When ER first came on TV, I remember thinking it looked completely unrealistic because it was too damned white. Now I finally have some numbers to back up my instincts:
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Plenty more like her |
From 1980 to 2004, the fraction of medical school graduates describing themselves as white fell from 85 percent to 64 percent. Over that same period, the percentage of Asians increased from 3 percent to 20 percent, with Indians and Chinese the two biggest ethnic groups. [Link]
S. Balasubramaniam … recently queried 50 medical schools and calculated that 12 percent of the class that entered in 2006 is of Indian heritage. The highest percentages are in California, Texas, New York, New Jersey and New England. [Link]
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p>While the article doesn’t indicate anything about Balasubramaniam’s sampling methodology, the numbers are consistent with my gut feelings about the number of brown faces I’ve seen amongst med students. When asked to explain why she went into medicine, one desi doctor said:
“We were never forced into medicine … But in the Indian community in Chicago, everyone was a professional. Everyone was a doctor or an engineer…” [Link]
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p>Although there have always been many desi doctors, the numbers of current brown medical students represent a sizeable increase over past years since roughly 5% of all doctors are of Indian origin, and many of them studied abroad:
In the US, Indians and Indian-Americans make up the largest non-Caucasian segment of the American medical community, where they account for one in every 20 practicing doctors. [Link]
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p>My thoughts at this point go off in two different directions. The first is about the clannishness of desi doctors. How many times have you heard a doctor say that nobody can understand what they go through unless they’re a doctor themselves? It’s as if they think that being a doctor is distinct from other professions, on a plane of its own, completely inaccessible to people who do other things for a living. They also love to boast about the hours they work, even though (post-residency) my doctor friends work both shorter and more predictable hours than friends who are lawyers, iBankers or programmers.
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p>I don’t understand why they feel this way though – I’ve never heard anything similar from engineers. Is it the combination of the long training and the high salaries? What’s at the root of this medical exceptionalism?
My other thought has to do with how little the multicultural nature of the medical profession is reflected on TV. ER finally has a one desi doctor. To the best of my knowledge, none of the other medical shows do (although I don’t watch much TV so please correct me if I’m wrong).
This is part of a larger problem, namely that the America you see on the small screen is significantly whiter than reality. An analysis of the 2001 Fall Season found that:
White characters received 81 percent of screen time, while non-Hispanic whites make up about 70 percent of the population. [Link]
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p>An article I once read made the case that this was driven by audiences and advertisers, namely that white Americans felt most comfortable with shows that skewed whiter than what than realistic demographics, and therefore advertisers were willing to pay more to reach them. The article below makes a similar argument, but puts the blame more squarely on advertisers:
The FCC has collected plenty of … evidence, illustrating a range of racist assumptions about non-white customers openly cited by advertisers as reasons to pay less for ads in ethnic markets, or not to buy them at all. There’s the buyer for Ivory soap who refused to purchase time on a Latino-formatted station because “Hispanics don’t bathe as frequently as non-Hispanics.” (FCC study, “When Being No. 1 Is Not Enough: The Impact of Advertising Practices on Minority-Formatted Broadcast Stations,” 1/99) Companies have cited worries that “our pilferage will increase,” if they advertise on minority stations, or said simply, “Your station will bring too many black people to my place of business.” If that’s not racism, what is?… [Link]
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p>This is part of how we end up with TV shows like Friends that are set in New York City but which show a city which is whiter than Boise, Idaho. To me, that’s just bad television and I refuse to watch it.
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p>I do realize that because of stereotypes about Asians we’re likely to see Asian representation on TV increase soon, but I want more than just parity for yellows and brownz. And yes, I do also realize that TV shows are fantasy not reality, but that’s precisely what bothers me. If the absence of minority characters represents the fantasy world of white viewers, then what does that tell us about them?
Related Stories: How Asian doctors saved the NHS
also, ER has always had a fair black representation. either 1 or 2 of the main characters.
As for the whole: who is more racist, thing, which we’ve been over ad nauseum, I think it’s a mistake to assume small town midwestern life will automatically be worse. I can’t see that living in New Jersey necessarily protects you from racism, whereas, if you are just one outlier, you may not be ‘threating’ in the way a slightly larger group is to the majority.
I think people are more comfortable with the areas of the country they grow up in, and project a little. I’ve heard white midwesterners complain about their treatment here on the East Coast. Can’t say I’ve noticed that people are any nicer than back in Iowa; more sophisticated and slick in some ways, but not any more or less nice.
Ennis: I’m working longer hours now than in residency, so I obviously did something wrong 🙂
*How much you care about the quality of your work, and how efficient you are, and what type of practice you have, all affect your work. Ahem. **I tend to take longer, but then I am really, really, particular about the quality of my work, for which I think patients would be happy. Of course, someone who is more efficient will say this is just an excuse. *Dear parents of desi children; let your children become PAs or pharmacists or dentists. Trust me on this one 🙂 **Okay, push them they way you would anyway, just support them if they stumble a bit, and if they seem to get a bit too big for their britches, remind them of the best quality for a physician: humility. Just a little unsolicited advice.
Standard technique. Assume that castigation of one place, is complete approval of all others. As for the “if you’re the only one then people won’t perceive you as a threat” logic, that goes to the heart of my point. They won’t perceive you period, you’re the invisible man, or the white man with a really good tan. In many ways, you can say it’s better to be acknowledged rather than treated with an attitude of indifference.
No HMF, just a reminder that quality of life is not so bad in small midwestern towns for some desis. BTW, the many kids I knew who grew up in small towns in the midwest (lets say the N = 20), were quite happy. Not invisible; well treated, well adjusted, and happy. It’s not a myth, even if it doesn’t match your experience or expectation. Besides, why is it so important for you to put down jesusland? Did you grow up in a small town and have a bad experience? I’m sorry if you did.
razib, sometimes it is not so tentative. i took hindi in school (big family opposition to that one) so even though i can understand it well and speak decently, i hate it when people are completely confident that i speak hindi because i am brown/desi. i understand that people want to make connections – and it’s fine with me. if i see a taxi driver’s name that looks desi, i ask where they are from, and if it’s a hindi-speaking area, i do like to converse in hindi (the IBD friends make fun of my hindi, so i have to rely unsuspecting strangers). but when people strike up a conversation in hindi, without knowing anything else about me, i sometimes pretend i do not know it. even worse is that pity/condescension – ‘you don’t know hindi?’ – i.e. ‘you’re not really desi.’
I just want to be left alone. i dont care about ackknowledgement. i just want to live my life without people yelling “yu stupid terrorist” at me.
MD, You are kidding right ? Right?
I am currently driving my son nuts by asking him what he wants to do in life and as he has expressed an interest in health sciences am subtly suggesting that medicine is a good option. He says that I am the “asian parent stereotype” 🙂
I can’t actually figure out what it is that you want, HMF? What is your idea of being treated appropriately in the US? What does it mean to be acknowledged? I am seriously at a loss; you seem, basically, to want to make sure that every desi experience is seen through a negative lens. As if any happy experience in the US is an abberation.
I would never say my experience is indicative of anything other than my own experience. And I have only drawn upon logical, factual observations (whites in the small rural communities disperesed in the central part of the US, have less exposure to other cultures, and hence will be less aware of them) to draw my conclusions. As for the desi’s that were raised in such places, I do not know many, and yes they are happy and well-adjusted, but most know jack sh*t about Indian history, culture, religion, etc… Not that that’s a huge problem, but it just reinforces my claim of acceptance of the “you’re one of us” kind that many people themselves play into.
I’m not kidding and I don’t have kids so I am probably the wrong person to give advice. Any advice from desi parents for Runa?
I guess it’s fine to steer your kid into medicine, but what if they don’t make it? That’s the issue; how you treat them when the stumble, I guess. Every kid is different
PS: I had a funny experience the other day: someone e-mailed me because they saw my last name on a website and thought I was desi, and from a similar background, and could give them advice about admission to a certain place. I said, sorry, I don’t have any knowledge of the process, good luck to your child and best of luck. Never heard back. Might have been nice to have a e-mail acknowledgement of my reply.
I know we are supposed to wave the flag and eat freedom fries but the Mid-West beyond big cities doesnt really have a lot of furrein-looking people and that causes a whole set of problems. Try a case in a small Mid-Western town in Southern Ohio or rural Illinois. Reality will bite you faster than you can say apple pie.
runa, as a child of parents who own their own business, finance, finance, finance was all i heard. it’s only lately that my dad has even shown some appreciation for my being a lawyer, and that, too, because i deal with, yes, finance-related matters. but i cannot tell you how emotionally harrowing it is to have parents who not only expect something of you in which you have no interest, but disapprove – implicitly or explicitly – with the career path you have chosen. obviously, i do not know what sort of parent you are, so i don’t know how you would treat this situation. but informing your son of all the options related to health sciences, rather than cheering for just one those options, is probably the best thing to do.
Al C, I just gave you my personal experience and the experience of my family members/friends. It was fine as an experience. Was yours different? I don’t understand the hostility toward certain people. If it were reversed, white people saying they felt uncomfortable with this or that part of the US because of the people there, you would be the first to make fun.
I still don’t understand you, HMF. If people are happy, what difference does it make? Whether they know jackst about India or whatever. I know browns who grew up in big city Indian communities who don’t know jackst about a lot of things, including other ethnic or white communities; I don’t look down on them. What is your point?
It’s not that we save or lose lives in a dramatic way every day. Every time I send a patient home, having told them they are “okay”, not having a heart attack, not about to rupture their appendix, not coughing up blood because they have lung cancer, I run the risk that they really are not okay, and they might die because I missed something. And that does happen. Similarly, it often happens that we catch something that results in the person’s life being saved–a medication that’s making them sick, an allergic reaction, a subtle presentation of a disease. Those issues do come up daily. And there are enough codes that they make up a large if not daily part of what we do, and yes, there are some patients who will die no matter what, but there are others that live after a code and others that we lose because we didn’t get to them soon enough. Even patients who are sick to begin with have a chance at being saved by an ER doctor. It’s not just surgeons that save lives. As an ER doc, I believe I make life and death decisions on a daily basis. So do many other doctors in ways that might not be apparent. Even my husband, an orthopedic resident does–people might not die directly from a broken hip, but they do die from the complications of being unable to walk. The reason you may have not got this impression from the doctor you dated is, when I talk about work, I don’t talk about it like I made any life or death decisions, but that’s what being a doctor is often all about. Not so much for an eye or skin doctor, sure, but sometimes for them too.
And because I can’t stand it when surgeons get all the credit: often when they operate to save a life, who do you think made the diagnosis of the life threatening condition in the first place? An ER doctor, or a family physician, or an internist.
Ak # 113,
Before I had kids I swore I would never ever pressure them to be anything except themselves. Now that I am a mom of a high-schooler I waver between wanting to “guide” the kid and wanting to just let him make his way in the world.Every time we discuss the future ,I end with ” do what you love but do it well” to make up for any imagined pressure.
In case you are feeling too sorry for the kid -the husband is much more relaxed than I am and thinks that I am nuts 🙂 andmakes ure he balances things out.
I think the suggestion of discussing all options is a good one .Thanks
Better not forget the pathologist, either, desishiksa 🙂
This is a serious exaggeration. You’re conflating two of my main talking points, one of general white privelage and racism’s transformation from a virulent, unabashed form into a more socially internalized and institutionalized process (which I haven’t really talked about here, but I think you’re drawing upon from previous comments) and the one where I’ve spoken specifically of my experiences in the midwest.
Now, even though your question is hostile and combative, I’ll answer it. Acknowledgement means, a large scale shift is made to process cultural differences without any kind of heirarchical superposition. It’s brazen arrogance for whites to believe their culture is “more native” to this land than anyone else. It’s also brazen arrogance to think that white America itself is a monolithic machine, when the truth is, European immigrants had to wait in line before they got “into the club”
What I’m saying is, I don’t want to be “in the club”, I want the club to expand. Instead of a midwestern lady giving me a funny look when I say I don’t celebrate Easter, I want her to say, “What religion are you?” Instead of a Christian saying, “you’ll go to hell if you dont….” I want them to say “Wow, your religion belives X, Y, Z, but mine believes H,J,K- that’s an interesting difference, and neither one is better or more native to this land.”
As whites go from becoming a majority to a plurality, this is a change they should collectively make in their own interest.
I thought they were already a plurality..any stats to back this up? any demographics geeks out there?
MD, of course 🙂 Ennis, pathologists make life and death decisions with every slide they look at, but don’t get any of the glory of surgeons. You probably have to be a pathologist to know what that feels like.
Well, I personally find something wrong, at a visceral level, with people not knowing something about their background and history. Man black people in this country strive so hard to reclaim even an iota of their history that was stolen from them, and yet we with such a rich history carelessly throw it away. Sure, it’s not the red white and blue way, but it’s sad none the less. And that’s a different issue anyhow.
then you run into what the definition of “your history” is. maybe you view your history as american history.
My response to you HMF wasn’t meant to be hostile or combative.
Thank you for your response; basically, I think many of the coastal cities I’ve been in are just more subtle in the way the way that racism is expressed. I don’t see a group of people that are, overall, nicer or less racist. That was my point. They’ve learned to say the right thing, but it doesn’t mean that’s what they are thinking. If anything, I see priviledge and class and race more stratified here on the East Coast than in small towns, but of course, that’s because there are more groups to split out. People really seem to be into what school you went to, what neighborhood you lived in, etc. It’s a very class conscious place.
You mentioned that you lived in Indiana for two years, but I lived in Iowa for over twenty, and my parents and their relatives for 20-30. So, in the end, these anecdotal experiences are just that. Anecdotal. Interesting that we are both sure our anecdotal experiences are the more, er, accurate representation of the whole.
MD: I do not agree with your assessment that the Mid-West is like the East Coast when it comes to race relations. I am not bashing the Mid-Westerners. I think the Mid-Westerners and Americans in general are very tolerant people. However not all areas in the US are equally comfortable with minorities. To suggest otherwise does not make sense. The East Coast happens to have a lot of different looking people than Southern Kentucky. That’s a fact. That leads to a different dynamic in race relations.
I was once (actually a few months back) asked to help this Arab American immigrant who stopped to get a soda at a gas station off I-65 in Southern Kentucky and he ended up spending the next one month in jail. When I went down to get the guy off, I don’t think they had ever seen a non-white/black guy there period. The cops were not only openly racist but had no problems publicly using terms like ‘nigger’ etc. The Court assigned public defender missed the arraignment date and the public defender’s office told me that they didn’t have time for ‘them people’. The Court itself was a circus. From the clerk to the bailiff to the Judge, racism was not only in your face, they were engaging in it with impunity and scarce disregard for anything. I am not exaggerating the insanity of that place.
I can assure you that a remote rural town in Southern Kentucky is not like New York City. Maybe they had one or two desi families there owning a gas station or whatever and maybe their children had fine experiences growing up there. But the fact of the matter is that not all areas in the US are equally comfortable with minorities.
I think we are arguing against each other, Al C. New York City cannot be like a small town in rural Kentucky and vice versa. Also, have you ever represented someone from a city who was treated badly because of their race? Is New York racially harmonious? Of course not. And, yes, you will find people who know more about the world because of their interaction with a wider range of people. I’m just not so sure cities are as enlightened about race as you might like to think.
do you think part of this coast vs midwest difference has not only to do with the ethnic/racial makeup of the local populations, but also with international travel? despite the fact that o’hare has the largest international traffic, looking at my friends as a whole, those from the coasts are more well-traveled outside the US. however, i would say the differential probably has a lot more to do with large city vs. smaller towns, than anything else.
Oh, btw way, I am disgusted by that story, Al C. How horrible.
I would never say my experience is indicative of anything other than my own experience.
you make plenty of broad declarative assertions from what i have seen.
I can assure you that a remote rural town in Southern Kentucky is not like New York City. Maybe they had one or two desi families there owning a gas station or whatever and maybe their children had fine experiences growing up there. But the fact of the matter is that not all areas in the US are equally comfortable with minorities.
well, the original discussion had to do with the midwest. what about small towns in new hampshire or maine? (maine is the whitest state from what i recall) i think part of it has to do urban vs. rural. in any case
a) yes, there is variation in how people treat minorities, but
b) there is a difference how they treat different minorities as well, this is not an unimportant fact
c) so the debate is how we characterized racial attitudes
It seems to be that ak is right: we are discussing urban versus rural. But, I don’t know. You hear terrible stories about racism and urban cops, too. A conundrum. I guess, the main thing is, it’s important to make sure people are treated well, regardless of their color, class, etc.
btw, someone asked about data. please bookmark this page http://www.census.gov/
Somebody already said this, but I don’t think I wanna see mandatory brown/black/latino characters in shows such as Friends/Seinfeld, just to fulfill quotas. They would end up being mostly bad stereotypes. The plots never really accommodate them well. It would put me off my food. When I’m watching these shows, I’m not really aware while watching that they are all white. They are all just funny people, and I understand the humor perfectly well, its not like I’m missing something. It’s not like I’m thinking, if only a brown man would appear in this scene, it would be so much funnier.
It’s only when they add these minorities in awkward roles that we become aware of the characters being white/black/brown.
The same goes for when I’m watching all-black comedies.
I care more about how funny, much much less how color-correct these shows are. Maybe coz I’m not an unemployed brown actor, I’m in the audience. My experience is no different from a white male watching TV.
Apu
in many ways, i feel like there is a multi-cultural backlash – and people in larger cities, having larger numbers of minorities, will probably bear a bigger brunt of this. and i have noticed that after the PC revolution, there is a tendency to get back to what people really think – which is often not the same as their PC words. the fact that we even call it politically correct, rather than correct, just implies that a lot of people will say the words just so as not to offend – but not for any real acceptance or enlightenment purposes.
MD: I am not suggesting that a big city has more racial harmony. However, what I am suggesting is that big city people are more used to dealing with minorities. When I walk into a rural small city courtroom (which is rare because I dont do criminal work but I have done it a few times) they have NEVER seen a non-white lawyer period. Its a good ol’boys system on steroids. The prosecutor will not even talk to me while he would be swapping stories with other lawyers. It also has something to do with the outsider versus local attorney dynamic and I understand that.
I guess your professional experience is completely different than mine. There are lots of desis practicing as doctors in rural areas across the country. It might be different for doctors. But if you are a desi lawyer and you have to go to Court, almost no desi lawyer in his right mind would choose a podunk rural courtroom over a big city courtroom.
Then that my friend, is a disingenuous and simply erroneous view. We didn’t come over on the nina, pinta, and santa maria. Some of us came as part of a tech migration, some came as indentured servants, some came as refugees from conflicts….
I’m sure you’re experiences are representative of the whole. But here’s the thing, yours and my experiences aren’t necessarily in conflict. Sometimes spending 20-30 years in a location will earn you rapport, to overcome some of the more superficial racial barriers. So the white neighbors will think, “Oh we know so and so, they’re brown skinned, but they’re so nice and good natured… not like the rest of them” So they are still imbibed with their misconceptions of “normality” and “superiority” even though you and your kin have “experienced no racism”
As am I. but I’m not surprised, in the least.
No,your experience isn’t really different to mine. I do have relatives that get annoyed at small towners, but it’s annoyance rather than the horrible experience you described. Poor guy, I’m glad you helped him. There are places where people are so surprised to see someone different, they have no idea how to handle it, and it does irritate. My definition of small is probably different from others, though; Des Moines is a big city to me, given my upbringing, and I am skewed by being raised in a college town, albeit a conservative one. I guess my midwestern hackles just got brought up; I love the town I grew up in and get personally offended, when I shouldn’t.
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It’s not that. I was born and raised in NYC and still spend a lot of time there. For me, it’s something visceral – I know what NYC looks like, and those shows don’t look anything like it at all. They look like Milwaukee or something.
ACfd:
I can assure you that a remote rural town in Southern Kentucky is not like New York City.
Point taken, and I have no doubt that it’s quite true as well. A friend of mine used to be a public defender in small time Oklahoma, and apparently, the story you just recounted was typical of a few cases she saw down there, particularly cases involving minorities.
That said, IMO, the appropriate comparison should be whether a small town in upstate New York is all that different from a small town in Southern Kentucky, if we’re just comparing different regions of the country in terms of racial/social awareness. I mean, is living in Chicago or Detroit really all that different than living in DC or NY/NJ?
HMF:
I’ve seen the Jesusland map before, and I find it interesting that of the 8 states typically considered “midwest”, 4 are not part of Jesusland. So “midwest” as a euphemism for “small, Bible Belt city” is only half right. 😉
back to the initial topic, sort of, there is one thing that is important when talking about proportional representation: TV is not proportional in the first place. i.e., a disproportionate number of shows are set in LA/NYC, and even when not they are mostly urban. only niche shows seem to have a rural setting, though around 1/4 of america is rural. the weird thing about shows like friends is that they are set in urban areas which have MANY minorities but their demo is like that of a rural area, except that jews are generally well represented (the ross & monica were explicitly jewish on friends, and there were some implications that rachel is also jewish).
I think there are different degrees and types of racial animus:
Getting stared at is completely different from being shot by trigger happy police. Small towns, rural towns, big cities have all different dynamics of race relations.
No, HMF, my community was pretty cool. I don’t know anyone who thinks like that. If anything, the browns I grew up with were more reactionary, like, oooh, let’s not let our kids play with those white people, we want them to marry their own kind some day. No all the browns, but some. Huh. I guess I am an outlier.
how funny that you said that. lately, i’ve been noticing an absurd amount of ‘subway steam’ in all those shows based in nyc. i rarely, if ever, see this in the real city. i don’t even know why they associate it with nyc.
Then present them. What I have done, and will continue to do, is observe facts and draw conclusions based on those facts, and use my experience as supporting information. You know.. as most of humanity does.
But I caution myself against drawing conclusions based solely on experience.
I’m not sure if the clannishness is really that widespread but I have met a few doctors who do make it a point to talk about how special and exclusive their work is. It does transfer into how they treat patients and I think it ends up hurting the relationship. Patients aren’t doctors so they won’t understand what’s really up, that sorta thing. A doctor could end up talking down to their patients and that’s definately not good for patient compliance or community care. It also kinda shows in teaching. I know that I have trouble taking someone seriously when they’ve just spent ten minutes of the lecture subtly going over how great they are. A little more humility might be good.
I don’t really know where it comes from so I’m gonna go ahead and blame it on TV 🙂 One of my professors blames ER for ruining medicine, and now there’s House, even more downhill and so very predictable 🙂
Well, the biggest way in which television is not representational is the physical beauty of the actors and actresses 🙂 Seriously, you barely have women that look real on most shows. Scattered men (ala those cop shows with the more bald and rotund types), but not women. The lack of Indian docs on ER is amusing, as my ex used to be a resident at the old Cook County and said some rounds used to be conducted in Hindi.
Television isn’t reality.
By lack, I mean just the one or two. Which would be a lot more in reality.
Yup – and being younger and more attractive and having sex all over the place, those are clear elements of fantasy that are pretty much universal. However, what disturbs me is that a whiter world also seems to be part of that fantasy.
I’m so glad someone pointed out how white-centric Friends was as a show (Ennis on # 31). The few episodes that I watched when they were on reruns struck me as extremely insular and provincial. This was not just directed at people of color but also at other “whites” whose ethnicity was more pronounced – such as that wacky loud-mouth Italian-American woman who was Joey’s girlfriend or whatever. The “norm” in that show was the all-American WASP. The English girlfriend was too humorless, the Asian girlfriend was also not good enough for reasons I don’t recall, the hot Latino guy Monica has a crush on is just a misogynist pig, the hairy Italian guy (from Italy) is a total letch and womanizer. I mean you could just see how the plot kept sabotaging the possibility of a serious relationship between any of the principal characters and cultural or geographical outsiders.
It’s easy to see why it ran for so long given its generic characters. But it’s also difficult to see why it ran so long when you compare the shoddy quality of the humor and writing in the show to other shows like Frasier, or Arrested Development, or even Seinfeld or Freaks and Geeks.
now there’s House, even more downhill and so very predictable
Hey now! Don’t be picking on House. The show may be completely unrealistic, but I love Hugh Laurie…and it amuses me that an English actor has a better generic American accent than some Americans even. 🙂
P.S I also agree that for anyone living in NYC – as I did for 10 years- the show was weird. It wasn’t just inaccurate – it was a discomfiting fantasy of the city and city life from someone else’s head, perhaps to cater to those living in Montana.
I’m sorry, but I have to chalk this up to a certain degree of naivete. Unless you lived in some underground community that didn’t take part in this countries 200+ year collective history, most of white America’s perception of the non-white draws from imagery and media – the personal sample points they have are classified as outliers.
I can all but guarantee if I walked down your street in Iowa, not having known anyone there, I’d immediately be classified as “one of the rest” until I was able to show some kind of social proof.
The attitude of “You’re such a nice so-and-so, not like the rest” is more or less prevalent everywhere. Ask any one of these people how they’d react to living in a majority black or “brown” neighborhood, and see how they react. Wear a raincoat so the vomit doesn’t ruin your clothes.