She's too dark!

My friend Rachel needed to get
passports for her children, Ludo
and Yaëlle.  There is a small window
of opportunity during which one can apply;
  a couple of hours in the  morning
  never entre-midi, between noon and two
  a couple of hours in the afternoon,
all during school hours. The children
need to be taken out of school,
 no problem for the kids.

Ludo's application, with his photo, sailed
through the process seamlessly,
Yaëlle's, however was another
story.

"She's too dark," the woman said
to Rachel.

 "Excuse me?" Rachel
asked.

 "The photo is too dark, you
need to lighten up the photo."

Perplexed, Rachel responded "but
the same person took both Ludo
and  Yaëlle's photo."

"She's too dark," the woman repeated.

Exasperated, Rachel finally said,
"but she's black, of course she is dark!"

"You need to go to a professional photographer
and ask for a lighter photograph,
they can do that sort of thing."

There is an expression in French,
"Pourquoi faire simple quand on peut
faire compliqué," 
Why make it simple when you can make it
complicated?

Rachel took Yaëlle to another photographer.
"Oh, I only need to lighten her shade by one,
she is not too dark," the photographer said.
"Sometimes I need to lighten their
shade 5 times if they are too chocolate!"

"Wouldn't this been seen as discriminatory?"
Rachel asked me.  What do you think?

(apparently some o f you are having a difficulty
commenting on the blog...I will look into this)