This is not a link post- just something that made us think (yes, you are right, we don't do that often).
Gawker has a post, "College Kids All Racist In Their Own Special Ways", where we found what happens when people of different races room together- it is a sum-up of a report in The New York Times, which discusses various studies about 'Interracial rooming'.
What shocked us without surprising us, is this sentence in Gawker-
If You Are Asian:
Not only are you more racist than any other group, you also make those around you more racist. Scientific fact!
At New York Times, this is the word:
Several studies have shown that living with a roommate of a different race changes students’ attitudes. One, from the University of California at Los Angeles, generally found decreased prejudice among students with different-race roommates — but those who roomed with Asian-Americans, the group that scored the highest on measures of prejudice, became more prejudiced themselves. (we made the bold italics)
As far as I know, from my limited experience of living in Chennai, we are all racists of varying virulence. The Tamils think they are a particular race, the Telugus, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Bengalis and so on- it is just that we don't call it race- it is nationality, religion, caste, language or whatever. But what this means is that we are all tribal, that is not the happy word, we are all groupies.
What we don't realise is that when we include people in our group, we exclude people out of it. So your racial consciousness makes victims out of those who are excluded. You think Symonds is racist- does that mean you are not? And LTTE, who were fighting for Tamils, had to scruples about killing off people who were not aligning with them- that is the problem with groups- they are exclusive, and as time goes, it narrows down to an elite group- from which others are put in an outer circle in a nominal affinity. So Tamils are Dravidians, but Telugus and Malayalees are different- not as good as native Tamils- and among native Tamils, people whose mother-tongue is Tamil are superior to those who came from elsewhere; and if you push it, the ones who belong to our caste are more Tamil than others, and so on.
And what makes it worse for Asians, is we don't realise how racist we are, thanks to the justification of having been victims of The British Empire.. And the sad truth is, someone from Italy can become the Prime Minister or President of India, but not someone from Nigeria. We are colour-conscious, to boot.
It is not that we want to be this way- we are forced to be. We remember this:
After the 20-20 World Cup was over, we were browsing and found this great post:
"We’re the champions, there’s no time for losers, sorry India!" at "thought-bubbles from karachi" with the byline, "I’m not thinking at all"
That was incendiary- we wanted to ask him, "What one has to do with another? It is okay for you to feel happy that Pakistan won, but do you have to go out of your way to take a shot at India? Did we stand in the way of your victory? We didn't even qualify! Look at Swat! Look at Taliban! Your country is disintegrating, and here you are- crowing about winning a circus-cup and talking about losers! Get real!" and so on and so on.
We were simmering with indignation, but we thought this is how you become vicious and hateful- better let that go- whatever you say will only make him hate India more, and slant him in a more patriotic mindset.
So we let that go. It was a narrow call. If we had indulged our emotion, we would have revealed ourselves to be fanatic, bigoted and violent hater of free-speech. As it happened, we were able to put a lid on our feelings..
We are blathering, and we sense that we are blathering with increasing randomness, so we will stop here.
But we want you to think that not all Pakistanis are blinkered: Here is another blog, where the author, Sarmad Hashmi, makes this sensible response to the sentiments expressed in the post we cited earlier:
Pakistan Cricket Team Vs. Pakistan Army?? Who are the real Champs??-
Well, after the victory of Pakistan Cricket Team, in T20 World Cup, I was just checking out my Facebook profile and found out a status there whish was stated below.
No time for losers.. cuz we are the champions.. OF THE WORLD!!
"And I was like, “Are we?? what is happening in SWAT?? and think about those IDPs? and tell me why the hell we are sending messages like ‘Pakistan jeetay ga(Pakistan Will Won!)’ and other Msgs like that to everyone that pray for those cricketers? Have you received or sent any message to anyone that pray for our PAKISTAN ARMY? who are playing with there lives to save our country? Don’t you think that THEY ARE THE REAL CHAMPIONS?”
— Start thinking…!"
Now, this is sensible racism.
Be happy, no matter what.
we have as of now no business to talk anything about swat or any othr pak failure. But SL can.
ReplyDeleteIt is only that we are yet to face it. We are still struggling to deal with our maoists.
we stop just by laughing their innocence and not try to point any of their mistakes for which we are also fallable.