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
“jews are generally well represented”
Insanely overrepresented more like, 2% of the population, and yet prominent characters in so many movies and TV shows. Compare their representation to Hispanics, who you rarely see on TV, despite having 8 times their numbers.
Sorry, HMF, I was talking about the people I know, not all comers, so let me clarify that. They are the most open-minded people I know and I’ve known them for years. I can vouch for their characters; they are phenomenal. It’s a very progressive, Democratic city, one of my neighbors growing up had a relative run as a democrat for governor, if that should change your thinking and a place where all the presidential candidates congregate at one time or another. So, maybe it’s a left versus right thing 🙂
You would do great in my town and no one would think twice about you. Some of the kids would be provincial, but, seriously. The whole Yankees-Red Sox thing is massively provinicial, isn’t it? They’d think you were a student or professor and not even bat an eye; they’d ask which department you were in. If they’d stereotype, it would be that they would assume you were in the engineering or math department, which I admit, would be annoying. Real politicos know which town I am talking about; if Obama or Hillary came, there would be a run for rally, it would be so overwhelming. The student body is conservative, but the faculty is liberal 🙂
PS– Perhaps it was the age demographic you/r black friend is? As you know ‘historically’ there were only two races in the US; the one in power, and the ‘other’ one. Many [older]? b and w people still maintain that view- in fact you seem to subscribe/recognize it yourself here.
Not to belabour the point;AfAm’s- do not have another’mother’tongue,another Nationality [Africa being a Continent] and and some ‘other’ religion/identity that ‘browns’ have. I’m American- that’s all I know. Having said that- I would think your experiences of being ‘brown’ in a largely white area would give you some **commonality to me– but I would not expect you to identify your self as ‘black’.
From the Nat’l Black Police Association in the UK:The emphasis is on the common experience and determination of the people of African, African-Caribbean and Asian origin to oppose the effects of racism.
**Its interesting in the US-because of my profession-[Finance] most of my non white co-workers were Desi, and to a degree we bonded a over that,being ‘different’. I don’t get that vibe at all in the UK, but here of course Desi’s are the #1 minority.
I agree with Hema.
Some times,most of the time in the quick ‘anonymous’ interactions/transactions that I am going to have with someone I only know superfically, I’m not looking for ‘understanding’ just civility.Hmm, how can it be both a conservative and a progressive city. I thought it was conservative, but now that I think about it, it always voted democratic? I guess I meant conservative in that it was straight-forward and down to earth. I think I just learned a little something about my community by this exchange….I grew up purple! Wow. Who knew?
Okay, I’ll stop now, Ennis.
if Obama or Hillary came, there would be a run for rally, it would be so overwhelming.
I got you beat. They’re organizing a 30-50K “protest march” here, for when the GOP convention comes to town next year. 🙂
I don’t know what century you guys live in, but my TV does shows in all colors, not just black and white.
The “norm” in that show was the all-American WASP.
if you are talking about Friends, that seems false. chandler bing was the only real all-american WASP. of the 6 characters:
chandler – upper class WASP phoebe – ex-homless girl with a messed up family of undetermined white ethnicity (actress is jewish) monica – former fat girl from a jewish family (actress is actually upper-class southern WASP) ross – former nerd from jewish family (actor is actually jewish) joey – working class italian american (actor is mixed white ethnic & WASP) rachel – upper class “doctor’s daughter,” some suggestion that she is jewish from what i recall, but generally left an open question (actress is half-greek american)
friends is white, but definitely not WASP.
Few reasons I can think of,
They fit in more easily well with a predominently white show since a lot of them are white.
The west may have a guilt conscience when it comes to Jews due to the Holocaust and historic discrimination and thus feels an obligation to represent them
A lot of talented Jewish people in show business and in corridors of wealth and power who influence things
Christians are more comfortable with Jews than with other religions like Islam which means easier/better for TV to show a Jewish character than a Muslim.
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.
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004459.html#comment138499 “To white people, we’re all FOBs.”
you aren’t talking about just yourself here, you are making a claim for all browns. you do this all the time. and you generally don’t use facts aside from your own personal experience.
1. The Midwest
MD, I hear you.
Also, for the NYC vs. Southern Kentucky example. Folks, Southern Kentucky is NOT the Midwest! If we’re going to make generalizations about entire regions of the country, let us please classify those regions correctly.
hema, I hear you. The argument is not that the midwest is undiverse or non-racist. The argument is that it is misattributed the status of being “uber racist” and “uber white.” A better example of states that are super racist, in my opinion, are Montana, Idaho, and Arizona. I propose that instead of saying “some person out in Iowa” we say, “someone from Bumblefuck, Montana” or something roughly equivalent. That way we can all be somewhat accurate and get our point across without a huge debate over who is more racist/diverse – the coasts or the insides?
2. Grey’s Anatomy A. Grey’s has a lot of diversity because the producer refused to specify the race of her characters. There’s a whole interview on Oprah about this, but it is one of the only shows that had “open race” casting for all characters. At the end of the day, they picked the folks who fit the personalities they were looking for. Shocking, yes?
B. With respect to the “high number of Black doctors in power positions,” it’s totally true that this is HIGHLY unlikely in most places in the country. Not because they aren’t qualified or anything like that, but because medicine remains, in many places, an old white man club. Even in California. Even in the Bay Area.
I think we should talk about Neale’s question because it is interesting: I think Neale’s question is a good one — why are audiences more comfortable with Sanjay Gupta giving them their advice than with a Latino or Black doctor?
Please stop whining about the “under-representation” in Law & Order And finally, to the people railing about the representation of “black criminals” in NYC on Law & Order, please exercise a modicum of common sense before spewing all your crap. Blacks and Latinos are arrested more often, and are often subjected to harsher sentencing, than white offenders. That does not mean that there are more Black/Latino folks committing crimes. This is especially not true when it comes to embezzlement, laundering, DV, sexual abuse, pedophilia, etc. The crimes that are covered in Law & Order are often NOT about assault and possession, for which people of color are overrepesented in arrests and imprisonment. They are exactly about the kind of crimes for which people of almost all races are, at the minimum, equal opportunity offenders.
re: jewish characters, not be off topic, but it important to note that there is a tendency for jewish male characters to be far more explicit in their jewishness than female characters (and female jewish characters, like the nanny, are often less than flattering).
Diletante – what do you mean by but here of course Desi’s are the #1 minority.
That does not mean that there are more Black/Latino folks committing crimes.
well, some of the statistics can be derived from reports who assaulted and raped. now, one could say that there is a bias here against reporting fellow whites i guess, but one assumes that the victim would have some incentive in reporting the race of the perpetrator accurately.
Sorry, more naivete. You know them, they know you, they don’t see you as “a brown” or if they do, they see you as “unlike the rest” I’ve walked on many a Indiana street only to have people say to me, “Do you speak english” which isn’t in and of itself bad – only it was asked in a hostile, pejorative way, as in, “if you don’t, then get out”
Please. Did yankee fans enslave redsox fans for 300 years before gradually freeing them in a staircase fashion? A lateral sports rivalry is no where near in the same ballpark (pun intended) as racial assumptions socialized over centuries.
This isn’t an electoral politics issue. Obama is again, a ‘well known’ african american, in the public eye, so he transcends normally made negative assumptions.
For a clear illustration, there’s an excellent scene in Do the Right thing (Spike Lee film, quite possibly one of the best commentaries on race relations) where Pino (John Turturro) is explaining to Mookie (Spike Lee) why he hates “nigg*rs” but still adores Prince, Michael Jackson (he was black back then), Magic Johnson, and Eddie Murphy.
“Prince, Eddie and Magic, they’re black but not really black. They’re bigger than black. It’s different to me, to me it’s different”
i think it has to do with socio-economics. desis are predominantly well-educated, professionals, and wealthy. and in the medical field, people are more likely to have had one or more desi doctors than a latino one (though i cannot say the same re black doctors). also, a lot of desis tend to ‘fit in’ – maybe non-desis find that less ‘threatening,’ which also might have to do with the stereotype thay blacks and latinos make up the large amount of criminals.
Uh oh…
M. Nam
Adding to #65 – the hype over the last few years of how India is a country of really smart people, lots of smart Software engineers and so many desi doctors everywhere adds to the perception that if the doc is Indian, he must be good. Thus allowing Dr Gupta to ride the wave.
We’ll I think it’s a uncontested fact that the majority of white people would regard themselves as more native to this land than non-whites, in particular those that you repeatedly call “brown” And that especially in the context of the 2nd gen folks that call DBD’s “fobs” to indicate they are more American. Do I have a table or Z-test to back this up, no. But when you read about white cops arresting “brown” people and following up those arrests with “go back to where you came from” it’s an inductive conclusion I am making that white folks would more so use skin color as a determining factor of “foreign-ness” rather than how high your pants are on your waist.
In that particular quote, I’m not drawing from my personal experience at all actually, as I didn’t quote any personal experience or anecdote.
So ak, we’re basically the model minority and that is why folks love Mr. Gupta? What does THAT say about TV viewership?
I hear you, razib. Given how underreported sexual assault and rape are, though, it’s hard to derive any really sound projections/statistics re: race of offenders, you know? Especially in rape, I’m inclined to say (and I don’t have stats for this, so forgive me), that the racial breakdown of perpetrators is comparable to the racial breakdown of the local area. That may or may be clear when it comes down to who’s arrested (my assumption here is that some folks are never reported/arrested, not that there is a misrepresentation of the race of the offender). My general point was that there are some crimes for which Latinos/Blacks are overrepresented, it’s true. That said, those are not the crimes that Law & Order covers (usually).
i think this is both the perception and to some extent, a reality, even though that is changing. but think about it – the first big immigration of desis to this country was in 1965 – and was strictly to professionals – engineers and doctors, mainly, and for quite some time, probably about the next 20 years, that did not change much. after that, things did begin to change. but even now, even though many non-wealthy, non-professionals are coming over, aren’t IT people substantially represented? i don’t think this is the case for everybody, obviously, but it is a the case for a vast number of desis here.
Friends was some sort on Anglo-Jewish fantasyland, but Seinfeld was fantastic. Babu Bhatt was the best Desi character a US television sitcom has ever produced.
In fact, Babu Bhatt may be the greatest Desi (US) television character of all time.
camille, i don’t think it speaks very highly of the TV viewership. but i also do not think the US is the ideal for race relations. oftentimes, people see what they want to see, and it hasn’t helped that our parents’ generation often played their own part in creating the model minority image.
No offense, ak, but you’re forgetting the wave before that. That is, the wave of folks who came in the late 1800s/early 1900s. They were not strictly professionals, and their kids are like 4th/5th gen and live in places like Yuba Duba and Fresno. Funny who gets represented and who doesn’t, right? 🙂
It’s not really comparable int he UK, to be honest. This is also because there IS a common experience among “Blacks” (meaning people of color in the UK) because the vast majority were all immigrants to the country and immigrated disproportionately post-1947. Let’s not conflate our understanding of “black” in the U.S. with “Black” in the UK – they are politically and practically two different things.
Rahul, I just saw your quote and nearly spit out my coffee. Thanks for the laugh.
HMF: I give up. Apparently, your personal experiences count, but mine don’t. My personal experiences are nothing; your experiences are emblematic. And then, you discount my over twenty years personal experience with one town with a dialogue from a movie? Please tell me you are an academic; it’s the only thing that can explain your , er, naivete.
Isn’t the most affluent model minority African African Americans. Seriously. Did I read that on Arts and Letters Daily or something?
camille, i didn’t forget it – i am just talking about numbers. and, yes, also notoriety – the 1965 wave of immigration was nationwide, whereas the earlier wave was largely limited to the west coast – if my memory serves me correctly, it was to work on the pacific railroad? since you spoke about sanjaya gupta on CNN, a national network, i was looking to the larger, nationwide perspective.
Camille yes there was a immigrant wave that came in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and there great-grandkids live in places like Yuba City and Fresno[home of most of my mom’s family]. But there were only a few thousand that came. So before the 1960’s the desi number in the states was very small compare to now.
Close second. Greatest is his namesake. He was quite a character especially on daily doubles.
i meant sanjay, not sanjaya, gupta
Hey ak and clueless,
I wasn’t trying to nitpick, just pointing out a difference. I know the post 1960s migration was much huger (and absolutely biased towards professionals), just saying it is interesting what is “remembered” and isn’t when folks (desi or otherwise) think of desis in the U.S. I bring it up because I’m in California, and the stereotypes about South Asians vary a LOT based on where a migrant community settled. E.g. the stereotypes about the Yuba folks =! stereotypes about Bay folk != stereotypes about LA folk, etc., etc.
Also wasn’t trying to bait you – sorry if it came off that way! I think you’re right. The U.S. is not a great model. Not sure anyone really is a model for multiculturalism. I wonder if the next step in representation is that more shows ought follow the “Grey’s” model in that they open scripts to allow for greater ethnic representation among characters?
Yes, Jews are “insanely” over represented. My favorite commercial tv show (in fact about the only commercial tv show I watched) is Seinfeld, and three quarters of the main cast was Jewish. Jerry may have seemed secular enough, but I understand he wanted to marry only a Jewish woman, which he did in reality. So in my favorite show, Jewish folks were about 750 times over-represented. Feel free to correct my math, but it’s something like that. Thing is–the original writers were Jewish. The actors were mostly Jewish. So I don’t bitch about the Jews being “over-represented” in this show because I like the damn thing so much and Jews created it, and they write best for people like themselves. Most us would. That show managed to make the personal, universal. Not the most profound and meaningful universal, but quite a tickler. My advice: if we want to be “represented”, we have to write and produce things. Hey–they do it in Bollywood. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson demand that Hollywood make 40% (or something like that) of its actors, black, but Al and Jesse don’t offer up the blacks to write the screenplays or produce the goods. If you demand entrance into a “club” you come with your own script or take the one they give. You don’t just tell people to write you in. You don’t count on the old members to make you a star. Certainly blacks entered the music world doing and producing their own thing. That’s how it works with other media. The same is true for everyone.
Jews make up 2 or 3 percent of the population, but they put their noses to the grindstone when it came to movie making. Hollywood and television don’t just reflect majority “fantasies”. They reflect the reality of those who are writing, directing and producing the goods.
luna, what does “they do it in Bollywood” mean? Not sure if it counts when the dominant population is desi.
I thought the “overrepresentation” or whatnot on Seinfeld made sense because wasn’t the Jewishness of it kind of a big part of the show? Kind of like how in “The Nanny” the nanny being Jewish is a big part of the humor and story? Feel free to correct me, I am not a Seinfeld fan and was too young to get into it in its pre-syndication days. 🙂
To the point. Writers (story writers, script writers, screenplay writers, song writers) are the keymasters of media. Money and connections are Gatekeepers. Without both of these, desis cannot make it to the big league.
Anybody know of good desi writers in Hollywood?
M. Nam
i meant sanjay, not sanjaya, gupta
See how Sanjaya has wormed his way into the public consciousness? He’s everywhere. 😉
hema – i know! if i had made that same typo a few months ago, it would have meant nothing. but now sanjaya is so deeply buried in my heart that what appears to be a typo is really an expression of my love. sigh.
Glad to be of help 🙂
From here: white (of which English 83.6%, Scottish 8.6%, Welsh 4.9%, Northern Irish 2.9%) 92.1%, black 2%, Indian 1.8%, Pakistani 1.3%, mixed 1.2%, other 1.6% (2001 census) I don’t know why Bangladeshi ,Sri Lankans etc aren’t broken out– Large number of the former in London.
My larger point was- because of the sheer size of their population vis a vis ‘other’ communities- there is really no need for them to feel any ‘common cause’ with others. Prehaps in the past, its not the case now. From the outside looking in, there seems to be a strong desire to reject the generic label of ‘Asian’ to differentiate amongst themselves more so than in the US – again based on the size/diversity of the population.
For my FOB experience the whole place in some areas is almost ‘tribal’. No one is “British” unless they just got leave to remain from E. Europe. Instead people are Welsh, English,Scottish, Punjabi, Guju, ‘Arab’ Sudanese etc.
My favorite commercial tv show (in fact about the only commercial tv show I watched) is Seinfeld, and three quarters of the main cast was Jewish
just to be empirically accurate, of the main characters only jerry was explicitly jewish. kramer was vague. george and elaine were suggested as being non-jewish (e.g., george’s surname, elaine’s “WASP” sociocultural backgroud). all four actors though are jewish in real life.
We’ll I think it’s a uncontested fact that the majority of white people would regard themselves as more native to this land than non-whites, in particular those that you repeatedly call “brown” And that especially in the context of the 2nd gen folks that call DBD’s “fobs” to indicate they are more American. Do I have a table or Z-test to back this up, no. But when you read about white cops arresting “brown” people and following up those arrests with “go back to where you came from” it’s an inductive conclusion I am making that white folks would more so use skin color as a determining factor of “foreign-ness” rather than how high your pants are on your waist.
you really have a tendency of throwing together a mismash and combing lots of small things into a big quantitative effect. let me be clear, yes, the average white american naturally perceives the average brown american as being foreign. empirically this makes sense: contra SM, most brown americans are still foreign born. there are some white americans who see all brown americans as an amorphous alien mass. there are some who make distinctions (often younger, better educated). there are some who use their assumption of nativity to buttress racialist sentiments. for some the assumption of nativity simply leads to exoticification. and so on.
there is saying that race is a reality. but from that does not entail the various gross and unflattering generalizations you tend to make of white people as a whole (as opposed to instances to tendencies).
In that particular quote, I’m not drawing from my personal experience at all actually, as I didn’t quote any personal experience or anecdote.
yeah, that’s even worse. just flat out assumption that everyone will share you priors and so make the same inferences.
Thats a ridiculous argument. You dont need to be a sociologist to notice that there are far more indians working in convenience stores, cheap motels etc than in hospitals. She is lying plain and simple. This sort of brazen dishonesty among desis regarding desi achievements is too widespread, almost universal it seems. Its akin to the notorious jive-talking among african-american of some time back. Heres a well-known example of this stupid desi propensity for wild exaggerations:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=indian
“There are 3.22 million Indians in the US (1.5% of the population)
12% of scientists in the US are Indians 38% of doctors(physicians, dentists, PhDs, etc) in America are Indian. 36% of NASA scientists are Indians. 34% of Microsoft employees are Indians. 28% of IBM employees are Indians. 17% of INTEL scientists are Indians. 13% of XEROX employees are Indians.”
Whats so amazing is that few indians questioned these outrageously false numbers. This is a serious cultural problem and is probably one of the reasons why India remains so backward.
Which is why the following should be taken with a grain of salt:
The following calculation is probably closer to reality:
I saw an interesting interchange between HMF and razib about generalizing from life/anecdotal experiences. The latter is actually not completely illegitimate….provided the experience you are recounting is a ‘natural’ experiment, and you can correctly describe the values of the relevant variables and their arrangement in time and space (a surprisingly heavy burden to bear; even harder than doing large “n” studies).
Yeah I’m sure it was something like that. I’m not a fan of either- but some of the BS that is attributed to them is just ridiculous. By the by did you READ the links Ennis posted?
There are 3.22 millions Indians in the U.S
I think that number is off by a million.
Thats a ridiculous argument. You dont need to be a sociologist to notice that there are far more indians working in convenience stores, cheap motels etc than in hospitals. She is lying plain and simple.
if she is talking about her social circle in the early 1980s she isn’t lying, “plain and simple.”
Oh, I understand what you are saying now — I didn’t realize you were writing from UK perspective when I initially read what you wrote.
Thanks for answering me back. Here’s some thoughts: PS– Perhaps it was the age demographic you/r black friend is? As you know ‘historically’ there were only two races in the US; the one in power, and the ‘other’ one. Many [older]? b and w people still maintain that view-
in fact you seem to subscribe/recognize it yourself here.
No, I don’t really subscribe to it – that is what I was sort of complaining about – In America, I often feel if your experience is neither black or white, than your experience is almost invisible in the mainstream. I was saying that corporate America, representing mainstream American, also subscribed to this view.
Sure as a dark person I have similarities with black people, but not anymore than a lot other types of minorities or even with white people. I hardly had any contact with African-Americans in my small town, although there is a large population. But most were not wealthy, so since my parents lived in more wealthy neighborhoods, I mostly had contact with white people. My best friends were white. I would hear white people say derogatory things about black people to me, and I recognized very early on that any prejudice against anyone is just destructive for everyone. So I would say, “hey, I’m black too” in those instances. These were instances when white people would try and subsume me into their culture —
I love finding similarities of course in cultural experiences, but I don’t want a majority’s culture to subsume my own unique experiences – unique experiences that led to certain struggles, that weren’t part of white and black America.
I like this particular girl a lot (the girl that I felt subsumed me in her black identity and culture), although I don’t see her often. We have a lot in common as women, who remember the ’80s, as people who are interested in social justice, as people who understand white privilege in America….but there’s a lot I don’t know about her cultureal experiences and a lot she wouldn’t know about me.
I just find it odd, looking at my own experience in my town, where I had black children stare at me continuously and feel my hair that she just felt the other nonblack minorities in her community were just black like herself.
Except perhaps people in India (and Mexico, the Phillipines etc)? Do Bollywood and Indian TV accurately represent the people of India?
I think that number is off by a million.
2000 census says 1.6 some million indian americans.
Dont feel bad for doctors, as someone who comes from a family of them, and has been unfortunate to have to be around more doctors than i would like, alot of them go into the profession for money and prestige. Its a job where you get both love and money. What other job do you know of that has that? Do lawyers get love..hardly they get lawyer jokes. Do I-bankers get love…no they are called crooks. Do CEO’s get love no..they are villanized. What about teachers, who provide the most important service to the community? Most live paycheck to paycheck. What about firemen who willingly risk their lives to save people they dont know..yeah, try living on a fireman’s salary.
Doctors also complain about how the industry is changing and how they arent able to have the freedom (read money) that they used to. Maybe the reason doctors have such a high opinion of themselves is that we give them our money and our time and kiss their asses too. Wouldnt you feel like god if your job gave you that?
Prema, she is not necessarily lying. Not only re: her social circle, but the fact is that the first group of desis in the Chi-town area WERE professionals – doctors, engineers, etc. It is not the case today, or even in the last 10 years, but that doesn’t make a person’s anecdotal experience a “brazen lie.”
PS, I’ve noticed this too, but much more on the east coast (not in NYC). I personally identify as super-Californian, but it wasn’t until I spent time in DC and other areas where diversity was really seen as “black and white” that I realized that other people of color are often either a) ignored/invisibilized or b) subsumed. It’s hard because while I definitely feel solidarity, I don’t think that always implies a commonality in individual or community-level experiences.
Dear statmaster razib, how many desis are foreign born? (I’m just curious, not trying to be an ass) 🙂
some statistics before the thread becomes riven by rival unsupported assertions: http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/acs-05.pdf
page 18, for asian indians alone (that is, unmixed race): Management, professional, and related occupations – 60.6% Service occupations – 7.3% Sales and office occupations – 21.8% Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations – 0.2% Construction,extraction, and maintenance – 2.9% Production, transportation, and material moving – 7.2%
for white alone, not hispanice: Management, professional, and related occupations – 37.6% Service occupations – 13.7% Sales and office occupations – 26.9% Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations – 0.5% Construction,extraction, and maintenance – 9.6% Production, transportation, and material moving – 11.7