'This Isn't About Pity:' Model Shaun Ross's Experience with Tanzanian Refugees with Albinism

Shaun Ross is the first American male model with albinism. He has modeled for Alexander McQueen and Givenchy and has appeared in Paper and GQ.

Growing up in New York, I had to face scrutiny of my looks for as long as I can remember. Looking different, feeling different, all because of the way the world wants to classify you. I got called “weird,” “powder,” or “Casper.” When the world doesn’t want to see you – or better yet, accept you the way you are – the last thing you think you could become is a supermodel.

Society makes it seem that the most beautiful people in the world are models; they are the perfect design of what a human being should look like: female models with long straight hair and a tiny thin waist and male models with bleach blond hair or Herculean bodies. When you’re raised with the public telling you that you are ugly or you have a disease, you don’t think you have a chance.

As a child, I was always very outgoing and charismatic, traits I got from my parents. They helped me gain the confidence to eventually become a dancer, like my idols Michael and Janet Jackson, Madonna and Beyoncé. Later, Shameer Khan scouted me for a modeling contract. When this break led to me becoming the first male model with albinism, I knew I was helping to change the way people thought. I was breaking the mold by changing the standards of beauty with the help of others before me like Alek Wek, Stacey McKenzie and Connie Chiu.

In recent years, I started to hear about horrible stories of people with albinism in Tanzania being killed or mutilated for their body parts because locals and witch doctors believed their body parts could bring them prosperity and wealth. I read stories of children with albinism in various parts of Africa being told that they weren’t beautiful, that they would never be, that they were “the white devil.”

It broke my heart. I want to stand up for not only them but for anyone who feels “different” all around the world. I want to change how beauty is considered; I want to change the way people think about themselves all around the world.

In August, I had dinner with Tindi and Bibiana, two sisters rescued by Malena Ruth from Mozambique. When I first met them, they were very shy and didn’t make eye contact or speak much. The second time I met them, I started talking to them, and their story is something I could never have imagined.

One of the girls was missing her right leg and two fingers, and her younger sister told me their story. Their mother had died when they were very young, and one night, three days after they buried their father, three men broke into their house and attacked her. Her younger sister was able to hide from them under a blanket, but watched, helpless, while the men cut off her sister’s fingers and leg. They were about to cut off her other leg when her aunt intervened. They didn’t return home from the hospital for a whole year, they were so afraid to return home afterwards.

My boyfriend, Devin Harrison, decided to show the sisters a picture of Diandra Forrest, another African-American model with albinism. I watched the girls’ eyes light up as they scrolled through image after image of Diandra. As Americans, we constantly have the media, social and otherwise, to reassure us of our beauty. In Mozambique, they have nothing but themselves. That is a strength I could never imagine.

The media have spent two decades trying to create sympathy for Africa and “Africans in peril.” These girls don’t need your sympathy. I don’t need your sympathy. That’s not what I want. I want awareness. I want standards to change. I want people to know about these children and what they’re facing, but not to feel sorry for them. This is bigger than pity. This is about change.