I’ve never seen a movie starring Shilpa Shetty. I’ve never watched Big Brother. I had no idea until this post on SepiaMutiny that Shilpa Shetty would be on Big Brother. Frankly, I didn’t read it because I didn’t care.
So why, in in the name of all that is sacred, have so many of my conversations in the past few days involved the unholy combination of a mediocre Bollywood actress and a revolting reality show?
Sajit recently tackled the growing controversy surrounding the show, so please refer to his post if you need to catch up. That’s were it began for me.
Then Mr. Cicatrix and I randomly channel-surfed our way to a ABC Nightline News segment on the how Shilpa’s quiet dignity was “Uniting India’s Warring Muslims and Hindus.” So sixty years after Partition, THIS is what finally unites?!
The House of Commons has weighed in. Tony Blair. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Indian Parliament has lodged a formal complaint with the British government. All this over remarks variously described as “girly rivalry,” “bullying,” and “racist abuse.” (link) Remarks made by people so stupid, one thought “Winston Churchill was the first black president of America.” (link)
The talking heads pontificated and culture critics scibbled op-eds. Is it jealousy? Class conflict? Bigotry? Ignorance? (link). Insecurity? Stupidity? (link). A set-up by the show’s creators? (link). Shilpa’s own fault? (Yep. Germaine Greer said it).
The semiotics of racism, of “poppadoms,” “can’t even speak English,” “Shilpa Fuckawallah” and “live in a house or a shack,” have been tossed about selectively and dissected to the point that it’s all just meaningless chatter.
So it was a relief and a surprise to read Martin Jacques’ article in the Guardian (thanks ultrabrown). Jacques, a Fellow at the Asia Research Center at the London School of Economics, roots around the muck to find a very solid reason for why this show is more than a tempest in a teapot, why it resonates so violently in Britain and abroad:
The test of our behaviour, of how racist we are, is no longer what the white British think. That started to change with the self-awareness and growing confidence of our own ethnic minorities. But the matter does not end there. The test now, in this instance, is what Indians in India think, how they perceive us.
As Goody raged and railed against Shetty on Wednesday night’s TV broadcast, she was like a cornered animal, lashing out in every direction against something she clearly detested but also feared and felt threatened by. She was confronted not only with the Other, but a hugely self-confident Other. What could be worse? It was a metaphor for the world that is now rapidly taking shape before our very eyes. (link )
I think he nails it. To go back to that “poppadom” business:
Racism always exists cheek by jowl with, inside and alongside culture and class. As a rule it is inseparable from them. That is why, for example, food, language and names assume such importance in racial prejudice. And that has certainly been the case in Big Brother. Food is a signifier of difference: so are names, so is language. So Jade and her sidekicks homed in on Shilpa’s cooking and choice of food, made fun of her name and refused to learn it. And with food came the suggestion that Shilpa’s hygiene left something to be desired, that she was unclean (she had touched the food, it was claimed, and “you don’t know where her hands have been”). In other words, not only was she different, but she came from an inferior civilisation.
Th world is changing:
Almost from the outset, Big Brother’s racism has had a new and novel dimension. Because Gordon Brown was in India at the time, and was asked about it during his trip, the issue immediately acquired an international dimension. In an earlier era, of course, this would have been dismissed as of no consequence: the natives could safely be ignored. But no longer. We saw this just a year ago in relation to the Danish cartoons and their ridicule of Islam. Europe used to ignore what the former colonial world felt. There was no feedback loop.
I’ve been waiting for this for a long time – the dawning awareness that the “third world” is no longer silent or passive. The realization that “the Other” can speak for itself, quite well, thank you. The acknowledgement that we are here, we are watching you, and we will not be ignored.
Please read the full article here. You might disagree, but it’ll be worth it.
UPDATE: The BBC (thanks Ennis!) reports that the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone said he was “delighted” that Jade Goody was voted off the show with 82% of the vote.
“You can imagine the uproar there would have been in this country if, say, Keira Knightley had been being abused in a Big Brother house in India.”
He added that India is the second biggest investor to London after the US and that without last night’s protest vote, there “would have been a lot of harm to people’s jobs”.
This further underscores the point made in the Guardian article:
India is a rising giant; we can no longer afford to ignore, as we once did with impunity, the views and feelings of a country that represents one-fifth of humanity.
This is HUGE. The economic factor appears to be the decisive one, but Indian investment wouldn’t be a concern if there hadn’t been an outcry in India about the ethnic slurs. Get on board, people! This isn’t really about parsing the racism of “the Indian” or whether Shilpa irritated you personally. It’s about how casually people in the third world, “foreigners,” were dismissed and ignored. It’s about how that is finally, maybe, changing.
Heh, Heh, Heh
You’ve misconstructed what I have said. And I was not condoning racist insults, nor am I saying that we as Indians deserve to be subject to racial insults because back home things are much worse. Perhaps you didn’t understand the subtitleties because you are so high in your mighty horse.
There is a difference between cultural insensitivity and racial insults. The macaca incident was definitely racist. Mocking Indian accent or calling someone Poppadom is not. I remember that there was a huge outcry with the Simpsons and Apu, and people were calling it racist. Are you fighting that war?
Add to the fact that this is a contest, and the participants are subject to stressful situations. Let’s keep things in perspective here. This has turned into a politically correct show, and we had a british minister saying to boot the “racist” one to show that Britain is truly a non-racist country. What the hell?
Indians are not a weak ethnic minority anymore, we are well represented in almost every field both in the US and the UK. We do need to fight ignorance and racists like the BNP, the KKK, neo-nazis. But this is a fight within the West, and the Indian government has little morality in my view to criticise the west in the matters of bigotry and racism.
I admire Shilpa’s coolness throughout the ordeal (had I been in the situation, I’d have already uttered the Jane vs. Homer Simpson comparison). Jane Goody is ignorant, overwrought, and conflicted…not to mention a heifer. She looks like a cow, and, as Shilpa brilliantly put it, “this is her claim to fame.” She’s a poor representation for the British people (although, as a former resident of the UK, I can attest to their prejudiced mindest). Jane is jealous, plain and simple.
I read Greer’s original article and it hit a nerve, then I read it again thinking perhaps she meant most of it in sarcastic manner, unfortunately the sixth time it still made my stomach turn. She also refered to Shilpa as a ‘Tamil’, an error they’ve corrected now, but it goes to show that she didn’t bother doing her research properly, which owes to the fact that she didn’t really care to do the research in the first place. She’s born in Tamil Nadu so she must be a ‘Tamil’. This amongst several presumtuous lines on India and Shilpa’s life (refering to the racism she ‘has certainly had to deal with ‘ in Bombay). Misogyny in the film industry-may be, racism in Mumbai, no way. Its a mixed society, and the only unrest may be between Hindus and Muslims. That article was poorly researched, and she could have refered to Shilpa’s affectations or unconcious pomposity in a subtler manner.
This is the pinnacle of idiocy. So if George Allen called S.R. Sidarth “Poppadom” or did a fake Indian accent when he said “Welcome to America” it wouldn’t be racist and be morally susceptible to the outcry that followed “Macaca”?
In fact, by bringing up “macaca” you prove my point about racism’s only prerequisite being the intent to dehumanize, which takes into account historical and social context. The word Macaca is used in North Africa as a derogatory term for dark skinned peoples – it’s virtually meaningless in the United States but the context in which Allen used the word made it racist, ie. I’m white, we’re white, this land is white, your not, [pejorative] welcome.
Let’s keep it in perspective indeed. It’s only in stressful situations where true racial animosity can and will unearth itself. You talk about nuances and subtleties of racism, and yet thinks it only happens when those who perpetuate it are in a “natural resting state” when everything is “honkey-dorey”.
Call it idiot all you want, but I would not consider it racist. Calling “poppadom” or making a fake indian accent are caricatures of culture, not race. Of course, it is unacceptable and unwise for a politician campaigning to do so. But calling Sidarth a monkey is a caricature of our race. And that is outrageous. However, I am surprised that you didn’t explain to me about what you feel about Apu and the way he is portrayed in the Simpsons. Is i a pinnacle of enlightenment to consider it racism?
The perspective here is that this is a show where people are locked and watched 24-hours day for a long time. People with different backgrounds and classes are put together to clash and create these outrageous moments, and producers make them operate in stressful situations. The three girls are very ignorant and clueless about everything, and this extends to how they perceived a different culture. To make this a litmus test about race relations in Britain is incredibly naive in my opinion.
Why are some people upset with Apu on the Simpsons. Apu is an immigrant who came to America and become part of the community. Several episode’s of the Simpsons have been based around Apu. The have made Apu a main part of the Springfield community. The Simpson family more then once has to help Apu when be been in trouble and Apu has done the same for the Simpsons and others in Springfield.
One thing that sets Apu from real desis in the west is that he has made non-desi friends. Where as most desi who come to the west chose not to mix outside there own community[ Maybe they think there better then everybody else].
Here is the editorial of “The Times Of India” about Big Brother, which pretty much nails it.
Here is are some extracts:
What pisses me off to be honest, is that message we are portraying is that three uneducated and ignorant women (one of them thought that Winston Churchill was the first US black president – no kidding), have the power to offend us – just because they are white. This is the power that I will not give anyone, unless they happen to be people I respect. This is the miserable inferiority complex that comes from our colonial times. Well, I say no more.
Nice backpeddling. Now we’re down to outrageousness vs. unacceptability. But according to you, it’s only unacceptable to mock cultures when you have a political campaign at stake, but when you’re locked in a house and are dumb as a box of rocks, you get a free pass for it?
I won’t get into formalized definitions of “race” but the point is, dehumanization is dehumanization all the same, whether it occurs at a cultural or racial level
Only until Indian mindsets and culture have evolved {with respect to shocking gender inequality (even among the middle class!), individual liberty, and appallingly high birth rates, etc.}will there be truly good and effective governmental institutions. “Government” is only a proxy of its people. By endlessly blaming “government” you aren’t solving anything. Unless rural and urban Indians lose the hypocrisy of many parts of “Indian values,” then only society will change its views on prejudices and incentivize Quality over Quantity (especially with the very bad habit of having as many children as a man and in-laws want, thereby forever bonding the identity of the woman to “mother” instead of “independent liberated woman.”
Paul Danahar the BBC South Asia bureau editor has a very different angle on the whole fiasco. Of course we blogged about it here.
I truly don’t understand how you form these qualifications? So, the three women’s lack of intellect is the crucial factor here? If they were Ph.Ds in nuclear physics, only then we should really get mad?
It’s not them that’s the issue here, it’s their function, are they fomenting continued misperceptions about Indians in their country? Erroneous perceptions, held in the past and that could potentially make life more difficult for those people now? The answers to those questions are more likely than not yes.
Of course it is a factor. A politician, a teacher or someone with credibility that is a racist (like George Allen) has a different dimension than what some ignorant f*ck says.
Racism is totally unacceptable. But mocking cultures is not racism, and depends on the context. Certainly, this incident didn’t warrant governments from both countries to comment. You still haven’t mention Apu and the Simpsons. The show portrays most of Indian stereotypes, parodying Indian accent, Bollywood, call centers and what not. I ask you once again, is this racism?
You mention “context” in the same breath as you wonder why we haven’t torn apart Apu on the Simpsons?!
Er, because Apu is in the context of a cartoon show that’s known for it’s sarcastic intelligence, brilliant ability to parody and reflect American society?
The point of this post was to accept that this happened – the stupid comments on the stupid show, the outcry, the politicians, the media chattering, the whole kielbasa – and try to find an explanation for why it resonated so deeply for so many.
If it didn’t resonate deeply for you, please, do us all a favor and shut the fuck up.
Perhaps you should read his/her post again. I’ll cut and paste the relevant comment I was responding to for your convenience:
“disproportionate response to verbal abuse suffered by some actress on a TV show from a community with bigger systemic problems of its own”
There is a cultural aspect of burning effigies; it may be considered uncivilised, ghastly and ‘vastly disproportionate’ by the West but this is a common form of protest in South Asia. Deal with it.
sigh from said wikipedia link..
Ad hominem tu quoque
Main article: tu quoque
Ad hominem tu quoque refers to an irrelevant accusation of hypocrisy. Accusations of hypocrisy are inadmissible in legal and scientific debate, and can be distractions from the business of politics. That is, it is not relevant to the credibility of a didactic argument whether its presenter has trod over the principle he espouses. For example, a corrupt lawyer who prosecutes embezzlers may be a sleaze, but in a properly organized legal system there can be no arguments against his defendant just because of that.
This is exactly what CndMedStudent, Cisco, Clueless et al are doing.
Shilpa and Sridevi have cute natural “dravidian” noses. You got a problem with that?
I just took a short break in Barcelona and miss the biggest story of the year. Great. Don’t have much to add here, except that I found a photograph of ‘clueless’ on the web here.
(He’s the one on the left)
Dude. That was low. But funny as hell.
Yeah, Sikhs in Canada have it so bad. They have had soooo little success in Canada. Clearly, not the example to follow. Punjabis were never ruled by the British for generations, 1850 is started, and they were already fighting by the 1900’s
Cicatrix, this is sad. I believe Cisco was sincere in his/her remarks and was certainly RESPECTFUL (with the possible exception of #96). The banning of Mistress of Spices upthread was a good move because she was clearly trolling. Cisco was not.
Cisco isn’t questioning that Western societies and desi comunities there need to talk about this matter and address these issues. Neither is Cisco saying SM people shouldn’t be talking about it. She/he is talking about the Indian government making claims like
.
This is NOT the business of the Indian government, but that of British society since Shilpa is representing herself and not India (regardless of her claims). She is not the Indian ambassador to the UK. Perhaps the issue not resonating with Cisco was not enough reason for her/him to shut up because Cisco is concerned over the watering down of the term racism by overly broad application. S/he makes thought provoking contributions such as in #160. Unlike the case of MoS, I suspect there will be no need or opportunity to ban Cisco as s/he is not a troll and probably won’t be coming back in a hurry.
Perspective? For one, let’s get some perspective on why white on non-white racism is a big deal – history. There is certainly a lot of subtle racism in India, but let’s keep it real – Indians have not gone out and conducted genocides of ‘native’ or inferior people, nor have they peddled theories of racial superiority as if they were gospel truths. For all the ills in India (and there are too many to mention) and talk of Indian hypocrisy, I’m proud of my civilisation that did not believe in exterminating the other just because they were different.
Clueless et al, yeah, you are rather lucky that you are in Canada or any of the ‘Top 20’ nations in the world. Just don’t forget how your ancestors were treated when they got off the Komagata Maru, for perspective’s sake.
Cisco “India is a slum”, you are entitled to any opinion about India and what it represents for you, but don’t expect to engage people in a debate with that stuff.
PS: Let me state once again that this is getting sillier by the hour. The Indian govt had absolutely no business getting into this. It’s a stupid reality show for chrissakes. What do they want Gordon Brown to do about it? Looks like some people in the govt were not getting enough press.
my sister was complaining about this. though i can’t tell.
Just making sure: This is from the BBC site.
Is this the “India is a slum” statement that Goody supposedly made that everyone is referring to?
Cicatrix, give me a break. HMF was claiming that making fun of the Indian accent or calling someone Poppaddom is racist. So, I asked if Apu/Simpsons is racist. So, if it is not, then his assumption is wrong. But the fact is that a lot of Indians objected to Apu.
You should learn to respect other people’s opinions, even if they disagree with you. I also hate the fact that you have put my words out of context, and I did explain why it resonated with governments (to hide their own shortcomings). It also resonated with the media (to sell papers), and even the producers of Big Brother to get big ratings. The worst thing, is that you are not British, have not seen the show or even been in India – you only follow the conventional wisdom: they are racist.
I have provided you with an editorial of The Times of India which pretty much covers my point. And let me point you to PickledPolitics, the “Sepia Mutiny” of Britain, where Sunny Hundal the founder of that blog and one of our most important asian voices in the UK – is also of the opinion that Jade Goody is not racist.
So there. I will shut the fuck up now, because you want people to agree with you. I didn’t disrespect anyone for their opinions, and I would expect people to do the same, not to silence me. Because there are always three sides of the truth: mine, yours and the Truth.
Many thanks, Kurma. I do appreciate your efforts in explaining my position which is exactly right. And you are also right to say I am not coming soon. Why bother? I rather continue to write in blogs where people respect other points of view. It can only create a richer and more diverse picture. Just check the BBC radio show link presented above to know what I am talking about.
I’ve missed most of this thread, but let me chime in and say Cisco, don’t go. In fact, I’d very much like to see a debate between Cisco and Jai Singh as they offer very different, but both cogent, assessments of the significance of this whole event.
My own instinct is to agree with what Cisco said at #157 and #160. To wit:
And especially:
No matter what it may or may not say about Britain, the British, India, the Indians, or the state of mutual or self perception among these, we can’t forget that this moment is profoundly manufactured. That doesn’t make it invalid as a topic of analysis. But the fact that it was manufactured, by and for the purposes of a commercial television channel, needs to be part of the discussion. And the sorcerer’s apprentices at Endemol and Channel 4 who set up these moments shouldn’t be absolved of agency and responsibility when considering the consequences.
I don’t usually place comments, but I will make an exception. I agree with what Cisco has said on the whole. Perhaps he/she should have been less aggressive on the ‘slum’ thing, but I gather his/her point was that it is not racist for people – specially from the west – to have that perception. I agree it is funny to hear the Indian government shouting racism for that.
And Cicatrix, when you tell people to shut the fuck up, you sound like Bill O’Reilly. He does that when he doesn’t like what he hears, and has no arguments. It’s not nice, you know.
That’s not what I was claiming. In post #155:
“So if George Allen called S.R. Sidarth “Poppadom” or did a fake Indian accent when he said “Welcome to America” it wouldn’t be racist and be morally susceptible to the outcry that followed “Macaca”?
In fact, by bringing up “macaca” you prove my point about racism’s only prerequisite being the intent to dehumanize, which takes into account historical and social context. “
What I am claiming is the actual words used by Allen, are for the most part meaningless. It’s the context and intent to dehumanize which is important. George Allen, a white man, in a country with a history of legalized racism, among a group of other white people, campaigning with a party that in recent years has been criticized on its civil rights platform, in a geographical region historically known for its desire to continue slavery, says, “Welcome to America” to the only non-white person in the crowd – he could have said macaca or tapaca or oogabooga, it’s the historical context and inferential intent (which is clear, by the other things he said) to dehumanize that’s key.
Now to address your silly Simpsons comparison. I don’t watch the show closely, so I can’t really say. From what I remember, Apu is a fairly one-dimensional character. But as cicatrix correctly pointed out, it’s in the context of a cartoon that’s known for satiring all aspects of American society. They make fun of evangelical christians and callous corporate CEOs just the same (as far as I know). But I will say that presenting a caricatured Indian such as Apu could potentially be harmful in that there isn’t a counterbalancing force in the American media to say “hey Apu is a joke, he’s not what a real Indian person is” You watch their caricatured evangelical and know that’s not what an “average” or “normal” Christian is like.
In this light, things like Apu could facilitate racism, if for example, a white landlord denies Indian applicants because he has some misconception which he learned from watching the Simpsons. There are a lot of ifs there. And like I said before, I don’t watch the show to see what other aspects of Apu’s Indianness have been presented, and if its been presented in a derogatory or harmful manner.
Reality TV, yes, goes through the filters of an editor staff as well as production people, who generally have the final say what makes broadcast and what doesn’t. However, we must examine if the events in question parts of an entire character that they’re willfully playing, or being constructed through editing. For example. Omorosa was the “bitch.”
But a good example is Kramer’s N-word rant during his comedy set. Kramer’s crazy, he freaks out, it’s his shtick. He was in a comedy club, but saying “50 years ago you’d be hanging upside down with a fork up your ass” was completely out of character, it had no precedent in his set.
IMHO, you are wrong. When George Allen said ‘macaca’, few knew what it meant. It was only when the media reported that it was an ethnic slur in the French-speaking world, and his mother is french-tunisian, and George Allen speaks french – then it was clear it was a racist comment. So words do matter. But I would not call George Allen a racist just on the account that he is white, comes from a country that legalized slavery or that he belongs to the Republican party, and said something in the lines of Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.
I am glad you are being coherent. But I love Apu, even though he is a caricature of the Indian immigrant. Maybe I am more confortable with my Indianness and culture that I don’t feel threatened by such portrayals. What do you think?
Thanks. 🙂
Shilpa has been pretty open about her nose job-
http://www.indiaplaza.com/content/movies/starmonth/shilpashetty/index.aspx
One of the major sponsers (of Big Brother) stopped funding for the program as a result of the blatantly racist treatment Shilpa received. After that, the Big Brother people tried to do damage control and got Shilpa to say there is no racism involved on camera so they could keep the big time money rolling in. She was wiping away tears while saying this and it did not seem very sincere. It was as though she was forced to make that speech for the camera – no amount of acting could hide her crushed spirit at that time.
It all comes down to the mighty dollar (or pound in this case.), not that the producers of that show care too much about racism and ills of society.
Thats my point, few knew what it meant, yet it was clear the intent was to dehumanize. He could have said, “welcome Mr. Oogabooga man” and the effect, in my opinion would be nearly identical. (maybe more cheesy)
Again, not what I said. It’s those contextual things I mentioned plus the other statements he said, “Welcome to America, Welcome to the Real Virginia, etc… etc…”
It’s not a question of one’s own individual comfort level. Neither you or I live in a vacuum. Much of our existence depends on our collective perception held by others, in particular when power differences exist, ie. a majority perception of a minority.
Cisco said:
before the same Cisco said:
The above two statements are contradictory. If you wish to be considered seriously, than admit the fact that George Allen was (thank god not “is” ) a powerful senetor, educated and people’s representative. More over he questioned the very meaning of what it is to be an American. How can any serious person compare that to the Shilpa thing, what was a TV comment made to a foreigner (Shilpa is not a citizen of the UK and probably has no desire to be one).
Just get some perspective when you compare the “macaca” incident with this TV moment uttered by actors towards other actors.
I am the one who said earlier on this thread that random insults hurled at anyone by a percieved majority member who happens to be powerless, should not be considered “racism”. But for cryin out loud, George Allen ??? Geez !!!
And honestly even if she wasn’t so what? It’s her nose, even if she had fake boobs it’s her boobs. If it makes her feel good and look good more power to any woman taking the help of a knife.
Are you sure about that? We have a entire class of ‘untouchables’ in India that have to suffer at the hands of the ‘superior’ class everyday including getting killed as well. We are also a country that calculatively and deliberately aborts and kills girl babies frequently than most cultures.
I agree with your larger point but I think this is the whole crux of where this argument has come to. Indian government taking a stand for Shilpa Shetty and making believe that racism is something unheard of in India is hypocritical for a lot of people to swallow.
Hmm – i wonder if they’ll have to start banning fair and lovely ads in India now!
One of the things that amuses me the most is that the no.1 makers-of-fun of solid desi accents are either the american desis or the british asians..
I wish I had followed this story more closely, but have just caught up on various message boards and youtube. Everyone has waded in from an American and Indian perspective, and there have been some (unintentionally) entertaining contributions to this thread.
Seems to me that the initial outrage was simply spontaneous reaction against a really low level kind of racist sniping and bullying of the kind pretty familiar to any brown person who has grown up and lived in the UK. There is probably not a single Indian in England that hasnt experienced it. But it is heartening to see that white people rose up too and that they voted out the woman who was bullying Shilpa. Twenty years ago (maybe even 15) that wouldnt have happened. As for Channel 4, well they are screwed, there are calls for the executives to resign and their public subsidy to be revoked. Plus Shilpa is tipped to win the show as she has kind of won the hearts of the British public because she is very dignified and elegant and intelligent.
Over-reaction? Yes of course. But still…
There is absolutely no contradiction, considering you quoted my first statement out of context. I was making the point that without the ‘macaca’ slur, it would be difficult to prove the racist intent.
George Allen “macaca” comment was racist and unacceptable. Check #165.
I understand what you are saying. However, when you talk about the ‘majority’ perception, it is actually your perception of how the majority will perceive you. The trouble is that people are diverse, with different levels of education, experience and interest. A bigot and a racist will probably take every stereotype and make it worse, but the rest will probably be curious about the civilization that brought Chai, Yoga, Chess, “arabic” numbers and mathematics, buddhism, kamasutra, and a lot more. We are the ambassadors of our culture to the West, and it is up to us to teach them, and let them know that we can also laugh at ourselves, and we don’t have to blow things out of proportion when people are ignorant. Just like Apu… Do read this wonderful article.
Homer: Are you sure you donÂ’t want to come? In a civil war re-enactment we need lots of Indians to shoot. Apu: I donÂ’t know what part of that sentence to correct first.
Look, we can go back and forth with these recursive games. Reminds me of the movie, The big hit, trace buster, trace buster buster, trace buster buster buster. Yes I understand, everything at some level is “our perception.” This is a cop-out. Dare I even bring up their perception of your perception of their perception?
It’s one thing for us to laugh at ourselves, we know it’s fiction. It’s another thing to ignore potential deleterious effects of someone being fed the same information when they have no significant counterbalance
Manju
You make an elementary error there. Never kowtow. Trust your own judgment, otherwise your point of view is worth exactly nothing.
As for this whole issue, I take racism too seriously to tolerate its fetishization. There’s more racism in a single Fox news story on Obama’s candidacy than in an entire episode of Big Brother. The narrative here is being spun to simplify what is really part of a bigger pattern of people turning on each other like poisoned rats. What bothers me, far more than anything the spectacularly bovine Jade Goody may or may not have said, is the very existence of Big Brother itself. This whole discussion–I saw even Gordon Brown, possible future PM, talking about it to the Indian press–is the equivalent of the audience in the Colosseum complaining about one gladiator headbutting another. Are you not entertained? What, you think they’re going to hold hands and play nice?
This has nothing to do with macacagate. This did not happen in the context of a senate race. It happened in a farcical setting, farcical by design, farcical in intention, social-experimentation gone haywire, an outlet for the many petty aggressions and casual humiliations that characterize contemporary British mass culture. The people in the house are there for the money and the notoriety, the audience watches because they have nothing better to do with their own lives. Goody vs Shetty–not a pretty story, but it’s by some distance the least of the problems here. Look a little bit into the kind of society that makes a star from the likes of Jade Goody, a nobody, a cipher, a stand-in for the nobodies who have nothing to offer but still want to be famous, follow the trail back to the kind of society that creates such a phenomenon, and the rest falls into place. Absolutely nothing happened on that show that isn’t present every day, in some form or another, in the pages of the Sun, the Mirror and the Daily Star. It’s all leering, insinuating, lowest-common-denominator cack. And it sells. And that’s good enough, apparently.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some effigies to burn.
Manju — kinder, gentler Kobayahsi says:
I fully agree. And especially never kowtow to Kobayashi by telling him he’s a “subversive and modern day pied piper.” He only wishes.
Siddhartha is clearly a nicer, kinder, smarter (and in case you don’t know, more handsome!) person than I am. My apologies for an O’Reilly-like put down earlier. Cisco, I promise not to use a loofah on you.
My frustration stems from the fact that I said this:
and hoped we could drop the circular arguements on what is more racist, what is more hypocritical, or matters of perception. HMF presents this point quite well here:
Cisco, I understand that you are trying to convey some sort of “take the high road” arguement:
But I find it difficult to follow your line of thought since it’s rather slippery and contradictory sometimes.
In the above quote you say we’re the amassadors of our culture to the West, yet in previous comments you find it ridiculous that we care what happens to a prominent Bollywood actress on a popular TV show in Britain. By your own definition, isn’t Shilpa an “ambassador”? And if so, shouldn’t the fact that she was was mocked, her food reviled, her accent laughed at, etc., (and equally, the fact that white Britons were outraged by those who mocked) say something about the West? How it is changing? How a power dynamic is shifting?
Isn’t another message that three incredibly ignorant women felt powerful enough (as a condition of their whiteness/britishness) to publicly humiliate someone clearly more educated?
I also can’t help thinking that you didn’t read the post very carefully. Or the linked articles. The fact that one woman though Winston Churchill was a black US president is in the body of the post. The article I qoute at legnth discusses the class issue. We can conduct ourselves as “ambassadors to the West” all we want, but that very definition puts the onus on us to behave properly, to not provoke. At isn’t that the most belittling of all?
Cicatrix I thought your most powerful point was that, no is the time for Desis themselves to stop assuming its all right for people to call us dirty, stupid, and smelly. We can’t make anyone else think anything, but we can snap out of our own feelings of inferiority. My contention is the damage was done a generation or two ago, the brutality neccessary to inflict a community with a deep sense of inferiority seems to be quite high, and thanfully its no longer the issue. The issue now is the legacy of that earlier time, and how now we are free to shake that off. descendants of colonialized people of the world, let’s heal ourselves, we have only our deep fear of smelling like curry (as if that’s a bad thing) to lose
Exactly. Paris Hilton and Britney Spears have the combined IQ of a pimple on my left ass cheek, but it’s not relevant. Because anything they say, do, wear will be watched, reported, criticized carefully, due to their high media “desirability” which is invariably connected to whiteness/beauty/blondness/etc.. etc…
Oh come on, this is so not the case. Perhaps some folks here have the luxury of living in environments where they lived “damage-free” childhoods. Both within the UK and US there are a whole heap of racial issues that people have to deal with very directly, including desis. In the UK, particularly, you can find pages and pages of government reports on how racism in neighborhoods and in the educational system leads to systematic inferiority complexes among “Black” (meaning Asian and African/Caribbean) youth. And this was all the way up to the late 1980s. Colonialism isn’t the only thing people face when they’re part of a diaspora, and the damage isn’t limited to those who were brought up “generations ago.”
And while this is still a bit off topic, with respect to the whole “India is hypocritical” bit — yeah, it is. That said, one country’s shitty behavior doesn’t justify or excuse another country’s shitty behavior.
My contention is that the amount of brutality it takes to make a community hate itself is really high, and only gets that high after years and years of violence on the scale of most colonial campaigns of subjugation. Where in your opinion is this happening now?