from when he took his daughter Angie on that fateful journey from El Salvador? And if learning their story could lead to more Americans supporting and accepting Central American migrants, well, what’s the harm in that?

For Malik, the problem is that ironically, humanizing migrants can have the converse effect of dehumanizing them — or at the very least, flattening them to mere stick figures. “Migrant stories are told like parables,” she writes, “with endings that tie up neatly, reaffirming our faith in mankind, or sounding a warning about what mankind is capable of. These are one-dimensional images, told flat, heavily edited, and primarily recounted from the host’s perspective.”

That is what’s at the heart of the problem with well-intentioned journalists’ attempts at “humanizing” migrants. The resulting stories are often told from the host’s perspective, reducing migrants into heroes whose bravery should inspire us all, or worse, victims in need of our collective pity. Instead of portraying them like the rest of us: brave, opportunistic, flawed, envious, honest, striving, bitter, duplicitous, loving.

II too have been guilty of wanting to humanize. In the winter of 2015, at the height of Europe’s migration crisis, I traveled to northern France and spent five days in the now-destroyed Calais “Jungle.” While interviewing Ahmed, a young man from Somaliland who crossed more than five countries and the Mediterranean Sea to get there, I found myself asking certain questions, hoping to elicit a rich emotional detail, or trying to gently pry from him a moving anecdote that would say to a future reader: “See, migrants are just like you and me. They are human, with rich inner lives and imagination just like the rest of us.”

My motivation came from a kind place, but still, there I was trying my best to show the humanity of the people who welcomed me into their tents and shared with me their meagre food. What they needed from me was a space and time to tell their stories on their own terms, not to prove their humanity to me or to some hypothetical reader. That experience left me with a kind of crisis of conscience not only about my profession but also about the ultimate use of telling other people’s stories.

Wouldn’t Ahmed be so much better off telling his own story? Wouldn’t our library of the migrant experience be richer, more useful, more authentic, if the Ahmeds and Óscars and Angies of the world were given the means to show us their true selves, warts and all, un-flattened, un-humanized?

TThe stories we tell about the “other” have real world implications. They shape public opinion, inform policymaking, and impact the quality of aid that international NGOs are able to provide. Most NGOs have robust communication shops devoted to telling the world about various crises through images and stories. But are the stories NGOs and journalists telling about refugees and migrants contributing to that flattening, simplifying, dare we say “pornified pity” of which Malik speaks so eloquently in her essay? The kind of gratuitous pity that is more about making us feel good for being kind and compassionate, but comes at the expense of the dignity and humanity of those we pity?

The stories we tell about ourselves change the way others see us, treat us, and ultimately how we see and treat ourselves. Stories are power, and we are the sole possessors of that power. It’s what makes us unique, it’s what makes us souls rather than mere living bodies. As Aleksandar Hemon, one of the writers featured in “Lost in Media” reminds us, stories “allow for individual narrative enfranchisement. The very proposition of storytelling is that each life is a multitude of details, an irreplaceable combination of experiences which can be contained in their totality only in narration.”

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The Double-Edged Sword Of Humanizing Migrants was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

- T.S. Eliot, “The Wasteland”

It was in late April when my husband and I joined a club that has far too many members: we lost what we had dreamed would be our first child.

We learned the news while my sister was visiting me in Nairobi, Kenya. The three of us went in to hear the baby’s heartbeat for the first time, filled with happy anticipation. I had honestly not even considered the option that we would be met with literal radio silence, as my pregnancy symptoms had been raging and I felt healthy. And though I had been reading books and articles about pregnancy, and though many of my friends have been pregnant, I didn’t know much about miscarriage.

Tears streamed down my face, unimpeded, as we learned that I had a silent miscarriage. “What do you mean?” I remember asking in an unnaturally high-pitched voice. My fetus, already so loved, had in fact stopped developing two weeks prior. My body had not realized this, and had continued producing the hCG pregnancy hormone, causing me to believe otherwise.

I wailed, loudly. A woman in the waiting room held me by the arms and told me that God will always provide. I tore away from her. We got smoothies. We drove to the OB-GYN office in a daze.

I had read that up to 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. In the waiting room, my sister even showed me a passage from Michelle Obama’s autobiography in which she talks about her own miscarriage and pregnancy struggles. But somehow, I never really thought it could happen to me.

At the OB-GYN office, my doctor said lots of words at me that didn’t filter through. Apparently, she talked through the three options for the actual miscarriage. I could try “expectant management,” meaning that I could wait for the fetus to pass on its own. That could take over a month, given my high hCG levels, and I would have no control over the timing or my environment. I could do a surgical abortion, commonly known as a D&C (dilation and curettage), which would require anesthesia and a trip to the hospital.

Finally, I could do a medical abortion at home, which my doctor recommended for my case. I vaguely remember her opening a medical textbook to tell me how to do it and what the risks were. She solemnly sent out for mifepristone and misoprostol, “just in case” I decided to go that route. We paid the receptionist 2,500 shillings for the drugs, or about $25; she would be able to legally procure them with a doctor’s note confirming my “nonviable pregnancy” (abortion is illegal in Kenya in most cases, though the drugs are available to aid with natural miscarriages like mine).

Reading the words “nonviable pregnancy” stung my eyes. This was not how I expected the morning to go.

UUpon hearing the names of the drugs, my mind began wandering. I knew them well, though not intimately, as the most popular method of first-trimester abortion — particularly in parts of the world where the practice is illegal or inaccessible. Compared to surgical abortions, the pills are more discreet and less invasive. Nonprofits like Women on Waves even bring them to women around the world by ship or drone.

Mifepristone, the first drug I was prescribed, decreases pregnancy hormone levels. Misoprostol, also known as Cytotec, induces labor. Taken together in early pregnancy, their efficacy in causing an abortion is over 95 percent. Both drugs are on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines.

I thought about the month I spent in Brazil in 2014 reporting about abortion, which is illegal there in most cases and deeply stigmatized. Complications following illegal abortions in Brazil are estimated to lead to four deaths a day. I then remembered sitting in a coffee shop with a 32-year-old personal trainer named Raquel, who told me about her experience using the same drugs I had just been prescribed — but under completely different circumstances.

Raquel, whose name has been changed for protection, told me about the time she paced down the aisles of a brightly lit drugstore with her friend Amanda. She spied the pharmacist who could, according to an acquaintance, fix her problem. Her palms were sweaty, and not just because of the tropical climate in Teresina, the northern Brazilian town she calls home. They fiddled with beauty products to pass the time, trying to be inconspicuous as he counseled another customer.

Once the customer left, they walked up to the white-haired man behind the counter. Raquel felt in her pocket for the 250 reais her boyfriend had given her (about $100 at the time). She dreaded to think how he would react if he knew how she planned to spend it.

Raquel opened her mouth to speak to the pharmacist, but nothing came out. Amanda jumped in with some small talk. A few minutes later, she whispered, “Actually, we’re here because my friend is looking for Cytotec.” Raquel kept her head down — she couldn’t bear to meet the pharmacist’s eyes — and tried to hold back her tears.

The pharmacist’s eyes darted around the shop. His voice dropped to match Amanda’s: “Who told you to come here? Are you police officers? Are you reporters?”

Amanda assured him that they had no interest in getting him in trouble; Raquel was just desperate to terminate her pregnancy, as it was her only way out of a bad relationship. Raquel privately thought about how, within a few short months, a drunken kiss at a party had turned into a relationship full of threats and verbal abuse.

She had met her boyfriend while battling a deep depression. “I was fragile, and then he appeared,” she recalled. They started dating, though she quickly realized he often turned to alcohol, which would turn to yelling and berating. “It wasn’t a relationship with love. It was just to have someone to stay with,” she said. She knew having a baby would mean signing up for a loveless and terrifying marriage.

The pharmacist, perhaps sensing Raquel’s anguish, asked Amanda to come to a back room. They returned with a blister pack of six pills. Two were to be taken orally (the mifepristone), and the following day, four were to be inserted vaginally. He said that under no circumstance should Raquel visit a hospital within 24 hours of taking the pills. Doctors would be able to tell she had attempted an abortion and may refuse to treat her — or worse, report her to the authorities.

OOver three agonizing days, I endured two more ultrasounds. The final one, on a Saturday morning, confirmed that the fetus was shrinking and that my body was showing signs of rejecting it.

As we left the office, I tried not to look at the happy pregnant couple in the waiting room. We went grocery shopping for iron- and protein-rich foods. I impulse-purchased a pair of earrings with a moon and star on them, because I remembered an Instagram post that ruminated on the word “miscarriage” and how it sounds like you did something wrong. Why not call it “returntothestars,” to acknowledge that a being existed, and then returned to the stars?

I hated my body. I hated that it had made an inhospitable home for the ball of cells that my husband and I had wanted for so long. I was ready to move on to the next stage of my life, to finally become a mother. In my nine weeks of pregnancy, I did everything according to the book. I took the prenatal vitamins. I didn’t drink. I didn’t eat uncooked egg yolks or soft cheeses. I didn’t even do sit-ups. Why was my body betraying me like this?

At home, I looked at the medicines on my bedside table. I took a deep breath and knew that I had to do a Very Hard Thing.

OOnce Raquel had the pills, the two friends agreed to meet at Amanda’s house that evening. Amanda lived with her mother who, on the pharmacist’s orders, had cooked a simple rice broth for dinner. At 9 p.m., they laid a mattress on the living room floor. Raquel forced a smile as she inserted the Cytotec, unsure of what to expect. Amanda gave her pillows to raise her pelvis, switched off the light, and wished her luck. Raquel lay still in the dark room, and for the first time that day, began to cry as she thought of the decisions she had made. Her friends and family had said that her boyfriend was a jerk — why didn’t she listen to them?

A few hours later, Raquel woke up feeling like she had to pee. Amanda had warned her to not go to the bathroom until she couldn’t hold it, lest the medicine leave her body prematurely, so she waited. Soon, she felt the first pangs of what would build to be intense cramps, far worse than any menstrual pain she’d ever experienced. When she could no longer handle it, she wobbled to the bathroom, sweating profusely. Her entire body contracted and jelly-like blood clots began sliding from inside her into the toilet. Her eyes widened, horrified by the sheer quantity of blood. She muffled her screams, so as to not wake Amanda and her mother.

The cramps continued throughout the night, and she bled well into the next day. The pain eventually subsided. Raquel’s pregnancy was no more.

IIn preparation for the miscarriage, my husband and I cleaned our house, lit candles, and put on music. I texted with a doula and an OB-GYN about what to expect. I decided to finally start watching “The Office.”

Our German Shepherd hobbled upstairs, which he had never done before, due to his old age and osteoporosis. But that day, he limped into our bedroom, put his face on my leg and paw in my hand, and looked me deep in the eyes. He then licked my husband’s nose and finally sat outside our door, as if guarding us. A few hours later, a brilliant blue sunbird flew inside the bedroom, sat on the dresser, and left.

Like Raquel, I inserted the pills and raised my pelvis on pillows. About two hours later, I had the same intense urge to pee. Over the following seven or eight hours, I rode through waves of increasingly intense contractions, in between watching Jim and Pam exchange furtive glances and eating apples with peanut butter.

What surprised me about the procedure was that there was beauty in the pain. My husband was the most supportive caregiver I could have ever asked for, and we shared tender moments throughout the day. We signed up “for better or for worse,” and this was one of the most horrible things a couple can ever endure. I truly believe that this adversity has made us stronger.

I spoke with my sister on the phone, who had reluctantly returned home to New York by then. Every time I felt a contraction stirring, she would distract me with a funny story, like the time one of her students plucked her classroom’s pet fish out of its bowl to take it for a walk.

That night, as the sensations were subsiding, I began to trust my body again. I began to believe the wisdom of this physical body that has served me well for the last three-and-a-half decades. There was most likely something chromosomally incorrect about the fetus that wouldn’t have allowed it to thrive, and maybe this was the least painful way to let it go.

IIn many ways, Raquel’s story could not be more different than mine. Her pregnancy was dreaded, while mine was welcome. I was in a nurturing relationship, while she was in an abusive one. I didn’t have to sneak around to get the healthcare I needed, and I trusted the quality of the information and medicine I was given; Raquel did not have the same luxury. I took the drugs in my own home, while she hid her procedure from her boyfriend, as well as from her deeply Catholic family.

I met Raquel five years after her abortion, and she still remembered that time as a low and painful point in her life. But she had no regrets. The abortion allowed her to leave a bad relationship and rekindle ties with her family, who had not approved of her boyfriend.

Regardless of whether a pregnancy is badly wanted or bad news, its loss is an emotionally fraught journey. As Julia Bueno writes in her gorgeous new book, “The Brink of Being,” “A miscarriage can be a relief for a while but mourned at a later date, just as the desired termination of an unwanted pregnancy can later become a devastating loss.”

I will not pretend to know the depths of Raquel’s anguish, nor will I compare her suffering to mine. I don’t consider my pain to be more virtuous than hers. Our circumstances were fundamentally different. All I know is that we were both relieved to have gotten the healthcare we needed — a relatively discreet pharmacological antidote to our individual personal hells.

And now that we’re both on the other side, I can confidently say that, truly, we are stronger than we know.

• “I Couldn’t Decide If We Should Live Or Die.”
• “No One Knows About My Abortion. I Feel Like A Criminal”

A Tale Of Two Abortions was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Darren Walker

When I first shared the foundation’s statement “Toward a New Gospel of Wealth” in October 2015, I had hoped we might kindle a larger conversation (like this one) about the complex relationship between philanthropy and inequality. What I didn’t entirely anticipate — and have been deeply gratified to see — are the numerous ways that our colleagues across philanthropy are not just preaching but practicing this new gospel of giving.

We see it in the work of new philanthropists like Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz. We see it in Leonardo DiCaprio’s bold commitment to those most vulnerable in the face of climate change. We see it in the inspiring commitments of Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg. Indeed, we see it in an entire generation of philanthropists — visionaries committed to driving social justice by putting grantees and beneficiaries behind the wheel.

This is an exciting moment for philanthropy. The injection of new ideas, new institutions, new money, and new technology all contribute to my own optimism that our sector will continue to build on the progress of the last several decades.

Moreover, this is a pivotal time in our national (and global) conversation about, and our evolving consciousness of, inequality. During this presidential season alone, we’ve seen the rise of populism on both the left and the right — a clear reaction to the unprecedented levels of inequality afflicting both our country and the world. We’ve also seen polls showing that dissatisfaction with the capitalist system is on the rise, particularly among young people — a reminder that these frustrations will only continue, if not increase, in the coming years. This discontent will inevitably (and necessarily) raise hard questions that all of us must be prepared to answer.

At the same time, as more people — particularly those in positions of power — become more comfortable addressing this crisis of inequality in all its forms, our chances of disrupting this pervasive imbalance improve.

For institutions like the Ford Foundation, which have accumulated large amounts of capital since their founding, we must find new ways to leverage that capital for positive social and financial outcomes. Right now, the foundation is investigating how we might make our endowment strategy align with our program strategy.

For the new generation of donors, this is a tremendous opportunity to get in front of questions about how philanthropy and our economic system intertwine, and to find new ways forward.

Ultimately, the “New Gospel of Wealth” calls on all of us to think differently about how philanthropy operates in the 21st century. New and established institutional donors alike must take this opportunity to evolve our philanthropic enterprise to grapple with the many challenges that we see in our sector, and our world. I could not be more thrilled by — or more hopeful for — the work we’ll do together in the years ahead, or to see this “New Gospel” increasingly preached and practiced across philanthropy.

This article was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on July 27, 2016.

• Philanthropy Needs To Take A Hard Look At Its Colonial Roots
• Philanthropists Should Put Themselves Out Of Business

A Bright New Generation Battles Inequality was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I was born, my paternal grandmother wrote a letter to my maternal grandfather: “A girl is born. She is dark complexioned. You better prepare for her future.”

It is not clear if my grandfather was offended by the doomsday prophecy for the dark-skinned me, or if he just wanted to win the upper hand. He wrote back to her, “Those who think [her future is bleak] should look at their faces in a dirty puddle.” His response created a rift between my paternal and maternal family that has never healed.

I grew up in north India in the 1990s. My Brahmin family was full of government servants who were still carrying the colonial white man’s burden of racial prejudices and superiority complexes. Growing up in the close proximity of a large extended family, I was the only dark child. “Kaali-kaluti, baigan looti / Blacky-black smeared, she robbed the color of an eggplant,” my cousins would taunt when they wanted to have a laugh at my expense. I laughed along with them, eager to fit in.

My skin color was particularly concerning to my mother, since we were an upper-caste Brahmin family. Anytime someone would call me dark, my fair-skinned mother would correct them and tell them I was “wheatish,” one of the many euphemisms in India for brown skin. It was her way of comforting herself that her daughter was a tad bit higher in the hierarchy than truly dark people.

FFair skin has long been part of India’s national psyche. The various settlers, rulers, invaders, and colonizers who entered India starting in the 1400s were relatively light-skinned. This includes the Dutch, French, Portuguese, Mughals, and of course, the British, who were in India from the 17th century until India’s independence in 1947. During the British Empire, skin tone prejudice became formally engrained; the colonizers kept light skinned Indians as allies, giving them extra advantages over the rest of the “blacks.” The British East India Company even named their settlement at Fort St. George “White Town” and their Indian settlement “Black Town.”

The British colonizers were able to build on India’s existing caste system, a socio-economic hierarchy with origins in Hinduism but which now permeates across Indian society. The upper castes like the Brahmins and Kshatriyas were traditionally powerful (and also fair-skinned), while lower castes (including the “untouchable” Dalits) performed manual tasks and had darker complexions. I know this dichotomy intimately; growing up, my relatives would often look at me and say, “Never trust a dark-skinned Brahmin or a fair-skinned Dalit.”

Kathy Russell Cole, author of the book, “The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color in a New Millennium,” notes that many people from lower castes have darker skin because for generations, they have been subjected to hard physical labor in the sun. Since caste and class often intersect, fair skin is also perceived as being evidence of “better financial and social status of a person.”

India’s colorist attitudes have not gone anywhere. Politicians continue to make color-based prejudices based on geography and caste. Gendered colorism, in which dark-skinned women face particular discrimination, directs job and marriage prospects. And Indians continue to lighten their skin, using a variety of creams, bleaches, and homemade products. Is there any way to remedy India’s obsession with skin color?

DDuring a trip to a north Indian village, an old woman walked up to me to say, “Every morning, at 5 a.m., you should drink half a cup of fresh, non-boiled cow milk. The complexion of your child-to-be will be fair.” I plastered a smile on my face. I was not even pregnant. But colorism runs so deep that this was the best advice she thought to offer me.

Women have passed on similar age old “wisdom” to attain fairness for generations. “Apply gram flour, milk, and turmeric on her face daily,” my mother was told when I was a kid, so I “would not look like a Madrasan anymore.” Madrasan refers to a person from the southern city of Madras, now Chennai. North Indians are typically lighter skinned than South Indians, who live in a hotter climate. Colorism exacerbates this geographical divide.

Colorism also has a pervasive impact on job and marriage opportunities. Fair people are perceived as more presentable. In 2008, the state of Maharashtra sponsored 100 dark-skinned tribal girls to train as flight attendants. Only eight of them were eventually recruited, that too as ground staff — likely in part due to their complexion. Similarly, the description of women in the arranged marriage market often includes skin tone shorthand like: f = fair, vf = very fair, and vvf = very very fair. (This practice is not as rampant for prospective grooms.)

Ratna Soren, a 24-year-old anthropology student from Hazaribagh, a small district in the eastern state of Jharkhand, is seen as a misfit in her family because she is still single. All her younger cousins are married. She has used Fair & Lovely since she was 4 years old. “It still hasn’t changed my complexion,” she says. This has elicited incessant rejections from prospective grooms. “I am seen as a burden on my family. A girl with dark complexion must have more dowry to offer if she wants to get married in India,” she says, getting emotional. “My parents cannot afford it.”

In some extreme cases, colorism has even taken lives. In 2014, a woman in a posh suburb of Delhi hanged herself because her husband abused her for being dark-skinned. The same year, a schoolteacher named Brototi Das set herself on fire, fed up with the constant humiliation she suffered from her family for her dark complexion. Yet another woman poisoned the food during a family function, killing five, allegedly tired of her family’s taunts over her skin color. All of these women were under the age of 25.

Their ages are notable. Though colorism is often considered a colonial relic, young Indians can be just as guilty of perpetuating it. In a 2015 essay, author Neha Mishra cited a survey that asked Indians between the ages of 20–25 to describe “pretty.” 71 percent of those surveyed used words such as “fair” or “light.” The survey also revealed that the pressure to look fair is much higher on Indian women than men.

Color discrimination has also played a huge role in the world’s most prodigious film industry. Bollywood films often feature songs that glorify fair skin and deride darker skin shades. For instance, in the 1990s film “Suhaag,” the male protagonist lusts after women with fair skin and dark sunglasses. A more recent song talks about how the two lead actors’ hearts start beating fast upon seeing “white white faces.”

Most actors who have dominated India’s film industry have been fair-skinned, particularly the women, from Madhubala in the 1960s to Kareena Kapoor and Katrina Kaif today. To make matters worse, some of these actors also make extra income by endorsing “fairness” products, further perpetuating the notion that when it comes to complexion, lighter is simply better.

“D “Dark skin has been a source of stigma for Indian women long before the arrival of globalization,” say Radhika Parameswaran and Kavitha Cardoza, authors of a paper about India’s obsession with light skin. “However, the intensified promotion of light-skinned beauty in advertising since the onset of economic liberalization points to the role that market forces can play in exacerbating divisions of gender, caste, region, and class.”

India’s skin whitening market is expected to achieve an annual market revenue of $720 million by 2023. It is currently dominated by Fair & Lovely, a fairness cream that was launched in 1975 and which today holds more than 50 percent market share. Fair & Lovely has long marketed itself as the savior for unmarried women to find grooms — and for married women to keep them.

Hindustan Unilever, the multinational conglomerate that produces it, has not shied away from using blatant colorism to sell its products. A controversial 1990 ad features a young Indian woman who is heartbroken when she hears her father say, “Kaash beta hota / If only I had a son.” She runs to her bedroom crying, where she sees a television ad for Fair & Lovely. The advertisement cuts to the protagonist, now happy with her lighter skin, making more money, and taking her parents out to dinner. The father beams approvingly. A brazen cocktail of colorism and patriarchy, the ad was heavily criticized when it aired for shamelessly exploiting the aspirations of Indian women, and for pinning financial and romantic success on fair skin.

Recent Fair & Lovely ads do not contain this blatant misogyny, but instead drip with corporate-led feminism; they suggest fair skin as a tool for female success. You can become a pilot, a district collector, or a rich athlete by using their product. And in a bid to increase profits, they offer products to lighten other parts of Indian women. The company now sells armpit lightening cream — and even vagina lightening cream.

An estimated 60 percent of Indian women — and 10 percent of men — say they use fairness products. Alarmed by the health dangers of fairness products, the World Health Organization began to study and promote the strict regulation of these creams. It noted that mercury, a common ingredient found in skin lightening soaps and creams, can cause rashes, kidney damage, and even cancer.

Some skin lightening procedures in India include chemical peeling, laser treatment, bleaching, and fairness injections. In 2016, Shalini Verma took a three-month course to lighten her skin just before her wedding. Her picture that had been sent along with the marriage proposal was lightened by several shades through Photoshop, as is common practice. She would not meet her groom until their wedding day, and Shalini says that she didn’t want to disappoint him. “He was taking me to USA, my dream country,” she says. “Taking a few injections on my face, if it pleases him, is no big deal.”

There are other explanations too, like choice feminism. “If I want to be fair, I should be allowed to, right? What is so Western about it?” asks Divya Bahl, a 30-year-old corporate communication executive. She undergoes chemical peels of dark spots at least four times a year. “I want to look good,” she says. “So whatever it takes.”

Beyond the physical risks, Kavitha Emmanuel, founder of the campaign “Dark is Beautiful,” warns that color bias creates a mental health epidemic. “Western stereotypes about young people’s looks, their skin color, their hair type is making young Indians struggle for their identity,” Emmanuel says. “They face low self-esteem, feel bad and hopeless about themselves, and retreat into a shell.”

FFortunately, there are small signs of progress. After sustained campaigns against fairness cream ads, the Advertising Standards Council of India issued guidelines in 2014, stating that “ads should not reinforce negative social stereotyping on the basis of skin color” or “portray people with darker skin [as]…inferior, or unsuccessful in any aspect of life particularly in relation to being attractive to the opposite sex.”

Akanksha Verma, a 32-year-old model based in Delhi, says she initially struggled to find assignments because of her dark skin. “I was always told that my complexion is not suited for luxury brands,” she recalls. “It is only after these debates around colorism that I get to endorse luxury clothing brands.”

A news anchor, who requested anonymity to protect her professional reputation, told me that she was restricted from presenting news on air for almost a decade because of her complexion. “Since the discourse [on colorism] in the last five years changed, my editors realized that I was sharper at news debates and finally let me anchor news shows,” she says. “Though, the woman anchor on prime time continues to be the fair one.” She says the same parameter has not applied to men. “Beautiful Indian men are supposed to be tall, dark, and handsome,” she says. “Not women.”

The “Dark is Beautiful” campaign has also pushed companies to change their tactics. Simran Nagpal, an advertising professional, says that in order to avoid controversy, many fairness creams are now repackaged as brightness or glow creams. “A lot of cosmetics companies, in order to project a progressive image, do not advertise their fairness products but continue to have them in their offerings,” she says. “They want to at least pretend to be on the right side of things.”

There have also been global campaigns like “Unfair and Lovely,” which invited women to post their pictures on social media to celebrate dusky and dark skin tones.

But progress is never a straight line. In June 2017, research firm Global Industry Analysts released a report projecting that global spending on skin lightening will triple to $31.2 billion by 2024. India and China have the highest estimated growth rate. The driving force, the report says, is “the still-rampant darker skin stigma, and a rigid cultural perception that correlates lighter skin tone with beauty and personal success.”

AAs a dark girl who did not use bleaching or fairness products, my family thought I spent my life compensating for my “unfortunate” complexion. Whether it was doing well in school, riding a heavy power scooter (unthinkable for a teenage girl in small-town India), or being the first girl in the family to pursue higher education in another city, not having to worry about protecting my skin turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

I have been able to hold a steady career as a journalist, be financially independent, and be the first girl in my extended family to choose her own life partner — all seen as ways I have made up for not being “good looking,” or more accurately, light-skinned.

My dark complexion turned out to be a ticket to freedom.

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Fair, But Not So Lovely: India’s Obsession With Skin Whitening was originally published in BRIGHT Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.