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Model Trinette Lucas took to her Instagram stories on Tuesday to talk about a real and very toxic trait in Pakistani society — the need to make belittling comments about someone’s skin colour.

Lucas highlighted a comment she received on a recent video she posted on social media in which someone called her a “jamadar” or sweeper. First she laughed at it, then she asked herself why she was laughing because it wasn’t funny at all.

Lucas is a well-known Pakistani model who has been in multiple fashion campaigns, including for Generation, Hussain Rehar’s Jugnu, Iqbal Hussain, Esfir, Zara Shah Jahan and Sana Safinaz, to name a few.

“It’s sad, it’s really sad that this is the world we live in, where we think we are so much better than everyone else based on how we look, what we do and who we are,” she said.

“We think it’s okay to use terms like maasi [maid] and jamadar and words we think we can use to belittle someone else when really, there is no shame in being a jamadar, there is no shame in being a maasi, there is no shame in doing anything that you’re doing honestly and earnestly,” she said.

She asked where the entitlement comes from that enables people to think that they can call someone something they consider a “bad word”.

“I know why they called me this — it has to do with the colour of my skin,” she said. “It doesn’t offend me, I’ve been hearing this since I was a child,” said Lucas.

“It makes me angry and sad that this is still where we’re at and we have so much work to do still.

“I keep thinking that I’ve made some kind of a difference — I’m in fashion, I’m a model, I’m really unapologetic about the way that I look and my skin and I really own it and all of these things are true,” she said. “But do I think we have a lot more work to do? Yes, the fashion industry is a small community, a small group of people, a bubble but there’s a lot more work we need to do.”

Pakistanis are no strangers to colourism — it’s deeply embedded in our society and the way we view beauty. From little children being shamed for having darker skin to a gorgeous model being told she looks like a ‘jamadar’, colourism is something all of us, especially women, are familiar with because it has been drummed into our heads from a despicably young age that to be fair means to be lovely.

We can argue for days about how this mindset is part and parcel of our colonial hangover and our obsession with distancing ourselves from anything that could be considered too desi but it all boils down to a deep insecurity where we believe brown skin is inferior. Lest the people who make colourist comments forget — we are all brown. That one person’s skin is a slightly lighter shade of brown does not suddenly make them less Pakistani or less brown. We are all the same people and putting someone else down doesn’t elevate you in any way.

We also agree with the point Lucas made about people thinking they are better than everyone else based on arbitrary perceptions of their own self worth. If only the people calling someone a jamadar or maasi and then patting themselves on the back for a job well done realised that their words say more about themselves than the person they’re addressing.

It’s not on Trinette Lucas or anyone else to change people’s perceptions about skin colour — it’s on people to educate themselves and realise that we need to break toxic cycles ourselves. It’s 2025, let’s be better than this.