I don’t monitor it regularly, but when I do, PostSecret inevitably offers at least one confession which gives me chills; on September 30, a few of you shivered, too.
Dearest Pecola, I Want to Weep.
Sepia Mutiny
All that flavorful brownness in one savory packet
AMU maturity (at least when I’m referring to it) isn’t the opposite of immaturity (childish etc) rather it signifies ‘life experience’. A 40 year old has more experience than a 30 year old who has more experience than a 20 year old in navigating uncomfortable situations. If I knew what I know now when I was younger life would definitely have been easier. Once upon a time I was angst ridden over people pestering me about getting married. I got better about responding to that now and it truly only came with time and understanding people and growing up a little.
Dear AMU, i posted earlier that i respect you for laying bare your low moments in so plain a fashion. i imagine there are others on the board who feel the same but feel they have nothing to add or feel there’s no need for you to defend your perspective. it must sting after a while to see all these barbs slung your way.
how about we just let AMU do her thing and let her decide if she needs to do some learning/growing, and she can do it in her own time, in the way she pleases…
feminism 101 – let her be the boss of herself.
JOAT:
Do you really think so? Of course, a 40 year old has lived longer than a 30 year old…but that does not translate into life experience. For example, I have a friend who escaped from war-torn Croatia at 22, buried both her parents, and now has moved back to help her people. I imagine she has more life experience than me, even though I am 15 years older than her.
My $0.02, for what they’re worth:
How many people are actually satisfied with their appearance and how they’re perceived by the rest of the world? We can have pride in ourselves, our achievements, our lineage, our culture, our environment, our college mascot, our whatever, but in the end how others perceive us (or rather how we perceive these perceptions) DOES make a difference, and this can be due to a whole range of physical characteristics – skin color, hair color, eye color, hair type, body type, weight, height, etc. etc. And yes, of course it would be easier for me if this or that was different, and obviously some of these characteristics figure more prominently than others.
I think most people spend so much time coming to terms with what’s in the mirror that it’s a freaking miracle anyone gets anything done at all.
BidiSmoker,
For what it’s worth, I was pretty taken aback by your initial comments and found them totally inconsistent with your usual tone, and I thought the tone of your retraction was much more in line with your usual internet persona, which brings me to this:
BidiSmoker (#134):
It’s all downhill when you confuse internet persona with personality. For example, I know that I must come off as pretty darned intimidating to most of you – yup… but it would probably astonish you all to learn that I am in fact 5’2″, 87 pounds, and…
…what? I don’t…?
Oh.
146:
For the record, we’ve had our share of disagreements, and I’m 24.
I really do believe this and didn’t when I was younger. I believe it because I’ve learnt the value of listening to my parents and their life experiences and believe very strongly that people who have been around longer might just know a thing or two more than me even if it isn’t actual knowledge of something, being around longer gives you a better ability to handle life.
And there will always be exceptions but the average 22 year old has not has as much life experience as your friend just as the 22 year old newcomers that start in the corporate world around here. They still lack real world working experience as someone older.
whoa! ack! help! Someone delete #146, please!
I mean #163!
Quoted from the US archives:
“Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory.”
That doesn’t sound like someone who’s morally opposed to the institution of slavery.
in specifics, no, in a general sense yes, that is, they know what it’s like to be a minority culture in a majority demographic, that has had a documented history of mistreating minorities.
No, and they too may have misconceptions regarding pronounciations, etc… but what they wont have is a feeling that their way is the “normal” correct way. They have experience of having their own “culture” as separate from the “normal, average” way.
I remember I wrote a story about a character that goes between being Indian and being western (a topic that has been mined over and over again, I know) but the person evaluating didn’tt understand and asked the question “Does she want to be Indian, or normal?” See the mentality? white = normal, and that’d be ok if white was a naturally developed categorization, instead of a power-based imposed one.
why are the pots and kettles talking about maturity and age? i don’t think you can make any generalizations about maturity based on age unless you have at least a generational age gap … but aren’t most of the people on this sight in the 25-35 age range? at least, isn’t that the average age range?
BidiSmoker, I know you’ve already admitted your lack of civility in those comments and have already been carved by other people. I’m just really amused by this whole thing because as much as I don’t want to rub salt into the wound, I have some information that is going to make the fact that you spoke for me even sillier: Until 4 years ago, I was the biggest white supremacist and internalized racist you’d have ever met. Not just because being white would have been easier, but because it would have made me better. And because Indians were ugly and backwards. And I’m not an ABD – I came here when I was six, and my parents raised me with, you know, the stereotypical Bihari values. I didn’t even grow up around white people somewhere out in the middle of Bumblefuck, USA. I grew up in LA, going to elementary schools that were predominantly Latnio/Chicano and East Asian. Only two white people in 5 years. And I still wanted nothing more in the world than to be white.
After fours years of anorexia, bulimia, hate for all white people by default, having my ass schooled by the strength, wisdom and compassion of some key figures in my life that were white, militant activism for Asians/WOC/environmental sustainability, and a selectively leftist college education (during which all of the above happened, in that order), I know I’m a leftist and proud to be whatever I was born as.
I’m also acutely aware of how useless and patronizing infantile leftism can be to the people who it claims to defend/represent (you see how the assumption of representation already makes it problematic?). From my organizing experiences, I’ve realized how disconnected I am from the people I’m defending – people who I identify with – because of differences in privilege. Sometimes I’m the disprivileged (i.e. amongst white liberal environmentalists), but most of the time I’m the one who has too much privilege to be speaking for the people I identify with, even if they are women of color. I can’t understand the depth of their struggle because it is nuanced differently from mine. I’m staying left, and I’m going to keep organizing, but if I don’t keep an open mind, then I’m doing everyone a disservice.
What I’m trying to say is that leftist gestures have their own important function (mostly for galvanizing and showing support), but we as people can’t function on a practical level on gestures alone. The knee-jerk reactions are useful for inner motivation, but when used to make conclusions about the practical world, they make all the conclusions sound the same. For me, knowing but denying that not everything should be reduced to the same conclusion created a lot of cognative dissonance. It either makes you empty because you stop thinking, or it makes you angsty because you know there’s something missing that you may not be able to admit to yourself. Philosophy privileges itself over action, and theoretical reasoning is too simplistic to account for, or used to oversimplify, the multidemnsional reality of our lives.
Going back to the heart of the issue, I know that there are other people of color, including desis, who still feel the way I used to feel about race, but that doesn’t mean that AMU’s experience was anything like mine. In all the comments she’s posted here, she hasn’t revealed much beyond the “I’m proud to be desi, but I just wonder…” sentiment, so that’s all we got – we got no right making assumptions. I see nothing wrong with having a [insert adjective] reaction to AMU’s postcard, but casting judgement on her life and character is uncalled for.
…sorry I wrote the King James version of my comment
Amusing to see desis whining about their low caste status outside the indian subcontinent 🙂
Instead of playing the innocent victims of “unjust” discrimination, how about looking at it as karmic blowback for the abominable way low castes are treated in India? After all, what goes around comes around; as you do to others so will be done to you…..isnt this the just, universal law of karma?
Interesting that it did not occur to anyone of you that the low castes of India suffer far greater humiliations and indignities than desis do in racist america, and much of the rest of the world.
Shruti,
amazing post.
As much as it may shock people around here, I do not “hate all white people by default” either, although I did go through a similar phase (except the eating disorder part).
This is ridiculous, then what about the low castes meeting the same treatment in the US? shouldn’t they be billionaires here? First of all you have an immature understanding of karma. neglecting that the word means “action” itself. Even if karma places you into a sub-standard situation, that doesn’t, and shouldn’t preclude one from doing something about it.
HMF, I sure hope you don’t, that kind of stuff is very counter-productive. You gotta reject the dark side of the Force dude!
AMU,
As my man Rakim once said, “Don’t sweat the technique”. Your postcard struck a nerve and provided many topics for discussion, including several tangents regarding the real reasons behind the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War (uh War Between the States…that’s a Rocky and Bullwinkle reference to the fact that there was “nothing civil about it.”). Here I thought it was all about slavery…..at least until I saw on Fox News that it was a cabal-like plot by the Democrats to keep the price of powdered whigs down (Zoolander). I still like the Simpsons explanation when Apu is taking his citizenship test and starts into a diatribe about the social and economic implications of the war and the examiner simply replies, “Slavery, just say slavery.”
All this intellectual rambling is making my inferior public-high-school-educated brain hurt. I’ve got to frame the Che Guevara posters in my room and alphabetize my collecion of Satre novels.
“All I need to know is that a man is a human being – that is enough for me; he can’t be much worse.” – Mark Twain
“That’s what she said.” – Michael Scott
You just used an Apu reference in the thread (partially) about growing up desi….. Why not friggen qoute Jhumpa Lahiri at the very least
Because his reaction to Apu (is most probably) much different than someone with a desi background, growing up here. For group A to understand group B’s disposition takes much time and humility. But even I won’t deny a certain amount of progress, considering it began as:
“Goodness Gracious! Was anybody hurt?”
“No’m, just a nggr”
Not in the least. It is most commendable. But my tendency is to assume the best of people anyway. I’m not surprised that you do good stuff. The comments I made were based on the things you’ve said here, just as we all comment here on what other people say here. Ultimately this is not about personality, but about politics. You said something nasty to AMU, and then you retracted it. That’s all good, and it speaks well to your personality. We all say stupid shit sometimes.
But the underlying issue is political. You presented a political worldview that struck me, and clearly others, as a classic example of “infantile leftism” in the sense that term was deployed in in the other thread. There, Vinod was repudiating a whole range of arguments by reducing them to the “straw man” of conspiracy theories about “The Man.” I and others argued why that is a ridiculous reduction. They you turn up ranting and raving about… “The Man,” and basically about how white people are all oppressors and not to be trusted, not to mention the more absurd connections that you drew and have since retracted. You became Example A of precisely what Vinod was using to discredit a wide range of considered and intelligent opinion. Unproductive, at best.
On the personality stuff, man, there’s no problem. You’re obviously a good brother, and besides, none of us is qualified as an ultimate arbiter of personality. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, etc. But the political discussion remains.
Peace
dear bidismoker – i’ve gone to bat for you before (i think even a year back when we both had different noms-de-plume) because i’ve got good vibes off the net on you – but as my Teacher told me, “you must not just BE good, you must look good also”. There were some rash words you said. It is possible to recover but take it on the chin. A plain non-verbose apology would have sufficed. but you need to do build some fortitude old boy. i’d recommend a pilgrimage to sabarimala .
I don’t know that what Bidi said deserves all of these cries of ‘shame!shame!’. He spoke his thoughts as honestly as AMU and, like he has already said, he didn’t mean to attack her or cause offense to anyone else. His analogies were extreme but he’s twenty-four. At twenty-four I walked around with a shirt with a picture of Malcolm X pointing a gun out a window on it and the words ‘By Any Means Necessary’. And do we only want warm and fuzzy sentiments expressed on this site? Give the kid a break.
You mean this?
http://img.thefreedictionary.com/thumb/7/79/Malcomxm1carbine.gif
DQ, Whats wrong with wearing such a shirt? I wouldn’t consider that picture extreme, during that time, Malcolm felt his life was in danger, both from the NOI and white racists, his house was firebombed. Notice he’s in his house peering out, it’s defense.
I know the thread’s kinda moved on, but I feel I have to respond to Pardesi Gori‘s #154:
Although in our culture transwomen are much more visible, both on the street and in the mass media, this does not mean that they are a majority. There are many reasons for this, some having to do with the general rule that, as JOAT said reversedly in #156, transmen pass in daily life much more easily than transwomen. It also has to do with the stories our culture privileges, what our culture thinks is a joke, tragic, threatening, etc. So although (because of the stigma attached to cross-dressing or transitioning) there are no solid numbers on trans folks, transwomen are by no means a clear majority.
Also – I’m sure you typed your comment without thinking too much about it, but the phrasing “men trying to be women” is incorrect and deeply hurtful to trans folks. Transwomen and even male cross-dressers are not “men trying to be women.” Men cross-dress for a variety of reasons, but I don’t think any of them would say they are trying to be women while doing so. And transwomen are not “men trying to be women” – they feel they ARE women, and are simply trying to live that way, recognized by the larger world as such.
I don’t want to hijack this thread into a discussion about transsexuality or transgenderism, but I would like to say that we all speak from a position of some privilege(s) – and for most of us, one of these is the privilege of being non-trans.
BidiSmoker, my whole long comment wasn’t a lecture at you. It was a mixed response to you, Siddhartha and the topic of the post. The story was for AMU and everyone else, the discussion of infantile leftism was for Siddhartha and the general contrarian nature of the comment was for you. The reason I felt the need to be contrarian was because you spoke for me when you said that you and I had something in common (age) that disconnected us from the rest of the older commenters who sympathized with AMU. I just wanted to say that I sympathized with her too, and age had little to do with it. I also felt the need because ever since revealing my age, I’ve been wary of people infantalizing, patronizing, and/or dismissing me because they assume my perspective is narrow and limited. Hope that clears things up. I’m still on your general “side”. I never doubted you’re a good guy, and certainly never assumed anything about your personality or offline character. Peace, bro 🙂
Lizzie, thanks for your comment. I know it’s a bit a of a threadjack, but I also cringed when I saw “transvestites and transexuals are men trying to be women”. Those identifiers are all wrong, and don’t even consider deliberate genderqueerness and transgender passing privilege. Reppin’ for my trans homies, I just gotta say that y’all know more transgendered people than you think 😉
The Association of Indians in America launched a successful campaign to have Asian Indians included within the “Asian or Pacific Islander” category rather than the “Caucasian/White” category in the census, believing that the conferring of this minority status would bring benefits to the community. Accordingly, Asian Indians are today classified under the “Asian or Pacific Islander” category.
http://www.everyculture.com/multi/A-Br/Asian-Indian-Americans.html
Macacaroach – Gandhi said the exact same thing in regards to Indians in South Africa at his time.
Um, is this your personal experience or are you just assuming?
Lizzie and Shruti,
Transgender is different from transvestite and transexual, although a transgendered individual may opt for either or both.
I know a few transgendered persons and I understand the difference.
If I inadvertently offended either of you – I’m sorry. In my experience I have met more men than women who desire to be the opposite gender, though of course, my experience is not universal. Any statistics on this?
PG,
it’s observed and pretty damn obvious too. How many black comedians make jokes about their existence being wildly different than the mainstream. “White people do this.. black people do this…” Every black comedian in the 90s more or less got by on this model alone (with the exception of Chris Rock, and other greats). It’s been done so much that now people think its hack material.
HMF
I am not sure if this is related, over 90% of Indians said they’d like to be born as Indians again given a choice, in a poll by Times of India.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2070264.cms
Of course they must have had their ‘moments’ too, when they wished they were somewhere else 🙂 …
HMF
The black Americans in my social circles (ALOT) do not see Indian culture as “normal”. In fact, my experience is that more white Americans than black express a respectful interest in India’s cultures.
But again, this is just my experience within my social network.
I’ve seen alot of tension and stress between black Americans and Indian Americans regarding things like lifestyle and particularly sexual morality.
Though Indians may draw from black Americans’ struggle for equal rights, still, I find it out that professionals living very comfy lives try to identify so much with non-pros who are struggling.
I never claimed this. I said black Americans know what it’s like to have their behavior/culture treated as abnormal.
Just because two people are shat on by the same third person, doesn’t mean they can’t have differences amongst themselves. Look at Saddam and Osama, both hate the US, but don’t really get along themselves either….
ok – what in the name of bodisatva is a pecola. wikipedia sez it is an anthropomorphic penguin and i am cofnused. vy vould vous vant to veep, anna?
i’m surmising here mr. hairy that it is because a penguin is black on the outside but white on the inside.. hence a feeling of wanting to be white? who the holy lima beans knows? but that is just my take of it… here is a pic of the pecola you are referring to from the tv show…
but then i came across this story..called the bluest eye..in which the character pecola who is black, yearns to have blonde hair/blue eyes…
both intrepretations are good in my opinion..but then again.. i’m not the author of the post.
hope you are well mr. hairy! go eat some mangoosteens for moi 😉
Sahej – the point about the Simpsons reference was not meant to be a comment on desis or growing up desi. Since I grew up as a priveleged upper middle class white boy I have no idea what that is like, other than being pushed into the Debate club, Academic Decathlon, MathCounts, and taking the PSAT and SAT a year early for “practice”. Seriously though I have no real personal experience about what it is like to be disenfranchised, oppressed, or discriminated against. The closest I’ve come is getting a lot of awkward stares when I went to India with my wife and her family and I know that does not really count. I merely meant to point out the overly simplistic, instant-oatmeal version of history that we as Americans (I do mean all of us not just privileged upper middle class white boys like myself) are spoon fed in high school. I realize the Simpsons, as a cartoon television show, would hardly qualify in a proper debate, but I thought this thread could use a little more humor.
Penguins are both white and black on the outside and judging from the movie March of the Penguins I think the only things a penguin cares about is staying warm, not breaking that egg, and not getting eaten by a seal or a shark.
“One Love. One Heart. Let’s get together and feel alright” – B Marley
Chris,
Not knowing your tone, I apologize if I misread you. In fact I was not making a strong statement one way or another, it was a mild joke. I do think though that most people do already know we’re all the same. I’m not really sure if there too many more places this conversation on the thread is going to go, but like you I’m interested in what other people think. I really have enjoyed your perspective. Cheers bro
HMF brah, I want to give you some advice. This might seem presumptious but take it with a grain of salt. Use outrage, don’t let outrage use you. The time will come when you will be tested, and you’ll know it, because the wind will get knocked out of you, and you’ll go down on one knee. Consider these moments a blessing because then you’ll be in it for real. Do not waste your strength on battles that don’t need to be fought. Learn from everything around you. You do have a lot to learn still man. That’s not a knock on you, but it should actually be a relief. You’ll never save anyone no matter how many words you write or what thoughts you think. We’re all in this together, every last creature. Some people will help and some will hurt each other, and it might not be who you expect. Discount no one.
Peace One Love; We’re all Related
As a male-to-female transsexual I would like to voice my opinion on this issue of terminology, not as an expert, but as someone who is forced to use these terms to describe herself to others. (And because my friend Shruti does not like to speak for others, something about the subaltern or what not 😉
First, transgender is an umbrella term which encapsulates a number of terms, including crossdressers, transsexuals, transvestites, intersexed individuals, etc. Whereas transsexuals and transvestites are more specific peoples within the transgender population. Transgendered individuals transcend, go beyond what is perceived as gender, that is the gender binary; whereas transsexuals, are the ones who actually desire to transcend/transform to the other “sex”, or what society deems as the signifier of sex, the genitalia.
As for the issue of male to female transsexuals outnumbering female to male transsexuals, one cannot know for sure the exact numbers. I have heard sources claiming the ratio is close to 1:1, and others saying that MtFs outnumber FtMs 3:1. It would not surprise me if MtFs do outnumber FtMs, but I do believe that the numbers are about par. It is in this society still more appropriate for females to act “tomboyish” than a man to act as a “sissy” per se. A person born – rather assigned at birth – as a female is able to have more gender roles that “she” can perform as, whereas a person deemed a “male” is highly limited to masculine performity and ostricized for acting otherwise. Thus a person who identifies as a FtM, can in fact “pass” as a male, if he is able to signify thru his performance, without taking hormones. However, does it makes this person a “transsexual”? This is where the fuzzy edges of the term comes into play, and where there is no clear answer. Is the person “more” transsexual if they have SRS (sex reassignment surgery) or if they “pack” (for FtMs) or “tuck” (MtFs)? What is defined as “transsexual” in statistics? Does one consider themselves “transsexuals” after their surgery? It is impossible to say with certainty if in fact there are more MtFs than FtMs. However, the range of gender roles performity allowed to female individuals is much more wider, that in fact many may not need to identify as “transsexual” in order to express the masculinity within themselves. Whereas, males have no choice but to transition in order to express their femininity.
HMF, that’s the shirt. Only it had ‘By Any Means Necessary’ written on top, which gives the picture a completely different message than when you know the story behind the picture. Nothing wrong with the shirt, I loved it – it’s just not something I would wear today, ten years later. Cause I don’t really believe in ‘By Any Means Necessary’ anymore – your blood cools when you get older, and your head clears too. I’m not being patronizing, because there are times I miss the energy and fire of being in my early twenties and seeing things in such terms.
Pardesi, you hang out with black people who can’t tell the difference between native americans and indians… I seriously question the validaty of any extrapolation based on your circle of black friends. Everyone is entitled to say what they want, but I would personally like it if you didn’t try to generalize… Black america doesn’t seem to be your area of expertise.
Black and indian people aren’t even likely to mix in large numbers on a more than superficial basis in most places… even so, those judgements are indicative of indians not being able to understand blacks and not the other way around.
Exactly, HMF. Black people may be ignorant of different cultures, but once you start dealing with educated black people, they are MUCH more likely (than other educated white people) to understand what its like for other minority people to be marginalized.
Heh. Thanks for #197, Kara… that’s a lot of information right thurr. Why didn’t I ever consult you when queerness was the actual topic of a thread?
To chick pea (#193), thank you so much for bringing up the origin of “Pecola”. “Pecola” is in reference to Pecola Breedlove, a little black girl in Toni Morrison’s debut novel The Bluest Eye.
It’s true that Pecola was so hated in her community that she wished that she had blue eyes, so she would by anyone and everyone that came in contact of her.
It’s a sad, but very good novel.
Can we do a hip hop thread because I’ve got Memory Lane by Nas in my head all of a sudden
Hip hop thread for all us over-priced wanna be desis who drive lamborgenis and front about poverties that we ain’t never seen
word to the pharmacist saajanay 😉
mr. huey, you are welcome… i have yet to read this morrison story…
Shruti, perhaps because I was not as critical as I am now.
Dear CP! Thanks for the tip and the link to Morrison’s story. thinking out loud. Probably a stretch to link AMU to Pecola, but as a literary device it made a stark backdrop against which to formulate one’s opinions. made for moral clarity. no room for gray. good tactic. peas on earth.
Chick pea, I hope you do read The Bluest Eye. Every person of color, black and non-black alike, and even white people should read that novel to realize how some can believe that having blue eyes or blonde hair and voila, they will be loved by everyone that sees them.
I hope someday that someone will make it into a movie.
Disagree. it is a novel not gospel truth. if you want to know The Truth, you must read this book and the scales will fall from your eyes, like buffalo off the side of a cliff.
😀 Y’all are so cute.
It WAS a “Bluest Eye” ref and I am somewhat surprised that it didn’t come up until now. Then I started to think that it was so obvious, it didn’t merit comment. That and I felt self-loathing over the whole “eye”/”weep” linkage…ahhh, I tried. 🙂