About 10 minutes ago, one of my co-workers strolled in with an impressive Styrofoam container, filled with something pungent.
“Hey…is that Moby Dick?“, another asked. Seven of us are on this team; we share a decently sized office which is cube-free and thus collaboration-ready.
“Nah, it’s curry.” Â…annnnd my ears are pricked.
“Oh, really? From where?”
“Lunch buffet…place across the street.”
At this point, my eyes slightly bulge. He’s referring to a place I went to once, an establishment which left such an awful taste in my mouth that not only did I hate my lunch, I couldn’t even enjoy complaining about it afterwards, because my then-BF scoffed, “What were you thinking? Food from restaurants named after mausoleums NEVER tastes good. Don’t you know that only gora eat there?”
“Man, I love curry. Wish I had gone there instead of Cosi.”
“Yeah, it’s great.”
At this point, I’m engulfed by weirdness. I’ve mentioned to them in the past that the restaurant in question is blech-inducing. Hmm. Did they not believe me? Wait–is there some issue with my brown credibility? I trust my Lebanese friends when they advise me about which hummus sucks like a Dyson, what gives? I shake my head to clear it, but the discordance is rotting my brain.
The room spins a bit; did I hallucinate that entire conversation with them last week? The one in which we discussed the very difference between these two eateries? No. We totally had that talk. They know I vouched for Heritage India, which is a whopping two doors away from the hole from whence this styrofoam came. I start to feel a bizarre dissonance and I calmly attempt to explore it. Perhaps IÂ’m viewing this improperly. Despite my slight discomfort, maybe we’ve come a long way, baby, if I’m not automatically looked at every time someone utters the word “curry”. Yet oddly, I’m not thrilled. I know. Impossible to please.
This reminds me of Nike’s “Vamp like an Egyptian“-shtick. Is half-assed brown better than no brown at all? I vote “no”. Still, why do I care so much? Who appointed me Ambassador to Brownland? I watch co-worker number two dig in and I almost cringe, I canÂ’t get over my sororal proclivities, my innate bossiness. If he likes to eat sub-par desi food, why should I give a shit? I have work to do, which I attempt to lose myself in, but then…“So how was it?”
“Great.”
“Hey, did I tell you I just saw Musharraf?”
“Who?”
“The President of Pakistan. He was at Brooks Brothers with his entourage.”
At this point, I whip off the noise-canceling-phones which don’t cancel anywhere near enough annoyance to really make a difference and I hold my breath. This is a matter most mutinous. Maybe I can run over and snap a picture, tell him I know Sin, something.
“WHAT?”, I blurt out spastically.
The Mushie-spotter disinterestedly turns my way and mutters, “yeah”, right before showing me his back again.
Co-worker One: “Dude…you should’ve asked him where Osama is…”
Robust laughter. The conversation turns to the Daily Show and how it takes news so much more seriously than actual news programs. The other four people in this room are discussing the Pakistani dicator-in-chief, IÂ’m obviously interested in what they have to say and instead of being included, I’m sitting here, feeling more foreign than I’ve felt in a while.
Actually, I have felt like this before. This reminds me of the time I was in college and on my way to a wedding. It was well over a decade ago, on a Saturday morning and I had asked my Dad to stop by my sorority house briefly so that I could run in and check my cubbie for “mail” (as well as for more candy from my big sister). I was expecting something important regarding our upcoming Formal and I hadn’t been able to visit the house the day before, when it had been delivered.
Trussed up in six yards of Kanjeevaram, my earlobes dipping from the weight of bright yellow gold, arms shimmering from the magnificence of all those diamond-cut bracelets Daddy brought me from Dubai when I was six (in anticipation for a wedding which should occur twenty years later), I swept through Delta GammaÂ’s french doors, past three of my “sisters” who were in gym clothes, post-Saturday-morning athleticism.
“What’s up?” they asked, before returning to their MTV. Not a single double-take, raised eyebrow or moment of “hmmm” to be found.
Suddenly very conscious of the clattering of my heels on the hardwood floor, I started mincing about so lightly, I was nearly silent, which is exactly when I was overtaken by the weirdest sort of thought: “now I’m not here at all”. They hadn’t seen me, now they couldn’t hear me, either. I smiled bitterly. I was the only girl to ever walk through those doors in a mantrakodi; what, that wasn’t noticeable at all? I’m not saying I wished to be gawked at, but I definitely wished forÂ…something. These were the days before I was “Brown”, so all those years ago, I just wasn’t sure what it was that I wanted.
I picked up an envelope and a fat bag of sugar tied with our colors and walked out without saying a word. Daddy looked at me impatiently as I gingerly held my pallu with one hand while simultaneously securing my pleats with the other. I got in the backseat gently and off we went. I had never felt so capriciously invisible.
:+:
There’s a middle ground between painfully obvious otherness and invisibility, between being singled out and ignored; it’s a sacred space for me which I rarely get to visit and it’s one of the concepts which inspires me to Mutiny. Partly because of my involvement in our fabulous never-ending cocktail party, I know exactly what it is that I wanted so many years ago and it’s the same thing I wanted 15 minutes ago– I want to be seen accurately, clearly, entirely.
Flashback to1994: bronze, pink and blue ribbons tied lovingly around gifts from my big, hand-made for a pledge with a sailor hat on her hair and angular letters on her shirt– that was me. A kumkum-based pottu, keshava-bordered silk and the same 22k choker my Mother left India with over three decades ago? Also very much me. That strange cocktail remains potent to this day; it still threatens to slosh over my rim. Sorority girl in a sari: even now thatÂ’s my steez, yo.
:+:
Let me pre-empt the flaming comments some of you are arming your bows with right this nimisam– IÂ’m not requesting or requiring that all South Asian-related conversations which occur in my ear space include little ole me. I wrote this post because I experienced a moment of utter, preternatural dissension and I just had to bore you with it. IÂ’m not a twit who couldnÂ’t deal with being the odd kid out—thatÂ’s been my role since pre-school and I relish it, sathyam.
I’m just articulating how it would be nice to be seen for exactly who I am, to have the multitudes I contain be recognized. My iTunes spins M.S. Subbulakshmi more often than the Pixies. The International Delight Irish Cream-flavored coffee goop I brought to leave in our kitchen was accompanied by a jar of hot lime pickle and some random frozen dinner which featured chawal and chole (which got JACKED I might add…someone on the sixth floor has good taste in other people’s lunches). The pictures of me getting carded at Chuy’s nestle next to images of my Mother and sister, resplendent in silk at a cousin’s wedding. My notes from meetings are decorated by a border of squirming, wiggling shapes which are my attempt to scribble “la”, “tha”, “va” and “na”.
ThereÂ’s a dichotomy at my very core, and I may get mocked for stating this, but to have that be ignored stings a tiny bit. IÂ’m not an either or a neither; IÂ’m a both. And I am just as vexed by bad Indian food as I am by jerky, thudding approximations of bharatnatyam.
IÂ’m a sour, slightly bitter drink, I know.
A bunch of thoughts jumped into my head as I read this post (fantastic post Anna, and surely with your eyes and obvious spirit you are never invisible).
20 years ago, my generations first introduction to Indian culture and Indian food was “Temple of Doom”. Chilled Monkey Brains anyone? Yeah. I know it was just a movie, but the many Americans who have not had any Indian food still wonder if Indian food’s filled with outrageous spices, stange meats, and alien vegetables. Plus, for most Americans, Indian food is too spicy for them, and the combinations of spices are unusual.
I’ve worked with and around Indians for years now and I still struggle with the whole issue of what I can say and to whom. I want to treat every person I know the same, and I also want to learn as much as I can about Indian culture at the same time. Sometimes I come up with really strange questions, and I won’t know who to ask, so I’ll have to turn to one of my desi friends. But I don’t know that that’s much different than how I would treat anyone else. I think that Americans have it hammered into their heads that it’s not culturally acceptable to pry into anyone’s life in general, and certainly not “dem dare furr’ners” but we 9with half a brain or more) burn with curiousity and struggle.
And now American’s knowledge of desi comes from Gurinder Chadha movies, Lou Dobb’s rants about outsourcing, and news reports of terrorists from Pakistan. And yet, desi are invisible because they work as doctors, lawyers, accountants, computer programmers, business owners, the very same jobs that all Americans aspire to, and a lot of desi speak English (sometimes better than native US citizens) and are in essence, the same as the rest of us.
I feel like I’ve rambled, but I hope I’ve made some sense when presenting my opinions.
Finally! You got him! I’ve been waitng all year for this. Siddhartha’s been revealed as a diabolical sexist hellbent on opressing women. The truth comes out!
Lets keep a close eye on Abhi together.
Why not just learn how to cook?
“Gori” just means “white woman/girl” (“gora” means “white man/boy”). It’s the literal meaning for white, so it doesn’t carry an inherent good or bad connotation. It all depends on context.
yeah, I figured it was something like that. Thanks. But I still don’t understand why good for sale Indian food is so elusive.
Here’s another twist. My friend who works at an IT company outside Boston has several times found himself in conversation with co-workers who complain, sometimes in verging-on-racist terms, about Indians taking over the industry and stealing their jobs. The co-workers are white; my friend is West African. It doesn’t for a moment occur to them that he might be sympathetic to the Indians. But would they let him marry their daughter? 😉
another interpretation might be that they don’t view all non-whites as an amorphous mass without distinction and differences.
Was that meant for me? Hmm…. I wonder why I dint think about that? I guess it never entered my mind as a possible alternative. Let me lie on my couch and self psycho-analyze. Will let you know when I have an answer. In the meantime I give you: My mom would say , “My beta and cook, Oh, hahaha how funny”. My ex would say, “He couldnt light a fire with a flamethrower”.
i respect your loyalty and endearment to the place… i have a few hole in the wall places here as well which i love to pieces due to the families that work there…
very thought-provoking post anna …
but i have to wonder where the line is drawn … maybe its drawn at different places for different people including the non browns who are doing the “exoticizing” or ignoring…
maybe they didn’t directly tell you about mushie … b/c then it would look like that you have to care about it, and why should you have to?
same thing for the food, maybe they just like it there just like how abhi, et al .. do not like amma’s (i have not been to the one in DC …but i hear the one by 50th street in manhattan is great .. but who knows, i may think it sucks)
i guess its hard to draw any conclusions … maybe i’m an optimist, but as someone said earlier, i look at it as more of a sign of “we’ve arrived”
Anna, we would all love the many varieties of our being to be acknowledged and appreciated by all those around us, but that rarely happens.
Just because you didn’t like the food at The Taj restaurant and they did, so what?
People are allowed to like what they like.
Had they expected you to be particularly interested in meeting the president of Pakistan just because your family is from the country next door, then what would you have written?
What if they assumed you were from Pakistan – then what?
Sometimes people just can’t win, can they?
Maurice: Not all Amurikans get their culture from action movies, surely. I know monkey brains and mandino sauce (can’t cough up the definition for that one but my colleague’s Thai sister-in-law made it for her once) are not Indian–they are southeast Asian, and to my way of thinking, quite a different kettle of whatever. Vegetarians are drawn to Indian food because it makes non-critter dishes dramatic and interesting, dishes for which no critter gave its life, at least not as far as we know. Just the aroma of an Indian restaurant gives a sense of “going far away.” I know. I need to get a life; but Indian restaurants are better food-education for kids here than Chucky Cheese.
Upanishadic Influence, chill. i think you are reading too much into an impressionistic post which isn’t trying to offer some deep analysis.
Manju,
The nature of a fart is to be foul, for in foulness is its fullness as a fart. And so also with all things in the world of the living: each must act according to its own nature. The wet fart arrives wetly. The dry, dryly. And yet, the asshole that produces them is one.
The one who understands this shall not be troubled.
That may be so, but I maintain that no matter what asshole it is produced from, Indian food produces , by its nature of being the foulest the best farts.
Ah, the mystery of channa!
aka shart
bidi, you haven’t been going to the right ones… the right ones always conjure up the images of the backwater or of the back alleys
mr. k, i am not troubled.
just out of curiosity, anyone been to Veeraswamy’s in London (since 1926)? looks very popular. another one is chutney mary(think owned by same people).
http://www.veeraswamy.com/
that’s a very narrow perspective. in toronto, we have sri lankan tamils cooking in ethnic restaurants of every stripe.
i remember this incident when i was at an italian restaurant on bloor st (I think it was Serra or may be Goldfish) and this lah-dee-dah person comes in and goes on about MAKING SURE THERE ARE NO NUTS IN THE DINNER SHE WAS HOSTING because she is allergic to nuts and she didnt wante her big day to be ruined. i think she was a bridezilla. You know the kind that speaks with loud splayed finger hand gestures – she did have a nice rock by the way (O. that’s an O). Then she demands to speak with the cook. Our man, moosh and all, is forced to step out – and she goes silent. it was interesting.
anyhow – i diverged – i am sure there are polish cooks working in some desi restaurants in london today – just ask around. once you chew onto zygmunt’s juicy kebab, i’m sure there will be no going back.
Sorry Hairy_D, instead of Indian, I should have said brown.
amen!
Wednesday, during the first fifteen minutes of twilight, I was running around frantically snapping up produce at the Union Square Farmer’s Market. It was 6:00 PM, I had until 6:15 to source and plan a veg. Shubho Shosti dinner for 6 scheduled for the next night and look lively for drinks at 6:30 with old deshi compatriot who could be a strategic partner for a current project. Safe to say I had a few things on my mind.
As I came to a close I spied some crazy-colored dahlias, two bunches for $5.00, and thought yes, that’s right, buy yourself some flowers, damnit. Happily rooting around the bucket for the snazziest bunches I barely noticed the Jivamukti McBlondie until she proclaimed yellow blooms to honor Ma Lakshmi, grabbed all of the yellow flowers and looked at me expectantly for a reaction. Did she think we could bond over the moment? Did she need me to recognize her I’m slightly More-Hindu-than-You mac? Did she think I would give her a hug?
I snapped out of my reverie, dropped my bouquets back in the bucket and headed straight off to drinks with an uncomfortable flush, mounting. Used to be that the visibility negotiation was about educating the (dis)interested about geography–No, India is not in Spain; culture–No, not all Indians are mystical swamis; cuisine–No, not all Indians eat curry; and politics–Yes, we represent the globe’s largest democratic system and as such, we no longer have the Raj in place. It was hard to be seen as Indian for India did not exist that readily for those observing.
Now flamers, don’t hate: it’s true, Jivamukti McBlondie could have been raised in India her whole life, married to and Indian, be Indian (Hey-lo Merle Oberon) but why did she have to out-Indian me?
Couldn’t we have Indianed the moment, together, by sharing the flowers?
should read married to an Indian
should read married brown. For that matter, where ever I wrote India, please also insert Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Assam, Nepal, Bhutan, etc. Where I wrote Hindu, please insert Mulsim, Jain, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Jew, Christian, etc.
Ugly as it may sound, I think what I am trying to say is I feel wierd and quite miffed when a visibly non-brown person usurps my identify in order to tote as his/her own.
This was a nice DC-based post, and I currently feel like I relate, as the resident “all things Brown” expert at my office. Its a miniscule feeling of superiority, but I enjoy it nonetheless.
And fyi, Prince Cafe still has the best creamy, heart-attack-inducingly delicious butter chicken anywhere.
Save Ludhiana.
“I think we just crossed the line into the exotic….
I may be Indian, but the aroma of most Indian restaurants (even some I like) mostly smells like stale bread and spoiled Aloo Gobi.”
Crossed into exotic? Gimme a break. I said I need a life. So maybe the places I go to spray fake essences that come in cans, as used by bakeries and Subways to lure in customers, labeled “Curries for gories”? My olfactory judgment is a work in progress. Thank you for the feeback.
Why? I don’t feel like I own browness, nor as if it is something that you have to be brown to get.
Pritha, if the woman did indeed offer those flowers to Ma Laxmi, you may have acrued some punya (pious credits) for your future life in allowing her to take them.
Consider the whole experience a blessing.
I mean thank you for the feeDback.
I am not religious, but I must say the above made me proud to be Hindu.
Seriously. Want good punjabi food? The kebab guy behind the Taj in Mumbai is about as good as it gets in my book.
Whats the connection between Punjabi food and kebabs? Kebabs are a part of the Mughlai cuisine and have nothing to do with Punjabis though some Punjabi usurpers in Pakistan do make some good kebabs in Lahore etc.
Anna,
I was touched by your post. I have experienced the same. Many times in fact. I think you should have spoken up instead of allowing your co-workers to treat as if you were invisible. You simply could have reminded them of your previous conversation. Sometimes, you have to teach people how to treat you. I think I heard that on Oprah. Same for your sorority experience. I’ll bet your sorority sisters noticed your sari, but did not know how to react without offending you or making you feel like an ‘alien.’ They could have been pretending as if they see such attire often, and therefore your appearance was no big deal. You seem to have the kind of personality where you would be open and willing to share your culture with others. Maybe, your co-workers and sorority sisters did not get the impression that you would be open about your culutre, or willing to share on a regular basis. Next time speak up and set the record straight. That is the only way they will treat you as you deserve, with respect. (Be careful not to go too far because you do not want to get a reputation as a militant!)
From someone who knows what it is like to be the only person of color in a room!
Kali Billi
Bidismoker: Yes. Exactly.
Ennis: What Bidismoker said. And this: What I wrote had nothing to do with owning browness it had to do with someone, perhaps brown perhaps not brown, needing to out-brown me–i.e. render me less brown than she. Why does identification have to include competition?
Upanishadic Influence:A most excellent and comforting perspective. I just hope she tripped on the way to the altar.
Agreed with the parts I quoted. But it doesn’t come with the skin color. I don’t have to be white to understand what it means to be really, truly, American even though a lot of American identity was historically tied up with whiteness. I don’t have to be black to rap or play jazz. I don’t have to be Latino to Salsa, or Japanese to do Karate. And by doing Karate, I don’t just mean going through the motions, I mean really understanding the spirit behind it. And you don’t have to be Punjabi to do Bhangra.
I’m not an essentialist about culture. For me, there isn’t a true authentic browness to grok, there’s simply a collection of practices, each of which have their own ethos and spirit. On any or all of these, somebody not from the culture might well get them better than I do. If I close aspects of my culture (food, dance, religion, arts) off to others, then shouldn’t I expect them to close their cultures off to me? To tell me that I can’t really be a scholar of French culture because I can’t really get it unless I have French ancestry going back 10 generations?
That would be a sad world.
Ennis, Have you met the French? Xenophobia, thy name is Paris! Hilton! Anandos ought to shut up and go have dinner before he gets any less coherent.
some “brown” people are not “brown” physically, some kashmiris and punjabis can basically pass as white (as can smaller numbers of other groups). some assamese and bengalis could be asian. many other groups of indians have black skin. i like the term brown, obviously, in preference to desi or south asian, but, i don’t think of it is a deterministic box, but rather a loose tag on a cluster of people who are united by shared history, culture and average physical appearence and perception from the outside. but i perceive aspects to be sufficient, and not necessary. one can be a blondish kashmiri and be “brown” because of culture. one can be a lutheran minnesotan indian adoptee and be “brown” because of perception and color. etc. etc.
You may come to understand it better than they do, but you can’t feel in the deepest recesses of your heart what the French who have French ancestry going back 10 generations feel. It can’t permeate every layer of your identity — your very being, even — like it can theirs. You will always have a certain degree of voyeur’s privilege (which, for some people, becomes a disprivilege). I hold no double standard for desis and non-desis regarding this belief.
Haha… yeah, they can be hostile, but I feel for them. You’d get xenophobic (though not in the prejudiced way) if you had to deal with that many tourists day in and day out? 😉
You may come to understand it better than they do, but you can’t feel in the deepest recesses of your heart what the French who have French ancestry going back 10 generations feel.
well, that disqualifies a large number of ‘french’ from being french in the deepest recesses of their heart. a large proportion of the french population (some estimates suggest less than half) are not ‘root french’ (that is, ancestors who were around during the french revolution), but derive from european immigrants (poland, italy, spain) who began arriving in the first decades of the 19th century deep into the 20th century as the native french went through a demographic transition. france is a nation of immigrants, and all their ancestors were gauls 🙂
anyway, your point is not entirely without merit, but i’m getting sick of brown individuals (fill-the-blank with other groups, from angry white males to fat chix) conflating their own oversensitivity and shyness with some ontological/identity issue. people are prigs, but that doesn’t mean that the White Power Structure is out to throw its White Magic in your face. perhaps people who go through these nested identitarian internal monologues should move back to india like bidismoker aspires to be with their own kind, and if they are hindu, be part of the comfortable majority that gets to engage in the great game of being insensitive to minorities. i also invite the creation of fatistan, gayistan, white maleistan, blackistan, spanishstan or whatever.
Shruti, I don’t buy this. There are Americans who play Chopin with a sensitivity–not just understanding, but an emotional connection– that surpasses many a Frenchman/woman’s. As it should be since Chopin was Polish. Oh, never mind.
And you certainly can’t claim that all Brits automatically “get” Shakespeare in some fashion that transcends everyone else’s. Or that their football team, even if they don’t win the trophy, is somehow more “authentic” since they invented the modern game. See the absurdities?
My point is that this kind of over-emphasis on “ancestry” is exactly why Senator Macaca felt it was OK to welcome S.R. Sidarth to America. And it’s the reason why Sidarth’s grandchildren will have to hear the same bullshit from Senator Macaca’s latter day kin.
Take the long view. It all comes out in the wash anyway.
My point is that this kind of over-emphasis on “ancestry” is exactly why Senator Macaca felt it was OK to welcome S.R. Sidarth to America. And it’s the reason why Sidarth’s grandchildren will have to hear the same bullshit from Senator Macaca’s latter day kin.
the irony being that senator macaca’s mother is a french speaking tunisian of jewish background.
there are certainly implicit folkways, customs and traditions that many imbibe from the nature of the milieu in which they are raised. but, some of the stuff that identitiy politics types (no fingers pointed anywhere on this thread) trot basically amounts to racial memory of the sort that race nationalists tend to espouse.
Amen to that, Razib. Sorry, came to this thread a bit late.
AJP, high time you came back. Good post.
BidiSmoker:
A few years ago I actually had a very frank discussion with a co-worker friend of mine after an odd situation a lot like the political discussion AJP described above, except that it was over lunch, I was sitting at the table, and every time I tried to comment, the other three sort of went their own way, paying me no heed.
After lunch, I asked him point blank why everyone seemed so disinterested in my own point of view. My friend’s response was an odd mixture of denial, fear, and defiance. (I should note that I wasn’t confrontational, I just asked him why they seemed to exclude me from that part of the conversation). His reply initially: “We did? I don’t think we did. I know I didn’t mean to.”
Then, with some pressing, “Well, it was about Pakistan. We all know how Indians hate Pakistan” (WTF?! but I kept my protests mild, and disagreed with that blanket assessment, said something like, “Well, I wouldn’t say that all Indians hate Pakistan, man…”).
To which retorted at last, “I dunno man! I dunno! I think we can have a conversation about some other part of the goddamn world without including you, ok?” And I was somewhat taken aback by the vehemence. Had I been monopolizing political discussions in the office? But…we hadn’t ever had any! Certainly not about Pakistan, or about Indian politics, either. I don’t think I’d ever talked about this topic with them before!
After a few weeks of mulling this over, I finally concluded that he and the other two at the table were just insecure about their own knowledge, and I think they wanted to have a conversation without fear of…hmm…call it “racial auditing.” And I, as a brown guy from India, was an auditor, and thus my followup questioning after the fact was highly unwelcome.
That said, I actually almost understand their discomfort. I just don’t really like the idea of ignoring anyone at any table for no good reason. Seems pretty rude to me.
Ennis:
Nope, but it sure does help. 🙂
Your point is valid. My belief is not intended to continue that kind of racism, rather to seek a kind of justice that needs to be socially contextualized. Maybe I should rephrase my comment because I was talking about identifying with one culture while still maintaining voyeur’s privilege by having one foot in another culture (meaning, you’re not beholden to everything in the adopted culture — a setup for inequality). I liked what Razib had to say about no pain, no gain, regarding the identification issue. I was thinking of the people that we label as “honorary browns” or “honorary desis” because we think they’re just that awesome. From my experience, those labels are given for culture performity rather than for essential cultural identification. I’m not questioning their awesomeness at all 🙂 just wondering if you would feel the same way if people (perhaps, like Pardesi Gori) said they were brown and/or desi because they were so invested in India, and thought that people who treat them as outsiders had no reason to do so other than a baseless hate for white people. Isn’t there a more to it than just that?
At least, that’s the image I had in my head. Given S. R. Sidharth’s example, or non-genetically-desi people who have lived their whole lives in the desh and know no other home or non-desi culture, I would say the same thing you did. Context, I guess.
As for people like Anna, who insist that “I’m not an either or a neither; I’m a both,” I think that the “both” puts them in a different position than those who keep one foot in another culture to peace out when things get bad. The truly “both” people take responsibility for both cultures. That’s NOT easy, esp for a woman of color, and so anyone who does it deserves, as you would say, maximum respect.
(I hope I’m being coherent despite the antihistamines. No more CUIs for Shruti.)
Shruti, I hear you, I hear you. There are significant degrees of nuance in this thing, and that’s why Nike’s ad is laughable while Zadie Smith actually merits a spot on the Sepia Mutiny banner.
Maximum respect all over the house.
Antihistamines, eh? Hope you feel better soon.
(and thanks for having my back over on the other thread).
Salil:
But that doesn’t seem to extend to other areas. For example, I may be insecure in my knowledge about say, medicine, but I would ask questions of a doctor in the group if the conversation was about medicine. Do you mean to say people sub-consciously audit inquiry because of race?
Mind you, I am not disputing it (yet!)…it just seems interesting, if that is what you meant in the first place.
Do you mean to say people sub-consciously audit inquiry because of race?
yes. most extreme with black americans, but i’m sure it happens with all us coloreds.
shruti, i acknowledge your point. there are many points on the spectrum on these issues and that can be easy to forget.
razib:
I see how organizations might do that (ObLegalese: not endorsing this myself) to get input from people of other races, but I can’t understand why individuals would do that. I mean, people might not disagree with you for fear of being un-PC or offending you, but I can’t see why they would ignore you. There is obviously something in race-consciousness that I am missing.
anna,
Not to sound harsh, but could it be that people don’t give you the attention you’re expecting because you’re a bit spoiled? The average person tends not to care about all the minutia in your life as your fans would. The average person isn’t part of your fanbase. It has nothing to do with your being brown, or anything. You wouldn’t be brooding about how ignored you are to your fanbase unless you relished narcissistic pleasures. I don’t find it rational to expect fealty from your sorority sisters; if you want ingratiating sentiment, the real-world will disappoint you.
but I can’t see why they would ignore you. There is obviously something in race-consciousness that I am missing.
well, the easiest way to avoid a ‘problem’ is to pretend it doesn’t exist. the victim industry & lexicon is rich, varied and adaptive, and interaction can be spun into an expression of oppressive power relations where White Ubermensch wield their Magik.
sic semper: whose post did you read? b/c it surely wasn’t mine, if that’s your comment on it.