Does "sallow complexion" include bad meaning?

I'm non-native speaker and I live in Australia. When I filled out the form of a driving license, the officer made me fill sallow in the blank. I didn't know the meaning of sallow at that time, I did. Sallow means unhealthy, yellowish. I'm asian. Does it include racism? Or can be used often as describe complexion?

Solution 1:

I don't think it was racist or anything.

I did a Google search and found a bunch of death reports from The South Australian Government Gazette, Volume 2 (1908). It seems 'sallow complexion' is a common description of many people. One guy named David Stuart jumps out to me because he's a 'Native of Scotland.'

A Google image search of 'sallow complextion' results of lots of white people's photos.

Perhaps you just have a sallow complexion. Reply with a photo of yourself maybe?

Solution 2:

From doing genealogy, I noticed lots of older war draft forms in the US use words to describe skin color such as ruddy (red), sallow (yellow), white, light brown, dark brown, black. Some forms the color was hand written (1800s) and some preprinted where a check mark was used (1940s)