Straight out of Euless, Texas (which it turns out borders DFW Airport and is kind of part of Dallas) comes this discouraging news video about alleged discrimination against South Asian Americans and Muslims:
A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today called on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to investigate allegations that a Texas apartment complex had a policy of refusing to rent to Muslims or segregating them in buildings away from other tenants.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity to determine whether StoneBridge at Bear Creek apartment complex in Euless, Texas, violated federal fair housing laws.
According to an investigative media report, former leasing agents for the complex say Muslims, whom managers referred to as “curry people,” were routinely refused apartments even when there were vacancies. The leasing agents said they were told by their supervisors that they could only rent to Muslims if they were all kept in two buildings of the 21-building complex. [Link]
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p>The one thing that is obvious from the story is that when it comes to even talking about discriminations, Muslims, South Asians, Arabs, etc. are often all conflated. Any shade of brown with a “funny” name or associated with “smelly” food falls into the same category.
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p>The folks at CAIR weren’t too surprised that this type of thing happens given some Gallup Center for Muslim Studies poll data from last month:
More than 4 in 10 Americans (43%) admit to feeling at least “a little” prejudice toward Muslims — more than twice the number who say the same about Christians (18%), Jews (15%) and Buddhists (14%). The findings are based on a new Gallup Center for Muslim Studies report, “Religious Perceptions in America: With an In-Depth Analysis of U.S. Attitudes Toward Muslims and Islam,” released Thursday. [Link]
That being said, if these allegations turn out to be true it is encouraging that these two women were willing to stand up and blow the whistle on such practices. As for the Curry smell, Pavani points me to a similar incident in California a few years ago.
What’s I genuinely don’t understand is that I’ve never heard of a muslim committing terrorist acts in their own homes…seems like living right next door would be the safest place, but whatever.
Yeah, no muslim terrorist has even used his home to make a bomb.
The folks at CAIR weren’t too surprised that this type of thing happens given some Gallup Center for Muslim Studies poll data from last month:
Why do some here act like CAIR is some great group, when many of there members have ties to groups that have links to terrorist groups?
The fact that you stubbornly ignored the later argument and kept on yakking about a previous generalization exposes your dishonest intentions. As does your ad nauseam repetitive demand that names be named or else the argument is not valid. That was sheer idiocy and clear proof that you are not arguing in good faith. Since you are claiming (dishonestly as usual) to be on my side against the “enemy”, then why the hell do you not name names? Cut the fricking bullcrap already. You are not fooling anyone with a brain and a clue.
Since you agree with me that many of the indians who whine about racism in America etc are casteists why don’t you name the names that convinced you that my point is “100%” true? You have the evidence right? If not why did you agree with me? See how stupid you are?
You are as thick as a brick if that actually makes sense to you. Your previous example of Hitler and Pearl Harbor was even more asinine. There was nothing vague about my argument. It is logically impeccable. And it was not a personal accusation against a few specific individuals. So your idiotic demand for names is BS.
I have read enough of your posts to doubt your honesty here as well.
I am talking about NOW.
There are a lot of subtle ways in which discrimination can happen and which you may not even realize unless you are “tuned in” to such tactics. You may not be shown some apartments. You may be deliberately shown apartments in particular areas only. You may be told falsely that an apartment is unavailable. Uncovering such tactics is not straightforward. In the labour market too, such tactics are known. Sometime back, there was a (by now, well-known) economics paper by Sendhil Mullainathan and Marianne Bertrand “Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” which performed a “field experiment” to uncover the subtle screening done by employers based on the names of applicants. The authors constructed fictitious but identical pairs of resumes, one with a “Black” name and the other with a “White” name. They found that applications sent with the “White” names were more likely to generate positive responses. This experiment was replicated in the Indian context by Surinder Jodhka and Katherine Newman with Dalit and Muslims names (on the one hand) and “upper caste” names on the other. It was reported sometime back in the Economic and Political Weekly
All this is not really surprising. Law, as we now know in USA, India and many other places does not automatically remove entrenched prejudices. They simply come through in other subtle forms. The fight against such prejudices is never easy.
Btw. A, your story about discrimination in Chennai reminds me of this somewhat funny story told by Ramachandra Guha in one of his books on cricket. Since you stayed in Chennai, you are probably aware that there is a small Tamil-speaking Sikh community in Chennai. Indeed, right from the 1940s to the 1980s, the Tamil Nadu cricket team always had a Sikh member, all from the same family. At some point, one member of this family went to Delhi where his job took him. As a Tamilian Sikh, he didn’t feel comfortable anywhere in Delhi except in the Tamil enclave in Karol Bagh. So he looked for a place to stay there only to have the door shut on him. He succeeded only when he took along a Tamil friend who informed the landlords that his friend was really a Tamilian etc. etc.
I didn’t ignore it. I addressed it repeatedly. The “argument by assertion” debunking applies to the latter argument. You never disowned the previous argument until much later, so i continued to address that as a logical fallacy.
without evidence, its merely argument by assertion. very unconvincing.
I did. see post 120.
other than 120, my evidence is anecdotal. It confirms your assertions so i’m inclined to agree with you but anecdotal evidence is weak (the observer could be biased, you don’t have access to all the data, etc) so i didn’t bother to make the aggressive points that you did.. usually i wait until someone commits hypocrisy before i call them out on it.
but you didn’t. you accused desis of hypocrisy without any visible hypocrisy occurring. but yet you have no evidence to back up the claim. If yuou want to fight on my side you need to improve your skills. very weak, young man.
saying desis are hypocritical without specifying who, is vague. You’ve already conceded the illogical aspect of your original argument.
so you believe your arguments are not vague while simultaneously asserting they’re not specific. Ooooookaaaaaaaay.
and you have mountains of evidence to support this claim, no doubt.
“What’s I genuinely don’t understand is that I’ve never heard of a muslim committing terrorist acts in their own homes…seems like living right next door would be the safest place, but whatever.”
The same is said of serial killers, all of Jeffrey Dahmer’s neighbors were unharmed.
“Law, as we now know in USA, India and many other places does not automatically remove entrenched prejudices.”
That’s true, but I think, if A has had a similar experience to me, that it is much easier to discriminate in India than in the U.S. I could probably name at least 5 instances off the top of my head where housing was denied to me or my friends in Delhi based on race, and I was only linving in Delhi for about 6 months. Maybe more if I think for a little while. This didn’t just include straight up “oh wait, you’re American [or African, in the case of some friends]? Never mind, we can’t rent to you.” But also the “it’s not available anymore” as well as other tactics. The apartment I did end up renting (and a few I was offered) upped the rent upon seeing me, and also overcharged for other things– like electricity. When I looked up the actual electricity rate and complained (they were charging me over twice as much) they just ignored me.
It is the same in job applications there– for example, Indian airline companies put out adverts for new flight attendants with things like the range of heights and weights, the fairness of skin, the clearness of skin (no zitty flight attendants please!) all as part of the job requirement. So there is a very open and obvious example of hiring based on skin color, among other things. (There is a claim there that you can’t have overweight flight attendants for “safety reasons”, and women have been fired for being a few pounds over the company designated weight)
I think Shilip is right that while this stuff DOES still happen in America, it is not as obvious as some of the blatant stuff that can go on elsewhere, like India. That is because we have laws in place that make it harder for people to be outright about it. That, mixed with whistleblowing incidences like this help to protect people to a greater extent. So it is true that someone may have experienced it and not realized it, but I think it is also true that A could have not experienced it– I think it may depend on where you are and who you are interacting with, and perhaps the luck of the draw.
That is because we have laws in place that make it harder for people to be outright about it.
The key is the US has laws which are enforced. India, too, has laws – all too many, by my reckoning but with many of them, it’s as though they never exist. Go a few miles outside any major town and untouchability is still openly practised.
Now why India is so bad at enforcing existing laws is a good question. I remember reading (an article by Kaushik Basu, the current chief economic advisor to the Indian Prime Minister, perhaps?) that laws work best when there is a substantial consensus in society about the desirability of the law. The law effectively formalizes the existing consensus in society. It is a weakness of Indian democracy that laws are often passed by parliament without much debate. Furthermore, to the extent there is a debate, it mainly involves the English-speaking elite. Things are changing – the type of power that a few people around Indira Gandhi wielded in the 1970s is unimaginable now but Indian democracy, in my opinion, still lacks the kind of broad participation that characterizes mature democracies.
I could probably name at least 5 instances off the top of my head where housing was denied to me or my friends in Delhi based on race, and I was only linving in Delhi for about 6 months.
If its any consolation, LinZi, Indians also have a lot of trouble finding houses to rent in Delhi. Part of the problem is the stupid rent control law which makes it very difficult to evict a tenant. So any Indian who goes to rent a place in Delhi will have to answer a whole set of very personal questions: Where do you work? What does your father do? What does your mother do? How many brothers and sisters do you have? What do they do? Are you married? From which part of India do you come from? …and so on and so forth. It sounds bizarre but you have to remember that the landlord. by asking such questions, is effectively trying to figure out how likely it is that you will create problems down the line.
This is not just idle conjecture. Here’s a story told to me by an acquaintance: An officer in the Indian Air Force rented out his place. One year before he was due to retire, he informed his tenant that since he going to retire, he would need the house back and that he was giving him a year’s notice. The tenant simply refused to move confident that even if he was hauled to court, he could bank on the interminable delays in the justice system to continue staying in the house. What happened? A couple of months before the deadline the air force officer marched his regiment to the house, held the family at gunpoint and proceeded to throw all the belongings onto the street. A good example of how bad laws can turn ordinarily law abiding people into criminals.
It is fear of problems like these that lead some house owners to keep their house vacant rather than rent them. My understanding is that a significant number of houses in Delhi and even other places are lying vacant even though there is a housing shortage. This is not to deny the racial element in your experience but just to note that other things may be going on too.
“It is fear of problems like these that lead some house owners to keep their house vacant rather than rent them. My understanding is that a significant number of houses in Delhi and even other places are lying vacant even though there is a housing shortage. This is not to deny the racial element in your experience but just to note that other things may be going on too. “
Oh, definitely. I think the racial element is certainly part of a MUCH bigger problem, like you said… a lot of my Indian friends have problems renting places too– and no matter who you are, many landlords feel they have the right to put certain rules on you– some I can sort of understand (please only cook veg food in the house seems reasonable if that is your religious belief), others are pretty crazy… like if you are not home by 9 pm we will lock you out. (I had lots of fun trying to find an apartment because I was teaching English during the afternoon/evening shift, and so would get home at about 10 every night (later if I ate dinner out before coming home). Others will say no guests, or no guests of the opposite sex, etc etc. Some landlords want to run their tenants life like they are their parents. So if a young unmarried adult wants an apartment it is a lot of problems! In addition to the job, etc issues, and then racial issues too….
If you look up the phone book there are hundreds of white Americans with the last name Curry. And don’t forget Rice. But is this discrimination about rice and curry, or is it based on something more diabolical, such as the post 9/11 fear of irrational jihadi violence? If more mainstream muslims don’t vehemently oppose the jihadi idiots, the Republicans will eventually ban Islam the way they banned Communism during the cold war. That would be a problem not just for muslims but for most of us who are not muslim because a lot of Americans (the “guns and religion” type) probably think all brown folk are “curry people”.
This is really funny. You agreed “100%” with my 4 points even though you find it “very unconvincing” without “evidence”! How very logical of you 😉
Same stupidity as above. You fully agreed with my latter argument yet are hell bent on “debunking” it! Anyone can see that you have not been arguing in good faith.
You keep repeating the same nonsense ad nauseam. So I will keep asking you ad nauseam: why did you agree with my 4 points? Why did you claim to have named a name substantiating my charge?
Endless stupidity and self-contradiction: There is nothing at all vague about my logical argument you ignoramus. Even you were compelled to agree with it.
Look you thickheaded hypocritical dunce, my argument does not need to name names. It clearly specifies those desis as hypocrites who while believing in casteism complain about white racism towards them. Again, for the umteenth time, why did you agree 100% with my 4 points in the first place?
That is called intellectual honesty, which is an alien concept to shysters like you. Your posts are full of illogic but we have yet to see you concede any of your numerous errors.
I agreed with the conclusion, but not because of your “argument.” If someone said “sugar ray Robinson is the greatest boxer ever”, i’d agree. buts this is not convincing to someone who believes its actually Ali.
Its important to keep your own side on its toes. you’re a weak liink so i’m working on you.
personal anecdotal experience.
Because in 120 i did just that: “Shilip: you are exhibit one substantiating Prema’s (Ashoka) grand thesis.”
One of your flaws is your too simplistic. things aren’ t necessarily mutually exclusive. in other words, one can agree with the conclusions of an argument while the argument can still be vague. so i might agree with sarah palin that school choice is a good idea, but sarah palin’s argument may still be inane. you’re sarah palin.
Au contraire. it only became clear after i worked you over. the first construction of your argument was inane. now, the second one is better but still weak since it lacks evidence. but now you see how i’m already making you better. keep working at it.
The flaw in your argument is that your just asserting my posts are full of illogic. what you need to do to substantiate your argument is pull the illogical quotes and demonstrate why they are such.
This moved too fast and I am not able to catch up.
Shilip, This is not the right forum for Sikh history. Email me if you are really interested and I may write on my blog at http://arealblogger.blogspot.com/
Shilip, please do not make it personal and once again please do not assume anything about exposure to the USA or other countries. As I said I am well traveled and can understand discrimination. I am not sure how can one make an opinion about someone by just reading few statements in the comments of a blog. I personally take my own time to form opinion about a person and for that matter a country.
Annoymous,
I really like your examples and detailed analysis. Do you have a blog?
Same with Linzi
Good for you.
If that were true for everyone the ACLU and Fair Housing department in Government, to name two anti-discrimination organizations out of many, would not have to deal with current discrimination cases brought by all types of people for all sorts of acts of discrimination such as housing.
On a separate issue, why do so many threads here devolve into, well, Indians/India sucks even more, in fact no one in the entire world is as horrible as Indians living in or fleeing from horrible India for such a horribly long time, in fact the whole history of mankind, courtesy of one commenter or another with an extremely biased anti-India/n agenda.
Even if Indians are the worst people ever in the world, Indians still have every right to stand up for their rights when they are discriminated against just like everyone else does and everyone else should against everyone who discriminates against them for whatever reason. There is nothing in those anti-discrimination organizations that require people who are discriminated against to be as spotless as an angel of heaven before they can file a discrimination complaint. The act of discrimination is not right period – regardless of who does it and to whom it is done.
“On a separate issue, why do so many threads here devolve into, well, Indians/India sucks even more”
For me, at least, I don’t think India or Indians “suck”. I think there are problems in India AND in the rest of the world, including America. The only reason I bring up topics of problems in India is when people purposefully deny that they happen– acting as if India is perfect and wonderful and the only problems of racism/discrimination exist in America. It’s not true. No nation is perfect, and I understand people can be ‘touchy’ about their ancestral/current land, but who does it help to stick your head in the sand and pretend nothing bad ever happens in India? That’s the same as people who think “America is the best country in the world. Nothing bad happens here!”
Can we really get a nuanced view of discrimination and how it effects people by only focusing on one example, and not understanding how that example get fit into a larger world pattern?
On a separate issue, why do so many threads here devolve into, well, Indians/India sucks even more, in fact no one in the entire world is as horrible as Indians living in or fleeing from horrible India for such a horribly long time, in fact the whole history of mankind, courtesy of one commenter or another with an extremely biased anti-India/n agenda.
I believe it’s just a few people, particularly Prema, who write stereotypes and hatred for Indians. And then a few people jump on the bandwagon. I seriously don’t get it. How can anyone ignore the horrible systems of injustice in almost every part of the world, some equalling genocide, such as in China or Rwanda, and then act like only Indians are capable of abusing others. Sigh…I believe some people do this to seem cool, “look at me I can criticize my own culture” and others do it b/c of self-hatred.
“How can anyone ignore the horrible systems of injustice in almost every part of the world, some equalling genocide, such as in China or Rwanda, and then act like only Indians are capable of abusing others.”
…or maybe because this website is for/about desis? Not Chinese people or Rwandans?
“This is not the right forum for Sikh history. Email me if you are really interested and I may write on my blog at http://arealblogger.blogspot.com/
Shilip, please do not make it personal and once again please do not assume anything about exposure to the USA or other countries. As I said I am well traveled and can understand discrimination. I am not sure how can one make an opinion about someone by just reading few statements in the comments of a blog. I personally take my own time to form opinion about a person and for that matter a country”
What is the assumption I’ve made? You yourself you stated (post 87) you came here on a work sponsorship, I guess I’ve assumed you were a fully matured adult when that happened. Apologies if you were a boy genius that completed his masters at age 6, and came here to work at age 7.
“As I said I am well traveled and can understand discrimination.”
How can you say you understand the way discrimination works in the US? That to me, is an indefensible claim on your part. You said there were some discriminatory experiences you had during your formative years, and I asked for clarification, which you now state is not the proper forum for. Let me ask you again then, was there ever a point in time where you felt “not Indian” in your childhood? Im guessing the answer is no. But I (and I’d say nearly everyone else in my position) Im positive has felt “not-American” even though this is the land of our (in many cases) birth, and upbringing.
In particular the nuanced and mixed signal fashion that applies to people who are raised in that country, when you yourself are not? I already acquiesced you may not have personally experienced housing discrimination, however to me that just means you were not unlucky enough to get shafted like the people in this post (who we wouldn’t even know about had it not been for an internal whistle blower on the matter) But that’s inconclusive to make a general statement about the US being some beacon of prosperity that doesn’t discriminate.
Maybe thats the conclusion you draw, based on the incomplete information you have. And I acknowledge that (and observe it in others), but make no mistake about what is causing your erroneous conclusion.
.or maybe because this website is for/about desis? Not Chinese people or Rwandans?
I hear you; And I’m all for this blog and anyone taking down issues and problems in India. In fact Indians do a lot of that – look at our newspapers and blogs – we’re not afraid to criticize each other and hopefully with that comes change. You don’t see this same analysis in other nations’ press and I see it as a sign of self-confidence culturally.
Reminds me of reading Sen’s “Argumentative Indian”
However, what I can’t stand is what I don’t do to other people – which is make comments and analyze them in an ahistorical, hateful, stereotyping, generalizing manner. How can anyone make a statement that says “All Indians are hypocrites to complain about discrimination in the US b/c of the caste system” w/o recognizing that this same logic applies to most of the world? – maybe not some hunter-gatherer tribes (I don’t know). Seriously commonsense is just missing from statements like these, alongside their ignorance.
“However, what I can’t stand is what I don’t do to other people – which is make comments and analyze them in an ahistorical, hateful, stereotyping, generalizing manner.”
Agreed–
and any argument with words like “all” “everyone” etc can’t be anything but false to begin with….
“This moved too fast and I am not able to catch up.”
Here’s the abridged version :
“Dunce, Idiot, Hypocrite, You’re stupid” (repeat 50x)
Enough of your silly deceitful games.You probably think you are being very clever playing this silly charade. Think again. You are not on my side. There is no way someone like you who defends the vile, racist rabble rouser Rush Limbaugh, could be on my side. I absolutely loathe that hatefilled scoundrel and his millions of trashy racist dittoheads.
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blockquote>I agreed with the conclusion, but not because of your “argument.”
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You are lying again. Here is what you said about my argument: “There is no logical fallacy in that argument”
Another lie. The second one was made long ago, and you are still attempting to “work it over” with idiotic “rebuttals” despiting having claimed to “agree 100%” with it.
Everyone has such anecdotal experiences. So why the hell did you stubbornly keep insisting that the argument was invalid without names being named…..even after naming a name yourself, as you claim?
No you ignoramus in logic things can indeed be mutually exclusive as in either/or. The argument I made was logical.
I have shown your illogic, duplicity and lies over and over again.
Shilip,
Calm down dude. I am referring to the following statement of your post 146
You have no means to know it. After Northen India, I had life in 4 continents as I mentioned earlier on and guess you did not read it.
In my first experience of renting an apartment, I asked the Sales Representatvie if there are any Indians in the subdivision and she said she is not allowed to give me that information as it may create bias. She gave me exact same listing that were in the newspaper. I looked at several one of them and settled for a new one. Tell me how can I even doubt if there was any kind of discrimination?
Later she became a friend and asked me:- Why Indians want to rent near Indians? In fact several times people asked her if there were any Tamils/Telgus etc.
If I had good experience in renting I am free to say it and not wiling to accept that I cannot or could not figure out discrimation for any reason made up some people who know everything about me based on four lines that I wrote.
Well then consider that I’ve mentioned my agreement with you in the past:
Just because an argument is logical doesn’t make it convincing. If I say, there’s a lot of Communists working in the state department, that may be a logical statement, it may even be true, but its not convincing. In order to convince you need to present the evidence. name names.
You reformulated in response to my criticism. So i take credit for improving you. I keep repeating it only because you keep asking the same question. so i give you the same answer.
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This doesn’t address my take down of you. I said things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. you reply that they can be. sure, they can be, but its still not necessary. ergo, your claim that your argument is unvague because i agreed with it is flawed…because one can indeed agree with a vague claim. in fact, its because i agree with your claim that i’m taking you to task for your unconvincing arguments. you make me look bad. not unlike the vile racsim of rush limbaugh. you descend into the same unnuanced simplistic biogtry, as you’re beginning to concede, to your credit.
because undocumented anecdotal evidence–the type that i have to back up your claims–is untrustworthy. first its undocumented so no one can check it. its susceptible to observer bias and may be too incomplete. so basically, a good debater doesn’t rely on such hearsay. if you want to win the battle you need to provide actual evidence. which you routinely fail to do. ergo,. you’re making our side look bad.
Ahhhh…the self-hating ABD or DBD are out in full-force.
What would you do if you owned the apartment complex, wanted to keep it fully occupied, and a bunch of Nigerians also wanted to live there. Or is SM full of renters and not owners?