Anonymous wrote:^ when people say we can't talk about race this is why. You will be called racist and retarded and no one likes to be called that.
so nothing really ever changes.

Talking about race in an educated and informed matter is completely different from making blanket statements about a race and drawing wild conclusions from one anecdote which you consider to represent that entire race - which, by the way, is the very definition of racism. The reason people like you might not be able to talk about race is because you are unwilling to participate in a conversation in which nuances are defined and stereotypes discouraged. In which case, yes, you shouldn't be allowed to talk about race until you've educated yourself about it first.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Japan is pretty racially intolerant. If you are born in Japan, it doesn't make you automatically considered Japanese, i.e. you could still be considered Korean if you have Korean parents.

Also their term for a 1/2 Japanese, 1/2 other race person is "hafu", literally the English word for 1/2, like they are 1/2 a person.

For all of Japan's "racial intolerance", living there for two years was heaven for this African-American. I didn't have to deal with any overt racism like I do here.

And Japanese and Korean are nationalities, not races.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

CindyBindy wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Not PP but Brazil and India are not even comparable. The fact that person or others jokes about a type of hair is no more akin to racism than a red head joking about their hair color or a white person saying they are pale. The fact of the matter is Brazilians are infinitely more accepting of phenotypic and cultural differences than most countries on the planet including the US.

If a white person made a joke about nappy hair in America, do you think African Americans would just laugh it off? There has always been so much racial identity politics surrounding phenotypic differences that during the civil rights era, the Afro was an expression of celebrating pride in "nappy hair". I can guarantee you if someone who was not black made a joke about nappy hair in America today, the black community would blow up at him.

The point I was trying to make about the hair comment in Brazil - and I think I explained this above - was that in developing countries the sense of political correctness is different. Maybe people are misunderstanding that because I immediately talked about the Chinese cab driver next, and that was racism. In much of the developing world, people don't really have any sense of political correctness, or at least not the way Americans do. In India for example, you can't say the phrase "lower caste" or "untouchable" - the term is "scheduled caste" or "scheduled tribe". But I have also heard an Indian lady say to her tanned, sporty, outdoorsy child, "You look like a n*gro". Is she racist or just unaware that you can't say that? (and let's not discuss her color prejudice - that is different from racial prejudice) Well, I've seen how she treats Africans so I don't think she's racist, anymore than a white Brazilian who makes fun of "nappy hair". That was my point. Apologies if I didn't make this clear the first time.

PP you responded to... It has no bearing whether AA's get sensitive when someone talks about their hair. It only proves that they are sensitive and insecure. The point when they are not sensitive and comments about differences are not a big deal will be a huge step forward in the US. Brazil and several other countries are beyond that. The US is not the standard here... And this has little to do with developing vs developed country. This has to do with in Brazil whites and blacks are more intertwined, have a shared culture and history. In the US they are completely separate so they feel they need to walk on egg shells around eachother.

NP here and I am HIGHLY offended by your comment. How dare you insinuate that black people are sensitive and insecure about issues that stem from hundreds of years of oppression, racism and discrimination? Please get your head out of your ass.

see, here's the problem. People can't discuss this stuff rationally - a post like this will always pop up and them people clam up and stop trying.

Actually, this is fucking racist. I agree with the poster who said it's bullshit to imply that black people are pussies who just can't handle "harmless" jokes about their hair. It's so fucking retarded that I can't form a response to it, because right now I'm dealing with equally idiotic ideas about India. There is only so much racism I can fight at one time. If I started arguing on behalf of blacks and Indians I'm definitely going to go mad, so I will sit here on the sidelines and occasionally pop into this debate to give my support.

Anonymous wrote:

Thank-you. Finally someone who knows what they are talking about.

Read my response above. Also, pencil in "Educate myself about world cultures before believing blanket stereotypes that have no basis in evidence" into your schedule for this weekend.

Anonymous wrote:

Cindy, I was born in India but have lived in the US for most of my life. Have visited India often for varying periods.

Okay. I lived in India for 5 years myself, so just so we both know we are on the same page. I also go back every year.

I would have to say that India (and for that matter Indians who spent their formative years in India) are not only conscious of race but of color and religion. It is endemic to every aspect of life there. The color of the skin is especially important which is why skin lightening products are huge sellers in India. A fair skinned person - especially a woman - is considered much more attractive than someone who is darker skinned which is why the matrimonial ads in India emphasize skin color. A woman who is light skinned but does not have particularly attractive features is more desirable than a darker skinned woman who may have better features.

I think everyone who is replying to this thread has been having some trouble reading my posts. I said very clearly in my previous post that color prejudice is distinct from racial prejudice. In case some people have difficulty reading my posts because their eyes spontaneously glaze over, let me quote myself:

" (and let's not discuss her color prejudice - that is different from racial prejudice)"

Color prejudice, which you might not be aware of, is distinct from racial identity. It also exists in every non-white society. Color politics plays a huge role in the African-American community. It discriminates in their romantic lives, their employment prospects with each other, and in every way they relate to their identity. When Obama was elected, the big thing for black women was not that the First Lady was African-American, but that she was dark-skinned. Finally, dark-skinned black women had a role model for themselves.

Skin-lightening also exists in China, Japan, Korea and south-east Asia too. It plays a huge role in Arab racism. Or are you not aware of Arab racism? Skin color politics is a big deal in Middle-eastern society.

By the way, I'm a very dark Indian woman. I did have to deal with skin color issues in India. I also had a lot of Indians assuring me that I was beautiful just the way I am. My dark skin never affected my Indian social life. It never affected how Indians treated me in public. I have never gotten bad service at a restaurant in comparison to a fairer skinned Indian. I have lived in India for years and traveled to every corner of the country, and at least 80% of my experiences have been acceptance and -gasp - indifference to my skin color.

And by the way, the fair skin obsession is 1) rooted in economic status, and 2) has not always been dominant in every aspect of Indian society. Fair skin has historically been about economic status. The lighter skin you have, the more proof that you have the luxury of chilling in your mansion while poor people get sunburned and hence "Dark". In every society this has been the case. That's why most of the literature about Queen Guinevere in Europe has referred to her "ivory skin". Why? Because that's how well-bred she was...she had ancestors of palace-dwellers behind her before she came to Camelot!

Also, dark skin has by no means ever been uniformly hated throughout Indian history. Draupadi had skin as black as ink. She also had five husbands who were demigods and loved her. Bheema's other wife, Hidimba, also had pitch-black skin. Medieval Mughal poetry in India had constant references to sanwali - the beauty of the poet's dark-skinned object of desire. Hell, even some of the Hindu gods are depicted as dark-skinned. Krishna was basically black. He also had ten thousand ladies eager to bang him.

Color prejudice exists in every non-white society, and the only reason whites don't care about being pale nowadays is because having a tan is an indication that you can travel to beachy countries instead of being trapped in your office all day. In that respect, India is no worse than any other country.

If we are talking about race, where on earth is there evidence that Indian society institutionally considers the Indian race superior to all other races? There is none. Because Indian society is a mosaic, and it would not have been able to be created without tolerance. The very fact that historically disadvantaged minorities, such as Tibetans, Jews and Parsis, have been able to not only find refuge in India but thrive and find economic prosperity, is testament to that. The fact that Arab, Persian and Afghan ethnic groups have melted into the fabric of Indian society and been able to celebrate their culture here is also testament to that. The history of Muslim kings protecting Hindu temples and Hindu kings protecting Muslim mosques is longer than the history of religious strife, and yet that history was largely buried for a long time, while untrue myths about tolerant Muslim kings such as Tipu Sultan have unfortunately endured.

With all that said, some amount of actual racism exists, but those people do not represent the majority of Indian society and in that respect India is not unique - every country has the same level of racism or more. I have never seen evidence of an India that is so virulently racist that it dwarfs every other country in the world, which is what you are claiming.

Even in the US, immigrant parents are much more receptive to their children marrying a white American than an African American. Then there is an almost universal hostility among both Hindus and Indian Christians to marriage with a Muslim. Hindus and Christians prefer that their children marry within the same religion and the same community but are mildly tolerant when they choose to inter-marry but marrying a Muslim is considered taboo and the parents would generally not tolerate it.

That is true, and it is not unique to Indian immigrants. Do you know a lot of first-generation Chinese immigrants, Japanese immigrants, Persian immigrants, Arab immigrants or Korean immigrants who would allow their kids to marry African-Americans? Are you even aware of the racism that goes on in those groups? It exists because they are first-gen immigrants. They are ignorant about African-American culture. They buy into the hood/gangsta stereotype and ignore pop culture examples like the Banks family from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. But this racism against blacks is a pan-immigrant problem. It is not unique to Indians. Nor does it prove that "India is one of the least racially tolerant countries in the world."

Furthermore, there are plenty of black-Indian couples. Just because the prevailing stereotype of what we see gets the most attention, that is no reason to ignore the non-racist interactions. My Indian friends and I have black men hitting on us all the time precisely because Indian girls have banged them in the past. Trust me, black men would never hit on us if they thought we were racists. They hit on us because they have experienced Indian girls making eyes at them.

There is open negative stereotyping of other races among many Indians who live in the US.

See above. Every single immigrant group in America does this. And not just non-white groups. I live in the northeast - you should eavesdrop on the conversations at an Irish or Italian dinner table some time.

I think to suggest that race, color and religion are not major prejudices among Indians especially in India is just misleading.

No, it's misleading to argue that 1) Indians are the only ones doing this, and 2) Indians are doing this to a greater extent than any other culture, and 3) all Indians are doing this. Which is what you are doing. And since you have actually lived in India, it's especially disappointing.

I could cite many positives when it comes to Indians whether in India or the US but racial and religious tolerance is not among them.

Crack open a history book some time.

Anonymous wrote:

Cindy: you're doing a good job here, and I'm in agreement with most of your comments/observations -- but that doesn't change the fact India is one of the least racially tolerant countries, which is what the thread is about.

This is what all my essays in this thread are about too. I haven't been talking about flowers this whole time, I've been talking about why India is not the least racially tolerant country in the world. So what about all this still has you persistently believing that India is the most racist place ever?

Anonymous wrote:

Not PP but Brazil and India are not even comparable. The fact that person or others jokes about a type of hair is no more akin to racism than a red head joking about their hair color or a white person saying they are pale. The fact of the matter is Brazilians are infinitely more accepting of phenotypic and cultural differences than most countries on the planet including the US.

If a white person made a joke about nappy hair in America, do you think African Americans would just laugh it off? There has always been so much racial identity politics surrounding phenotypic differences that during the civil rights era, the Afro was an expression of celebrating pride in "nappy hair". I can guarantee you if someone who was not black made a joke about nappy hair in America today, the black community would blow up at him.

The point I was trying to make about the hair comment in Brazil - and I think I explained this above - was that in developing countries the sense of political correctness is different. Maybe people are misunderstanding that because I immediately talked about the Chinese cab driver next, and that was racism. In much of the developing world, people don't really have any sense of political correctness, or at least not the way Americans do. In India for example, you can't say the phrase "lower caste" or "untouchable" - the term is "scheduled caste" or "scheduled tribe". But I have also heard an Indian lady say to her tanned, sporty, outdoorsy child, "You look like a n*gro". Is she racist or just unaware that you can't say that? (and let's not discuss her color prejudice - that is different from racial prejudice) Well, I've seen how she treats Africans so I don't think she's racist, anymore than a white Brazilian who makes fun of "nappy hair". That was my point. Apologies if I didn't make this clear the first time.

Anonymous wrote:

Ummm. Actually I lived in Brazil as part of the priveleged class (which is FYI - based on money not color) and live here in the US as an African American. The mere fact you dismiss the intrinsic connection of colonialism and race in these countries causes me to question your "real world first hand experience". But keep telling the crew on here that will listen to you. Who knows they might believeyou but be clear only the most liberal ones will be "kinda ok" with their daughters dating one of your sons. I'm just sayin'

I'm starting to wonder if English is your first language, because you clearly are having some kind reading comprehension problem here.

Color does matter in Brazil. It's not going to get you lynched or destroy your employment prospects, and I've never experienced racism and am not implying that everyone is a hooded tree-lynching KKK member there. But the politics of color, hair type and other such indicators exist in social relations even when people don't realize it's technically "racist". That. Was. My. Whole. Point. About. Political. Correctness.

I never "dismissed" colonialism. There is a difference between "not talking about colonialism because it's not part of an argument in which you are pointing out that racism is not exclusive to India and not worse in India than it is anywhere else in the developing world", and "not talking about colonialism because its effect on racism in developing countries is non-existent." Get your story straight.

By the way? I've interned in Brazil and two of my best friends are extremely wealthy Brazilians. One of them is going to be my host for the World Cup and they absolutely move in "privileged" circles, so I'm not sure you're out-snobbing anyone here. I also never introduced a debate about whether money is more important than color - unless you count that part in my original post where I said that poorer Indians like white people because they think they're rich? Oh shit wait, did I just imply that social status in India is based on money, not color? Oops!

CindyBindy, I know you have good intentions when reviving these racially charged threads, but honestly if the thread is dead please just let it be. I guarantee you within a couple of weeks there will be another new Indian bashing thread, they're pretty regular on this forum and your posts would be great at that time.

~ Fellow Indian American female

I know, I know. But I have a troll-magnet problem.

Anonymous wrote:How can so many people grow up and be ignorant of the Indian caste system? Is this not taught in schools anymore? is world history not taught? Does no one read? See movies?

I'm going to assume this is some kind of sarcasm. So what's your point? I don't understand what you're driving at. If your goal is to point out that the caste system is some kind of indicator of racial intolerance, all I have to say is, 1) race has nothing to do with it, and 2) do not bring up caste because I can literally guarantee you won't know what you're talking about. Caste is incredibly complex and not necessarily religious. Even Indian-Americans don't understand it unless they take a few weeks to read a bunch of books on it. You won't understand it unless you grow up in it, and, despite being a cause of social ills, it's not the rigid hierarchy it's made out to be, nor is it some kind of central force in Indian society.

Anonymous wrote:

So many racial slurs for you soooo little time. Did you really start your Indians aren't really racist thread with the colonial impact of the African diaspora in Brazil? GTFOH. Stick to what you know... For example I got a long lecture once, in India, about how Indians are the true Aryans. Have you all told the Aryan Brotherhood?

I'm not sure what is confusing you. The reason I brought up incidents in Brazil, China and the Gulf was to show how blinkered this topic was. All developing countries deal with racial ignorance and understanding political correctness, some more than others. Colonialism was never brought up anywhere in my post. You're the one who is reading colonialism into it. Maybe you should be sticking to what you know, or rather understanding that there is much about this topic that you don't know.

So where did you get this "lecture"? In a university setting, with some kind of institutional authority and societal approval behind it, or because you just happened to be in the company of an a**hole who doesn't bother to educate himself about anything that upsets his sense of confirmation bias? Hey guess what, once I met an old white man in New York who told me life was better when people like me knew my place and "didn't invade" his country. I wonder why I haven't written a rant about how all of America is xenophobic and racist! Oh I know why. Because I'm not you.

Anonymous wrote:

most of the Indian parents around here won't let their daughters date, let alone marry, outside their ethnic group.

All these threads about racism, I think the Indians must just be laughing at how we Americans beat ourselves up over this. They're like, so where do all the South Asians live? What? What's wrong with preferring your own group?

I think there is a issue to address here, but it's not really as clear-cut as "living with your own group = disliking other groups". For example, in India the status quo for centuries was that people of different religious groups were really friendly with each other and did business with each other, but would never entertain the idea of marrying each other. It was like Separate But Equal, without the Jim Crow factor. That's carried over into modern India, but only to an extent.

All ethnic groups tend to self-segregate to an extent, however. Espeically minorities. If you ever visit Boston that's the first thing you'll notice. And many cities have historically had Jewish neighborhoods, Irish neighborhoods, Italian neighborhoods, etc. There will be a Chinatown everywhere. It just so happened that Indians immigrated to America largely after 1965, when there was a change in the immigration laws and America was in the grip of the civil rights movement, so actually Indians haven't segregated themselves that much. I know a lot of people in the Indian-American community and nobody has ever sought out Indian-only neighborhoods. They cared more about good school districts and low crime - and ended up in majority-white areas.

Anonymous wrote:

I tried to point that out on another thread -- to Indians! The thread was basically someone asking which neighborhood had the most Indians. It was an Indian OP. She insisted it wasn't any sort of bigotry against other ethnic groups, including whites, but that her inlaws visited from India for several months and she wanted to make sure they felt comfortable. I pointed out that asking for the neighborhood with the most "Indians" doesn't really ensure that because India is a diverse place with a ton of languages. Several PPs, all claiming to be Indian, then got on and flamed me for saying that. It's nice to read someone backing up what I said on that thread.

Haha I'm glad I could help and I'm sorry a bunch of idiots flamed you on that thread. It is an unfortunate truth that a lot of Indians who immigrate here these days come from less educated backgrounds than they did in the '80's and '90's. And I suppose the Internet in general does attract aspiring trolls with low IQ. Thanks for sticking up for diversity.

I pretty much made an account at this forum because I read this thread. Actually, because I read a bunch of virulent anti-Indian racist threads on this forum and decided I ought to register because clearly, this place is bundles of fun. By the way, I'm an Indian-American female. Hi!

Racial prejudice exists in India, but not to a greater extend than half the globe. You'll find that outside of Western nations, political correctness exists in different ways. In Brazil, African-origin/African-mixed Brazilians will joke openly about their "nappy hair" or laugh when white Brazilians joke about it. I've seen this happen. In Beijing, my Chinese cab driver told me that he hated giving black people rides because "they look like monkeys." I speak Mandarin extremely well so I do not think I misunderstood him.

I've been to Middle-eastern countries a million times and cannot measure the insane level of Arab ethno-centrism I've seen. Not just in the UAE but the entire Gulf. There are many Arabs (but adamantly not ALL Arabs) who despise anyone with darker skin, and have a special kind of distaste for non-Arab Muslims. Indians and Pakistanis bear the brunt of this discrimination because there are so many of them in the Middle-East.

And lest we think it's only those third world people hating on each other, let's not forget that since the recession began in America, our own homegrown white power movements are steadily growing: http://www.civilrights.org/publications/hatecrimes/white-supremacist.html

Another myth is that Indian society is homogeneous. I've never heard anything so ignorant in my entire life. Well apart from the idea that India is one of the least racially tolerant countries in the world. India, for those of you who confine your cultural knowledge to the Anglosphere, is basically Europe. It was cobbled together from kingdoms that had existed for centuries and were extremely distinct from each other - their languages were as different from each other as Spanish is from German (even more so, because while those languages share the Latin script, Indian languages do not share scripts), their clothes were different, literally everything was different. And the Indian population is made up of a huge variety of ethnicities, including Indians of Arab, Persian, European, Jewish, Afghan, and African descent.

Speaking of Judaism in India. It's existed in the country for centuries without once experiencing anti-Semitism. The two recorded times that did happen, the anti-Semitism was by Portuguese traders in Kerala (they destroyed a synagogue - the Hindu maharaja rebuilt it for the Calicut Jews), and recently in 2008 when Pakistani terrorists attacked Indian Jews in Mumbai. I don't think America has such a clean record, does it?

Now, if you're asking if there is a general lack of exposure to different nations in the modern world, that's true, because as vast as the Indian middle class is, it's not affluent enough to travel. There will be stereotypes about peoples they only know about through movies or novels or the media. However, there is a huge leap from that to, "the least racially tolerant country". Racial ignorance does not equate to racial intolerance. I've seen how friendly and polite Indians are to foreigners - even less "glamorous" foreigners like Africans or Arabs, who have the misfortune to carry bad stereotypes - with my own eyes. And in fact, being white will only help you in India. They'll think you're rich.

Maybe next time you get the urge to spew misinformed bs, you'll take a minute to pause and educate yourself first? Good luck.