…because according to some commenters, apparently, it isn’t. Suddenly there are commentS about hot Desi girls choosing white guys over their own— and I emphasize the plural aspect of “comment”, because that’s what caught my attention– this wasn’t some one-off virtual rant. Frankly, Mr. Shankly, I’m shocked. While some of the people who are leaving the eyebrow-raising statements seem to be new, I’m fully aware that the normal pattern of Sepia engagement is:
Random Googling –> Sepia? What the-? –> Hmmm, interesting –> Lurking –> and then finally, posting.
If these anti-miscegenation fans have followed that tried-and-true process, then they’d be aware that there are more than a few members of the Mutiny community who are the products of interracial unions; I can’t imagine that they’d be so tactless as to disparage such pairings when they reflect someone like Siddhartha, Desidancer or SemiDesiMasala’s ancestry.
So, maybe these are just mischief-instigating trolls, having some wicked fun via drive-by hate-spewing.
Or are they?
I think there’s more to this– and that’s why I’m publishing this post. Let’s have it out, then. Some of you seem to be in the mood to REALLY tell us what you think, so here’s your deluxe chance. Almost everyone here is anonymous. 🙂 It’s safe to be honest.
The following comments were left on my post about a woman named Aarti being chosen as one of the cuter people on the Hill:
hillside: Also I’ve never dated an Indian girl either, probably partly because so many of the hot ones like the two on this list are into white dudes. [sm]
Sheetal: (referring to comment above)
I’ve noticed this too. What is up with that? [sm]
Sheetal followed that comment by excerpting the following portion of the Hill article, making sure to highlight certain significant words by “bolding” them.
Skipper is a native of Chicago but both parents are from India — something that had worried her when it came to the issue of marriage. The handsome man in church soon became her boyfriend, but he was American and Caucasian, far from what she thought her parents would ever accept.
Okay, loud and clear. Jamie Skipper is Desi and she married a Caucasian (never mind that Desis are Caucasian, too). Yet another commenter seemed to agree with hillside and Sheetal:
Kannan: its interesting that you bring this up..We have parallels with the asian community. I’ve heard/seen that before. Hot lil Korean spinner would rather hook up with tall lanky white dude than someone from her race and its kind of common because I know a lot of my asian brothers who want to date from their race gripe and bitch about it:) Its almost like an invisible social hierarchy And the same goes for desi guys, I have a lot of friends who date white girls just because they think it brings them more social value” Look at me FOB minority guy pulling from the majority race” However for me its never really been race, its whether I was attracted to the person or not and it so happens I have never gone brown 🙂 [sm]
Kannan, I think your final sentence encapsulates how most of us feel, but that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t explore the other sentiments I’ve highlighted.
SM is at its best when we are honestly, openly and sometimes painfully hashing out the issues that our community/others refuse to acknowledge or discuss; I didn’t put this post up in order to invite you to pillory “hillside” and “Sheetal”. They weren’t abusive, they were blunt. I wrote this post because I wanted to know how the rest of you felt. The thing is, I am almost certain that they aren’t alone and that more of you agree with them than we realize. Maybe it’s time to call ourselves out.
To be brutally honest, I’ve been there. Years ago, I crushed on Desi guys who only seemed to “swing one way”; I’ve been let down gently by being told that:
If I did date Indian girls, you’d totally be my type.
I’m just not attracted to dark skin…I like pink nipples (!) (this from someone even darker than me)
and the best one, ever,
Um, I could never go out with you because it would be like dating my sister. White girls don’t remind me of relatives.
And what do black and Asian girls remind you of? It’s so telling that they almost never factor in to these cringe-inducing statements, it’s always white girls who are “preferred”, which invites doubt about the sincerity behind someone’s “type”.
Predictably, each of those instances left me feeling wounded. It didn’t help matters that every time my Mother came across some seemingly eligible, compatible (read: also raised-away-from-Mallus) ummarried boy, his mother would sorrowfully lament that
“He already has girlfriend. White. Enne chayum?”.
Mom would come home, grumpy. “The second they graduate from law or med school, they run after a vellambi. Chey!”
I knew why my Mother said something so annoyingly ignorant. Encounters with unavailable, suitable boys combined with input from her coworkers, a good portion of whom are African-American, to create an explosive cocktail of hurt; soon, my Mother absorbed that odious complex about “successful POC going white”, especially after the cutest brown resident at her hospital took up with some “white nurse who wasn’t even pretty” instead of someone Indian/Pinay/Chinese/Black (all of whom were/are allegedly gorgeous, in comparison). When they heard about the brown and white coupling, my Mother’s African American office mate snorted, “typical” while Ma shook her head and sighed. She told me all about it, bitterly.
“Mommy, maybe they’re in love?”
“Podi, penne. Stop being blonde.”
“Mom you’re being unreasonable.”
“You are never going to find a boy. There are no educated Malayalee boys with three degrees. If there are, they are only interested in the white girls.”
“I don’t care how many degrees…remember? I like engineers. They usually have just one.”
“Chinammamma is right. That’s a recipe for disaster. Boy should have more degrees than girl-“
“- and be three years older, and three inches taller and blah blah blah. Spare me, Ma.”
“Make fun all you want, those things are accepted for a reason- they work. You want your husband to resent you?”
“I thought you didn’t care if I got married?”
“I don’t. It would save me money. I’d rather travel than waste all that, or put the down-payment on a house for you. I have nothing to prove to your Father’s friends and I’ve never been interested in outdoing them. I just…saw Mercy’s son and thought he was so cute. My grandchildren would have been so cute!”
All right-y, then. What’s hilarious is that my Mother had to alter her theory a year later, when “Mercy’s son” got engaged to a Punjabi girl he met in law school:
“Sho! Anyone but a Malayalee penne, eh?”
“What, Ma…now there’s a hierarchy? White, then North Indian, then South?” 😀
I didn’t really make peace with any of this until I met an adorable white guy who confessed that he liked me…only to hear me gracefully blurt out that I only date brown boys. It’s true, I can’t help it. I always have gone brown and probably always will. It’s just what I am attracted to– black hair, dark eyes, tan skin (fur optional).
The epiphany I had at that moment, while staring in to wounded blue eyes and rapidly batting blonde lashes, brought me closure and a bit of enlightenment; duh, no one has to justify whom they are attracted to, but hopefully they are acting out of their purest feelings– we can’t help whom we fall for, but we can call ourselves out if we’re nursing some bizarre colonial hangover or other therapy-requiring-issue (full disclosure: I have a family member who ONLY dates white guys, because they are the polar opposite of her strict, very Desi Dad).
There are other aspects to the complicated issue of human mixology, too– one of my dearest friends is finally in a blissful relationship. With a black man. After being repeatedly rejected by Desi guys for her tan skin and curves, she has given up on making her parents’ dreams of an Indian son-in-law come true. Instead, she found someone who will accept her just as she is; she has decided to do what makes her happy– and I am thrilled for her. I’m also broken-hearted that essentially, she has to keep her love closeted. Additionally, I would enjoy beating the fecal matter out of the last Desi she went on a blind date with, who brilliantly said, “you’d be so pretty if you weren’t so dark!”, while recoiling from her. But I’m protective and furious like that.
Look. This stuff is real. It happens. Let’s talk about it, if you are in the mood. I’m opening a safe space for exploration, if you are so inclined. You don’t have to be P.C. or fake, you just have to be respectful and courteous; controversial topics are impossible to fisk if we’re not, right?
1191 Puliogre
id like to know your success rate. also, provide your stats to put context to the success rate…
Succcess rate is strangely low, given that I’m a “plutocrat.” I think I’m a tad fugly or something.
ak, I think your brother has been developmentally delayed because he has been kept out of this circle of Indian practices. As his sister, you owe it to him to make sure he is grounded by going out only with white guys.
Puliyodharai (my preferred spelling), I am still holding out for some pulikaaichal skillz, Iyengar-banker man. Hold the saathumadhu though. I prefer rasam.
I could not have said this better myself.
For those lonely artsy ladies out there seeking desi companionship: realize that on top of the minority minority population of arsty desis, artsy desi males also have a FAR GREATER pressure to avoid such jobs vs. desi women. Also, I find that a lot of women (desi especially) tend to be very quick to stereotype a man based on his profession. I think if some of you would give everyone an equal chance to relate themselves to you vs. some preconceived notion you have based on their profession and a limited sample size of past experiences, you might just meet the “exception”.
I know a few artsy desi males and they complain about the same things you do. A vast majority of desi women reject them when they find out they won’t be bringing home the bacon.
HMF: I agree with your description of how women usually handle the hotness topic. However, I think this comes out of women’s mouths more because men are usually the ones making the approach, and so are in a position to be shot down more frequently. My favorite is when a hot guy hits on a woman in a borderline-sleazy way, it is often “cute” or “funny”, whereas when a fugly guy does it, it is often “creepy”. At least most men will jst say it like it is: “dude she’s hot” or “dude she’s fug” and not fool themselves.
This sounds like ideology to me. Thanks for proving the point.
I’ll grant you concession being an only daughter, but I know a few pakka iyengar families with only daughters, none expect their daughters to financially support them. And you say they expect you to cook, sew, etc.. but don’t expect or at least entertain the possibility of marrying a financially stable man. For that one traditional aspect all of a sudden they become super liberal?
Imagine how that conversation would go over if you were a guy. If you have a sliver of perspective, you’d know what I’m talking about.
Secondly, you mentioned the example of screenwriting, I’m not sure if you just pulled this out of your ass at random, or did so with an idea that by working to be a screenwriter fulltime one would achieve success quicker. If it’s the former, then disregard the following,
But some of the best screenwriters, Eric Roth, William Goldman, Syd Field, Kevin Smith hell even Quentin Tarantino worked “day jobs” to support that hobby/passion, It’s a nature of how the screenwriting process works. Now, most people have day-jobs within industry, script readers, production, post, studio interns, etc… , quentin worked at a damn video store. So stop judging, keep those eyes fixed.
ah…but youve got to do something squid pro quo. uve got to intro me to detrius…
your a plutocrat? really?
I give you that.. its true. I have joked about this a million times with friends. Its always ewww..gross that guy is so shady. And if its someone cute phone numbers start flying.
Addendum to 1199 — or hell, the idea is offensive to any woman, with or without siblings, whose parents put them under constant pressure to pursue lucrative careers, not for prestige but to ensure their financial security in the future. the more i think about it, i don’t know a single female in my community who wasn’t pushed to pursue a lucrative job so that they could help support their parents in the future, NOT because of “ideology.” i was literally the first person to break the mold!! and it sucked!! there are a sprinkling of other educators and non-profiteers (female AND male), but if HMF’s theory holds true, then i don’t understand why there aren’t scads of non-mainstream female professionals in our community.
Also – sorry for the tandem post – but in a way the fact that I was forced to choosing something “lucrative” also reflects something positive.The fact that expectations from my brother and me were the same – that we would grow up and be productive /well-settled ( whatever that means).This is just a counterpoint to the experiences that some have mentioned where there was a difference in the way girls vs boys were brought up.Neither my brother nor I was asked to cook – we both had to clean though!
Well, I would’t be an “alterna-desi” if it weren’t for my dads, IYKWIM
The notion of squid pro quo is quite icky and gooey to me. Plus, I don’t move in detrital circles.
I guess this would the time for me to mutter some karma mumbo jumbo to say that if you do this without expectation of reward, straight-haired detritus will rain upon you from the skies or topple over on you when dancing on the bar or some such thing.
i try to maintain a hotness that appeals to all sorts 😉
.
really? most grls i meet are doing jobs that arent soul less numer crunching (my friends wives)….maybe my sample is messed up.
uni, desi events/parties (bhangra), discos/pubs, travel & thru mates
fine then..non detrius. good luck convincing me of being altruistic with my puli….
HMF, your last post implies that I’m being disingenuous about the expectations placed on me and the reasons behind them. I have no desire to pursue this with you any further since you can’t even “grant” me the benefit of the doubt. (And by the way, the “shame” the uncle was referring to was the shameful fact that I would not be able to support my parents in their old age).
Runa — thanks for sharing.
$hit. i should go to desi parties more. ive always hated those, but i guess a mans got to do what….
We are approaching another milestone: doubling the previous record for most comments on a single thread. And we’re still on topic! (Sorry for this off-topic post.)
Fuerza Dulce @ 1185: Thanks. There aren’t many of us, but we’re around. You’ll currently find this one in San Francisco and in love with a gori anthropologist/film-maker. You could have found him in NYC and Houston at different points in his life.
Spicy Brown Munda @ 1193: Thank you as well. I’m flattered. You’re not so bad yourself. I’d just encourage you to lay off the numbers game and your whole ranking system. I suspect it’s something of a joke, though, and that you wouldn’t treat people like that in real life.
Sure, for pulikaaichal, I’ll do it. Here you go:
Ladies, meet bad, bad puli brown The baddest man in the whole damn town Badder than old king kong And a brilliant i-banking don
This is only a tantalizing taste of my wingmanitude, my friend. Now, dude, how long do I have go on jonesing for some grub here?
Yeh, not de freshie south indians from the desh, but de south indians bred in uk and us. seen loads of south indians with goras…just me experience tho.
u scare me….i might just get you some grub cause of your quick wit. you live in nyc?
Well, sorry if you see it that way, but you implied your family didn’t forsee or even entertain the possibility of you being financially dependent on your husband, which is a traditional view, certainly in line with the other traditional expectations they had. Why would they discount that particular one?
As for the reasons behind them, sure, you may be the newest inductee into oppositeland, but all the single female households I know, if anything they would depend on them for household care, not financial care.
When I quit my job, I had an uncle ask me, “You went from 100,000 to 20,000, do you want to go from 100,000 girls to 20,000 girls?” (the numbers weren’t correct, he was speculating) Now stare me right in the cyberface and tell me a woman would be asked the same thing?
As I said before, I don’t discount your difficulties, only understand they would be compounded 10-fold if you were an only son.
Thanks, man! No, I am unfortunately not in NYC, but I’ll let you know if and when I’m in town 🙂 Finally, I am singing for my supper, it seems.
The two I know…
A physician, now 36 years old, she’s working part time to take care of her children at home, so clearly, not making money, not expected to care for the parents. Her husband is a Senior research scientist in a major cancer research center (sloan kettering)
A PHd in neurosciences, now a postdoc, 30 years old, again, not really raking it in to support the folks.
said by Bollywhaa, emph mine (1115):
I’m sure if I had run across a Desi artist/activist in that time, they would have totally gotten it — however, they are few and far between in those fields (South Asian sisters, however, are all over the nonprofit scene!).
At least one person corroborates.
Bloody. If you meet anymore, let me know – I definitely have brown girlfriends who have been looking for them.
desi parties are a good way to meet non-desi girls–spanish, brazilian, british and more. dey is curious abt asian culture…teach them! ; )
Harbeer:
correct! happy to see someone gets it.
WOW (#275)—
Exactly what part of that made no sense? Did I ever say every Indian I know is a jerk? I said most Indians I’ve met. You can’t deny that Indians tend to be VERY clique-y. In fact all types of Asians tend to hang out with their own kind. There was absolutely nothing over the top, unless perhaps you are one of those people who hate non-Indians. And I DO have some Indian friends but I have also been told I’m “too white” by a NUMBER of Indians. Sorry that you’re upset about all the desi girls going for whiteys.
dammit, rahul – yet another issue i have to include when i have the ‘talk’ with him. i will work on my white-boy preference. pankaj never told me what to do in this situation…
by “our” community, i was referring to the local community of folks my parents associate with (e.g. s. indian iyengar/iyer/hebbar), not the larger s. asian community. so in that specific community, there are not females who are all over the non-profit scene. i won’t bore everyone else or out anyone else with a laundry list of mainstream female professionals who are expected to support their parents in the (not so distant) future.
in our social circle, not only are the women meant to take up professional jobs, but they are to do so to make enough money to rival their own parents’ wealth. they all have enough money set aside for retirement (and enough to afford professional care, as well) so it’s a good deal about prestige.
this may have held true for the previous generation, as did the requirement to box, play tennis, smoke cigars and drink copious amounts of Johnny and Chivas.
Thankfully the SES-unsettling produced by the moves to America exploded the notion that doctor/lawyer/world-bank employee were the only career paths that one could consider. Survival is poisonous to ill-considered notions about what your children could and ought to amount to and end up as.
Older relatives had to reinvent themselves as real-estate agents, montessouri teachers, Bharatanatyam teachers, etc. and humble themselves initially through performing many of the menial tasks they once assigned to their servants.
In places where there was relatively no changes in SES (Australia, UK), my cousins are pretty much locked into the traditional career paths.
Funny enough, these three different environments (OZ, US, UK) produced the same level of acceptance when it came to dating and marrying white–an incremental yet seemingly inexorable march towards full and unquestioning acceptance.
Much more of a ruckus was caused by marrying into faiths that required incredible lifestyle changes (not-so-ultradox Judaism).
may i just add that friday was supposed to be my day to wean off the active commenting on SM. instead, i have been overly into this thread, to the point that i didn’t even see any of the posts, save one, that have come up since. damn you, SM (and i mean that in the most lovin way possible).
I really don’t want to rehash this again — we’ve already talked about this at length, and at the end of the day it gets pitched as guys going “Oh, well you don’t understand how hard it is” and the ladies saying, “Yeah right, try living in my shoes where my very work is degraded and seen as a ‘cute pastime.'”
Also, I do think that if there is an “easier entry” for women in selecting their field, that the benefit is marginal, and that the chances of success are drastically smaller than they are for men. Further, we’ve already seen from “alternadesi” women on SM that 90% of the generalizations made by the guys last time do not hold depending on your regionality. Can we move on?
yay
What about all the desi girls who are writers? Not all of them are money grubbing-parent pleasing-sycophants! Some of them have a mind of their own. Mary Anne Mohanraj and Jhumpa Lahiri (sp?) to name a few. And there was another girl who was in the Observer a few months ago…can’t remember her name…
[unlurk] Iyengar here. [/unlurk]
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blockquote>by “our” community, i was referring to the local community of folks my parents associate with (e.g. s. indian iyengar/iyer/hebbar),
I know this community quite well. namely because im in it. and yes, most of the nonprof females are not members, however, this still doesn’t detract from the fact a male in our community faces the problem much larger. Secondly compared to screenwriting, teaching may as well be i-banking or hedge fund trading. Teachers make a livable wage (they may not be able to purchase their parents gold studded watches) in this country, so Id argue that any sentiments to push away from teaching surely veer on the prestige/ideological side rather than the practical one.
depends on the field, so I’d partially agree.
How did saying that someone is not pursuing a lucrative career get translated into an assertion being made that the person is being called ‘lacking a mind of his/her own’?
Rahul needs a dedicated blog. He’s that good
Damn. royally fu’d that up. Try again
I know this community quite well. namely because im in it. and yes, most of the nonprof females are not members, however, this still doesn’t detract from the fact a male in our community faces the problem much larger. Secondly compared to screenwriting, teaching may as well be i-banking or hedge fund trading. Teachers make a livable wage (they may not be able to purchase their parents gold studded watches) in this country, so Id argue that any sentiments to push away from teaching surely veer on the prestige/ideological side rather than the practical one.
Depends on the field.
Or conversely : how is everyone pursuing a lucrative career a money-grubbing,parent pleasing ( love how thats an insult!) ,sycophant ( to whom?)
Post #1235 is (inadvertently) hilarious.
But these two are orthogonal in my book. One doesn’t contradict the other, also just because parents make a bigger deal about what their sons do, isn’t tantamount to ‘upgrading’ of the actual work. All that matters is that it’s stable, financially providing, and more or less socially acceptable. Parents don’t sit and dream their kids will one day code for 8 hours a day because it’s ‘upgrading’ and ‘uplifting’ work. It’s utilitarian.
The ‘cute pasttime’ has to do with whether or not women should be working at all, not whether they should do thing A vs thing B. Those who subscribe to the cute pasttime philosophy, Id argue they believe that women shouldn’t work, or have no need to.
For a moment I thought it was Daniel Stern of Home Alone/City Slickers fame in that pic…
I second that. Would SM invite Rahul to guest-blog here — or does he need to have his own blog first?
grrr I hate boys today.. both desi and white..
still, I agree..
NotConfused: while you act like you do not have identity issues, your posts literally scream with them.
“First off, I never understood why every ethnicity is always upset about their women dating outside the race. Generally mixed race children are better looking, smarter, and more genetically sound than their same race counterparts.”
This in and of itself is disturbing. Whereas beauty is pretty subjective, intelligence and “genetic soundness” is not. Where did you come up with the idea that mixed race children are smarter and more genetically sound? Data please? Or did you just pull it out of you know where? The very fact that you would make such a statement indicates that you believe “regular Indians” are inferior to “mixed Indians” when, in fact, desis are quite diverse in their makeup (just look at the regional physical differences to see this).
“I am Desi yet still “mixed” according to Indians–my father is Kutchi and my mother is from Mysore, yet I have light skin. For some reason this freaks Indians out.”
Really? How so? None of the light skinned desis I know get anything but compliments from people or questions about where they are from. Never have I seen “freaking out”.
“I did not have severe identity issues–I was just choosing friends based on personality not race. Unfortunately most of the Indians I knew were narrow minded and arrogant. Needless to say, I never bonded too well with my Indian peers.”
Are we talking the Indian people you knew as a child? In high school? College? In the workplace? With the attitude that “most Indians are narrow minded and arrogant” based on such a small sample size, and with that mindset in your head, I am not surprised you did not have many Indian friends. Perhaps if you approached them as individuals, you would find that you are really not unique at all. Just look at how many people have posted about feeling like “outliers”. Not being the “typical Indian” seems to be the rule, not the exception.
“Perhaps growing up has made me so that I feel no attraction to Indian men. To me if they aren’t like relatives, they just seem like Mama’s boys. They expect you to be a proper wife, etc. I’ve actually had Indian men freak out when they see I have tattoos and piercings–telling me I should be a “proper” Indian girl. Other races never do that…”
You’ve exposed a major issue right here. You have a bad experience with a group of Indian people, and you then generalize it to an entire population. How do you feel about white people assuming you must work at 7-11 because they see so much of it? Well, that’s the same thing you are doing to other Indians by assuming that all Indian men are “mama’s boys” or “like relatives” because of a few samples. You want to be treated as an individual by white people. Why not afford this same privilege to other Indians?
“So stop hatin’! I love him because I just do, I don’t care what race anyone is. People are attracted to different things.”
Well it seems to be that you care VERY MUCH what race people are, since Indian men are mostly “mama’s boys” or “like family” or “narrow minded” and “arrogant” based on the people you’ve met, and people of mixed race are “better looking, smarter, and more genetically sound”. Doesn’t sound too color blind to me. Also, I don’t hear you generalizing about the entire white race based on some white jerks I’m sure you’ve met. Why is this?
“And not to toot my own horn, but he is very good looking since he is of mixed race. And I KNOW our kids will look damn good! :)”
Why am I not surprised to hear this? Oh yea, because people of mixed race are superior in every way.
And finally in response to “Wow”: “Sorry that you’re upset about all the desi girls going for whiteys.”
First of all, you’re assuming that Wow is a man. Secondly, the percentages show that out-marriage is approx. equal for desi men and women. Sounds like you have some serious issues. I’m happy you’ve found the right person for you, but with all the pent up anger you seem to have when it comes to Indian people combined with your beliefs about “genetic superiority” about mixed races, I am not at all surprised that man is of mixed race. One thing you should keep in mind is that you would not be considered mixed race by most Indians, and so therefore you must be one of the inferior ones. 😉
oh dear, I feel a HMF-style comment coming on…but I must:
would you feel calm if a boy expressed the same temporal sentiment, but about women?
lol… that was an outburst on my part. And I really would not care either way if some boy said that about women. Normally I like boys, forgive me today though. No ability for being objective.
relish the moment–you may not have another chance at such respite from the tyranny of rational thought!
HMF, I don’t want to get into it, particularly because we’ve already talked about this, and this is really just the same thing rehashed. If we were going to bring up new points, then I would say by all means, go forward. That said, I have a feeling this will be just another war of attrition about why, yet again, women are somehow specially privileged and keep men down. Also, a literal reading of “degraded” (and that the contrapositive is “uplifting”) is too narrow. I hope you understood that I meant that women’s work is heavily discounted at the aggregate level, and within industries that are “feminized”, both in the form of wages, and in terms of social acceptance/approval.