On Friday, October 22, Kenya had its first albinism beauty pageant. The aim was to dispel the stereotype albinos face and to build their confidence. It was organised by the Kenyan Albino Society to commemorate ten years of its existence to show the beauty in individuals living with albinism and to do away with the stigma associated with the albinism.

“In Africa, people have black skin. When a woman gives birth to an albino, people say it’s a curse… Even the children of your age are afraid of you,” said Nancy Njeri, a 24-year-old contestant.

For us, this is just news, but for Nancy and other albinos around the world–who are systematically discriminated in every area of life: at school, while walking on the road, and in the workplace–this is a different kind of victory: to be treated like others, to be considered as beautiful and for their stories to be considered important, regardless of the color of their eyes or the shade of their skin.

Around the world, albinos are seen as either ugly or a curse, they are executed socially and murdered in some parts of the world for fetish purpose. In Tanzania, they consider albinos as zeru-zeru, which means immortal beings with the belief that their body parts will make one wealthy. Also, Malawian albinos are at risk of extinction due to the gruesome fact that they are hunted down for their bones with the belief that they will bring wealth and good luck. In Nigeria, the fallacy that certain body parts of albinos can be used in rituals to gain power, money, and success, to cure impotency has contributed to their deaths.

Albinos are not just ostracized in African societies, in the West, they are sidelined by the society and conditioned to be sidelined by themselves. Shaun Ross, the first ever black-American international male fashion model with albinism, and the initiator of the “In my skin I win” movement made to help individuals learn self-acceptance, in a simple but graphic narration of his struggle as an Albino, helps us to understand the plight of albinos, not only in the west but around the world:

“You’re ugly!, You’re a disaster!, You’re the new test-tube baby! These are the things I heard for years. So when I was approached to do modeling, I had never thought I could be a model before. In my eyes, or rather the way society painted it for me, I was completely wrong, unacceptable and certainly not beautiful. After becoming a model and being accepted slowly, very slowly, I saw a shift which in turn inspired me. I felt I had a duty, that I needed to do something, that I could make a difference. I completely changed my perspective.”

Albinos are discriminated for as little as existing. We don’t consciously discriminate against them; we are simply conditioned to discriminate them. We unconsciously don’t want to be friends with them, talk to them or date them. An albino walks by and the next thing we think of is their ‘abnormality’–our thoughts show in the way we constantly stare at them, or maybe when we stifle our laughter in mockery of their skin. All these shape a world where Albinos automatically feel small in their skin and inevitably feel alienated.

The beauty pageant is a step forward in breaking down barriers and the removing the perception that albinos are “ugly” and make clear their condition to the general public and albinos themselves, who may have been convinced just like Shaun that they were wrong and unacceptable. But is a pageant enough in breaking down a construct that has been built over the years? It might not be enough, but it is a good start.

In some parts of the world where Albinos are not being hacked and murdered for their bones or body parts, the ostracization of people with albinism is almost synonymous with murder. Our minds are conditioned to view them as victims, our mouths are conditioned to laugh at discriminatory slurs or even utter them as misplaced jokes, sometimes about their eye sights, or about the shade of their skin.

It will be safe to say that more should be done in curbing discrimination against albinos and better integrating them into the society, but until we learn to dispel the fallacy that albinos are victims, the system that segregates them and pushes them to the sidelines will continue to thrive.