Question for south asians about prejudice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, my husband's family is South Asian, and they are extremely racist. Every family and social gathering, they talk freely in racist terms, and they save their worst ire for black people--there is true derision in their voices.

It makes me physically ill. But I don't think it has been passed on to my husband's generation, not has their sexism or classism (or caste-ism). But then your post made me wonder if his generation just tones it down around us because I am not South Asian.

So sad. So ugly.

i am SA and i agree that there is much prejudice in the SA culture against many groups. i have gotten into many a disagreement with friends and family over this subject and will not tolerate the use of the k word. i happen to cringe everytime i hear it, so yes, i do think it is a bad word.

so why did you marry into this culture? i have to admit i get pretty tired of non SA (women, mostly) who have married into the SA culture, yet continue to bad mouth it. it is severely irritating. what have you done to combat this racism instead of just coming on here to fluff your feathers? please, enlighten us.

I met my husband in high school. I fell madly in love with his brilliance, his sweetness, his humor, his passion, and his gorgeous body--which happened to be South Asian.

Racism, sexism, classism, the caste system, female feticide--these are all aspects of South Asian culture which are objectively wrong, not because they are South Asian, but because they are wrong everywhere, in every culture, time, and place.

I combat those evils with love. I love my husband, and our love has produced beautiful (multiracial) children who love their grandparents. At first, these grandparents rejected those who were girls. My husband only has male cousins, and there was great, public pride about the lack of females due to easy access to abortion. But they ended up loving their granddaughters, who are now the light of their lives.

Love will fight evil anywhere it shows up, in any culture. St. Thomas Aquinas encouraged interracial/cultural marriages as God's way of spreading the truth, through love. I have black, Asian, Latino, and white family members because of love. I exist because of my parents' love, which did not see race. We are all God's children, all part of the human family, and that is exceptionally obvious when people whose ancestors lived on different continents love one another and have children together.

"Preach always; when necessary, use words.". Combatting racism requires a change of hearts and minds. The best way to do that is through relationships, through living the principles you know to be true.

That's how I came to marry into the culture, and that's how I combat the predominant wrongs endemic to that culture.

If you are white, they probably like the lighter skinned grandchildren too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are some people in every race/ country who hold racist or bigoted views. That shouldn't lead you to make generalizations about the people as a whole. For example, my (South Asian) husband was really angry when a French Jewish friend of his defended DSK's actions by saying "How could anyone be possibly attracted to a woman in a headscarf?"

Why the reference to Jewish? Has anyone else mentioned anyone's religion on this board? We're the south Asians any particular religion? I don't recall a reference to their religion.

Maybe they meant Jewish as a race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That said, in Urdu, "kala" is the word for black color or skin. "kaloo" is the word meaning "black person." it is not a derogatory word any more than "black person" is, so PP whose family uses that word- I wonder if it's the context or the other adjectives used, but I don't believe kulloo is considered a bad word. Then again, I'm first generation and raised here, so I might be missing the subtleties of that term as used by immigrants.

Trust me you might want to stop using it.

Well, PP's explanation is how I feel as well. I don't understand why 'kaloo' would be derogatory when it translates to black person same as 'gori' for white...atleast ime, it is describing a race, not used as an epithet.

Seems it is the same thing as 'schwartze' for Blacks people, the word only means 'black' but it became used more racistly.

[Anonymous]

OP, I come from a place where Blacks and Indians have lived together for over 150 years. There were struggles for a long time, but now things are much better. My parents' generation saw some intermarriage, but not much. Now, my cousins are intermarrying a whole lot. It seems that with time, people relax more as they get to know each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Still wish OP would tell us the "k" word.

Lighter skin is always valued more, no matter if it's in India, Italy or Cuba. That's the sad truth.

Unless you are lily white like me and people ask you if you've ever heard of a tanning bed! Seriously you can't win either way.

But I have had South Asians specifically caress my skin and tell me how beautiful it is just as I am thinking...man, I would love to have their color.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lighter skin is always valued more, no matter if it's in India, Italy or Cuba. That's the sad truth.

Unless you are a white woman from the midwest or south.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am first generation; DH grew up in India (but has been in the United States for about 15 years). None of his friends or mine have made racist comments about black people in our presence. Every group has its racists, though - a guy I went on one date with before I met DH made such a comment. I called him out on it and obviously never spoke to him again. If I were at the dinner party you attended I would have said something immediately and wouldn't have hung out with them again.

It's too much to go into here, but look into the model minority myth. Historically, Indians and black people[b] have been pitted against each other in the United States. (I especially recommend The Karma of Brown Folk by Vijay Prashad)

By "Indian", do you mean Native American? That was true in the South in the 1800s when the blacks & Native Americans outnumbered the white people. This was the only way to keep a sense of control.

No, I mean Indian as in South Asian. Interestingly, the first Indian-Americans in the United States were brought here as slaves and eventually were incorporated into the black slave communities.

[Anonymous]

The sad thing is that as dark as many Indians are, they seem to be showing such self disrespect with these attitudes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have many South Asian acquaintances and friends. We are in Fairfax County. A few friends have quirks regarding other South Asians (from dark skin/light skin to where someone's family is from exactly), these few also have trouble making South Asian friends but it is due to these quirks mostly. We as you can see discuss this every time we get together.

I think it's now considered kind of old-school and trashy to talk about skin tone these days. None of our friends make comments on that sort of thing. When the older people make comments, most people just roll their eyes. Where do you find this South Asians?

In reference to the dark/light skin topic, are you aware that black Americans also talk like this? They still have the hierarchy with the skin tone within their own community.

Hey--you better qualifiy that shit. Do you even know any black Americans? Don't believe we all run around singing about it like a damn Spike Lee movie.

Why yes. For a year, I overheard my black co-worker's conversations with her other black friends frequently. She also explained all the different nuances to me within the black community. Light skin black man will choose to date/marry dark-skinned black woman to "feel" better than her. Dark skin black man will hook up with the lighter skinned black women (forgot the reason). Some light skinned blacks who have a reddish tone, she described as cinnamon-y when referencing them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am first generation; DH grew up in India (but has been in the United States for about 15 years). None of his friends or mine have made racist comments about black people in our presence. Every group has its racists, though - a guy I went on one date with before I met DH made such a comment. I called him out on it and obviously never spoke to him again. If I were at the dinner party you attended I would have said something immediately and wouldn't have hung out with them again.

It's too much to go into here, but look into the model minority myth. Historically, Indians and black people[b] have been pitted against each other in the United States. (I especially recommend The Karma of Brown Folk by Vijay Prashad)

By "Indian", do you mean Native American? That was true in the South in the 1800s when the blacks & Native Americans outnumbered the white people. This was the only way to keep a sense of control.

No, I mean Indian as in South Asian. Interestingly, the first Indian-Americans in the United States were brought here as slaves and eventually were incorporated into the black slave communities.

I read about slavery in the South in college, but there was no mention of the importation of Indians to be slaves. Was this in North America or the Caribbean? When did this happen? I know that the Brits brought in Indians to be indentured servants (1/2 step up from slavery) to East Africa in the 1800s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am first generation; DH grew up in India (but has been in the United States for about 15 years). None of his friends or mine have made racist comments about black people in our presence. Every group has its racists, though - a guy I went on one date with before I met DH made such a comment. I called him out on it and obviously never spoke to him again. If I were at the dinner party you attended I would have said something immediately and wouldn't have hung out with them again.

It's too much to go into here, but look into the model minority myth. Historically, Indians and black people[b] have been pitted against each other in the United States. (I especially recommend The Karma of Brown Folk by Vijay Prashad)

By "Indian", do you mean Native American? That was true in the South in the 1800s when the blacks & Native Americans outnumbered the white people. This was the only way to keep a sense of control.

No, I mean Indian as in South Asian. Interestingly, the first Indian-Americans in the United States were brought here as slaves and eventually were incorporated into the black slave communities.

I read about slavery in the South in college, but there was no mention of the importation of Indians to be slaves. Was this in North America or the Caribbean? When did this happen? I know that the Brits brought in Indians to be indentured servants (1/2 step up from slavery) to East Africa in the 1800s.

Both - here's a magazine article about it --
http://www.indiacurrents.com/articles/2007/05/16/indian-slaves-in-colonial-america

but there is also scholarly research about it - again, Vijay Prashad's The Karma of Brown Folk is terrific on this topic. (That being said - slavery of black people was far more widespread than slavery of Indians - my point is just that black people welcomed Indians into their communities even in colonial times.)

[Anonymous]

But pp, the numbers of Indians in north America back then don't seem large enough to have a big social impact so that we can generalize. I am from the Caribbean where we have much much higher percentages of people of east Indian origin. Although they have been there for well over 150 years and are not stunned when they see black people.