Spain is trying their hand at wokeness. They produced some stamps that come in an array of shades of darkness. From black to a light brown. The attempt is to highlight the disparities with people’s skin color and how it can lead to inequities.
State-owned Correos España this week issued a set of four stamps in different skin-colored tones. The darker the stamp, the lower the price. The lightest color costs 1.60 euros ($1.95). The darkest one costs 0.70 euros ($0.85).
The postal service calls them “Equality Stamps” and introduced them on the anniversary of George Floyd being killed by a police officer in Minneapolis. It said the stamps “reflect an unfair and painful reality that shouldn’t be allowed” and that every letter or parcel sent with them would “send a message against racial inequality.”
If their intent was to make lighter skinned people pay more for stamps perhaps it would have worked. But instead they set the prices of the stamps by color. The darker the stamp the less it cost. It gave the impression that the darker your skin the less you’re worth.
The main thrust of the public criticism was that the darker stamps have a lower value, giving the impression that a light skin color is worth more.
Moha Gerehou, a 28-year-old Spanish author and a former president of SOS Racismo Madrid, said that was “an insurmountable contradiction.”
“At the end of the day, an anti-racism campaign has put out a clearly racist message,” Gerehou told the Associated Press on Friday.
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