Fair & Lovely - Desiring Whiteness

[Guest]

Came via email from Infinity Foundation:

The Whiteness discussion has now reached a wider audience in America.
Besides being featured in Sulekha, the largest portal for NRIs
worldwide, many mainstream American scholars have now been engaged in
this debate. Please join the whiteness seminar on Oct 15th with Prof.
Amritjit Singh, from Rhode Island College. His workshop title is: I
KNOW I AIN'T BLACK, BUT WOULD YOU PLEASE LET ME BE WHITE: WHITENESS
AND NEW IMMIGRANTS. One of the seminar's main themes is specifically
about Indian-Americans' whiteness tendencies and complexes.

Full column at Sulekha


<b>Angreziyat and relevance of Whiteness in Indian context</b>

Whiteness has to be studied as just another culture. The reason is
that it is currently at the center stage in world affairs, and must be
better understood by Indians. By doing so, many so-called universal
ideas turn out to be relevant largely to the European historical
experience and are no longer seen as universal. This changes how one
sees 'secularism,' for instance - it is the de-Christianizing program
of European Enlightenment, but it did not produce a truly neutral
system as advertised. Once something is not longer universal thought,
others do not have need to imitate it, as it may or may not apply to
their own cultural context.

In the context of Indians' mimicry of the British colonizers, the term
'angreziyat' became popular. Gandhiji used it to attack the English
ways, while making sure to say that he was not against the English
personally as individuals.

So what is the relationship between angreziyat and whiteness? Is the
latter an Americanized manifestation of the former? Is the call center
training (to be a Dallas Cowboys fan, wear a tie in a certain way even
in very hot weather, adopt an American accent and name...) today's
equivalent of angreziyat of 19th century Bengali babus and brown
sahibs?

Could it be that what black American intellectuals and white American
liberals have develped as an academic discipline (i.e. Whiteness
Studies) is related to what Indians already critiqued in its earlier
incarnation as angreziyat?

In the Indian context today, are Valentine's Day, Easter Eggs, etc.
about the spread of whiteness memes in India, given the brand premium
in the job/matrimonial markets? is Valentine's Day issue better
analyzed using whiteness mimicry and not Christianity as the issue? Is
the servility towards Sonia as whiteness complexes among Indians. Has
Gandhi become white in India - from swadeshi to whiteness culture?

Many Whiteness scholars say that terms like "Western civilization,"
are implicit codes for whiteness, in a sophisticated system that makes
white people's philosophies and epistemologies look like some abstract
truths independent of white people, and, hence, their gifts to the
world. This myth is imported into India through various NGOs in the
guise of universalized human rights, ethics etc.


Rationale for Whiteness Studies
-------------------------------

1. It does to white culture what white culture has done for centuries
to others – i.e. it puts whites under the gaze of outsiders. Being
gazed at has the humbling effect of being forced to see one's most
private ideas, practices and rituals as clinical 'data.' Such gazing
at others was the origin of western anthropology and remains its
purpose today. For example, just as Ganesha appears many things to
westerners which Hindus vehemently disagree with, this reverse-gazing
makes the west seem exotic as well, and as being less rational,
universal, etc. than it has been made out to be.

2. This expands the knowledge, because each cultural lens is
different. Knowledge expansion is not to be evaluated by the 'science'
standards, or by things like 'did it solve all problems'. If it adds
insights to what exists that is enough to merit it, no matter how
inconclusive the knowledge remains. (I would submit that cultural
discourse will never have any finality; so on-going expansion is the
best we can strive for.)

3. Many Hindu activists have unsuccessfully tried to argue against the
study of Hinduism by outsiders, and have been accused of obstructing
'academic freedom.' On the contrary, reverse-gazing does not violate
the rules of academic freedom, and in fact expands the academic
discourse. It is a way to equalize by expansion and not by
contraction. Once westerners see themselves gazed at, they better
understand why Hindus have felt embarrassed and even angry at being
objectified as exotica. Many whites have already told me things like,
'Now I understand how self-conscious Indian kids in class must be when
we teach Hindu symbolism as Freudian exotica.' Sometimes a person
understands the other once he is put in the same position.

4. This benefit is not to be loftily dismissed as a mere tit for tat
tactic. Being a tiny minority in USA, Indian/Hindu Americans need this
way to reverse the issues and to relativize the framework when
Indian/Hindu culture is being exoticized. (Experiment: Next time
someone says something strange about Hinduism, tell him that this view
stems from the whiteness gaze. Give him the objective history of the
whiteness gaze, and explain some things you know about Whiteness
Studies as an academic discipline. I have tested this many times. It
works to evoke a sudden gestalt or what the Zen koans try to do. This
is no less legitimate than the statement we are hearing nowadays, that
the positive depictions of Hinduism are simply the upper caste gaze!)

5. Gazing at whiteness also makes white culture relative, and not a
universal norm that is used to judge and measure other cultures. Take
the term 'ethnomusicology', which is the liberal academy's term for
non-white music. So Mozart, Beethoven etc are not 'ethno' music but
simply music. Ethnicity is determined by difference from whiteness,
and this whiteness standard remains invisible to being measured. By
gazing at the invisible frame of reference, it is no longer left
invisible. So it also loses its status as the gold standard. This is
why reverse-gazing troubles so many who are invested in the standard.
(In many ways, this is similar to what post-structuralists have been
doing.)

6. These issues bring Indians' own whiteness mimicry into their
introspection: Am I white, they must ask? If I imagine being white, or
wish I were, do the 'real' whites accept me as white, or is the issue
too discomforting and hence never raised? What more must I do to fake
whiteness? Are other desis impressed by my whiteness, especially
Indians back home? What Homi Bhabha of Harvard has celebrated as
hybridity now becomes seen white mimicry, so this is my intervention
into the Bhabha debate – I await his response to my position that
whiteness is the ground on which mimicry occurs.

7. To understand American history, whiteness is a central theme.
Quoting Sabena Mishra's comment: 'Until early 20th century, American
mainstream society was very clearly and explicitly marked for 'whites
only.' Labor unions were proud of that marker. Laws about property
rights and other areas explicitly delineated white people's rights and
denied the same to blacks. Many public places were branded as white
only. Most colleges (including the 'liberal' Ivy Leagues" had official
regulations to prevent black students.'

8. This prejudice has gone undergone today and is what scholars call
white privilege. Regarding whiteness in today's America, my column
gives some references to on-line articles that explain how white
privilege has gone underground and is operative in the power
hierarchy.

9. Many persons commenting here support the idea of studying
Westology. They should please publish on Westology – I would love to
read their thoughts. Please note I coined that term some years ago and
have tried to popularize that field. (Many years ago, I got
considerable flak from Prof. Sugata Bose and Homi Bhabha of Harvard,
after I gave an address at the Harvard Indology Roundtable advocating
that we should study Westology.) I consider Whiteness to be a subset
and hence leading towards a bigger understanding of Westology long
term.

10. That Whiteness Studies does not adequately explain Europe is no
disqualifier, and it could be seen as a good way to differentiate
between USA and EU culturally.

11. Whiteness enjoys currency already in the academy in the liberal
left, among blacks and Hispanics. Making alliances with blacks to
deconstruct the majority culture is no different than the liberals in
Subaltern Studies in India making alliances with the subaltern people.
Whiteness Studies could be used to counter the harm being done by the
Afro-Dalit Project. That project frames Dalits as the blacks of India
and non-Dalits as India's 'Aryan' whites. The Afro-Dalit Project
mobilizes blacks worldwide against Hinduism. It has caused many
American blacks to see Hinduism as a part of white supremacy, and they
have become co-opted into the theories that divide North/South
Indians, Aryans/Dravidians, upper caste / lower caste, and so forth.

12. Hence, it is an acceptable way to discuss sensitive issues that
would otherwise get thrown out as "Hindutva chauvinism" or something
equivalent.

13. The relationship between whiteness and Christianity, between
Arabism and Islam, etc is fascinating to explore.

Whiteness and American History
------------------------------------------------
For those wishing to understand American history better, and the
explicit role of whiteness in it, here are two references:

Matthew Frye Jacobson, 'Whiteness of a different color,' Harvard
university Press. 1998.

This is an acclaimed academic work that is in use in college courses
on history. It shows how European immigrants, who initially did not
see each other as having a common identity other than being Christian,
after living in America forged a new kind of identity, which they
called 'white.'

In the official language of law, the dominant culture's identity was
called by different terms at different times, such as 'Christian,'
'English,' 'white,' 'Caucasian,' and then again 'white.'

My previously referenced books on how the Irish became white and how
the Jews became white are excellent about those specific communities,
whereas this book covers the ground concerning all European
immigrants.

Jeffrey Hitchcock, 'Lifting the white veil'

This summarizes from many different academic books, in a language for
the common public as his target. Chapter 5 is about the history of
whiteness in America, titled, 'How did it all begin?' Here are some
main section headings, each corresponding to a stage in whiteness'
history:

1607 – 1622: Forging a common identity: This discusses identity
issues
in the first English settlement in America, in Jamestown, Virginia, in
1607.

1623 – 1669: Indeed, but not yet White: This discusses slavery, the
role of English culture in slavery, the role of the church in
slavery...Here is one quote:

'The Reverend Morgan Godwyn, in Virginia on behalf of the Anglican
church in 1667, saw passage of a law there saying the baptizing of
slaves did not result in their manumission. The church figured to take
care of the lives of men and women after their departure from this
earth, while leaving to the kingdom of man those affairs of earthy
presence. The Anglican church developed this line of thought into the
1700s, clearing the religious path towards racial enslavement of
'black' people by a people soon to be named as 'white.''

1670 – 1705: The birth of Whiteness:

While prior to this time, the settlers had called themselves
'Christian' or 'English', the first use of the term 'white' to
describe themselves appeared in 1670 and it was the Protestant
missionaries who used it. Contrasting against these terms, the
'others' were referred to as 'Indians,' 'heathen,' 'blacks' or other
names.

Historian Terrence Epperson is quoted by Hitchcock as follows: 'The
first use of the term 'white' does not occur until 1691, in a law
designed to prevent 'that abominable mixture and spurious issue' which
would purportedly arise from intermarriage between any 'English or any
other white man or woman' and any 'Negro, mulatto, or Indian man or
woman bond of free'...Note also that white is used here only in
conjunction with English...The first unambiguous legislative use of
'white' without the modifier 'English' does not occur until 1705'...'

'By 1705, when new slave codes were enacted, 'black' and 'white' had
become very real.'

1706 – 1780: The (White) rights of men:

'By the mid-1700s the term 'white' was used clearly, unambiguously and
unapologetically in reference to the dominant European-American
culture...White American culture, in turn, pictured itself as English,
and its institutions were decidedly English in origin and custom.'

1781 – 1860: The birth of the White American Character:

'...White Americans clung to the character of European ways as they
understood them. This came to include embracing a self-definition of
white, civilized, and free that set itself against an image of Indians
as not white and not civilized, and black people as not white and not
free.'

The American Revolution changed this whiteness identity into the
requirement for 'being American.' Hitchcock describes this
transformation, saying that 'the love of American freedom and the
hatred of Americans of color became ingrained in white American
culture.'

'The term 'American' by 1815 had come to refer not to Indians but to
'white' people.'

Details on how various European nations' immigrants struggled,
including with violence, to get classified as 'white' are
well-documented in the other books referenced above.

Significance: As new immigrants in America, Indians must understand
its history, especially the history of immigration and the struggles
for 'becoming American.' To ignore this, as many Indians want to do,
would be foolish and would lead to unconscious mimicry and/or
unconscious revolt, both of which are undesirable. Only those who are
well-versed in this historical aspect of 'being American' are able to
confidently discuss issues concerning American society, and negotiate
on behalf of the Diaspora with competence.

So whatever other value Whiteness Studies may or may not have for a
given Indian, it is an important aspect of American history to learn.
Those who put up roadblocks – such as charging that this is not a
'science', that it does not cure AIDS, that it is racist, or whatever
– are preventing the desis from getting out of their boxed-in lives.

Recommended Readings on Whiteness
---------------------------------

1) Prof. Nell Painter of Princeton University is writing her major
book with the title, THE HISTORY OF WHITE PEOPLE.

2) Prof. Toni Morrison wrote her book with WHITENESS in its title and
won the Pulitzer the following year.

3) The first major world conference on WHITENESS was held at UC
Berkeley, and its proceedings came from Duke University (titled, THE
MAKING AND UNMAKING OF WHITENESS).

4) Robert Young's book, WHITE MYTHOLOGIES (Routledge) has become a
widely read reference

[Guest]

Discuss away!

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Some links as an Introduction


http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Memmi.html

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Fanon.html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...433738?v=glance<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->'Whiteness' emerges as study trend

University Wire; 10/3/2002; Joanne Park

University Wire

10-03-2002

(Brown Daily Herald) (U-WIRE) PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- At Brown University and a handful of schools across the nation, courses on "whiteness" are challenging the way scholars think about the study of race.

Professor of Sociology Gordon Morgan at the University of Arkansas is one of a growing number of scholars who have taken a step to define the experience of the majority group in the United States.

Though Morgan initially proposed the idea of a whiteness studies course in 1995, his request was denied. Morgan said he "found a certain amount of resistance to the course from faculty members that feel a little intimidated by the subject matter."

His course, "Special Topics in Whiteness," is now being offered this fall. His students encounter literature from Jeffrey Kaplan's "Encyclopedia of White Power" to Toni Morrison's "Playing in the Dark: Whiteness in the Literary Imagination."

At Brown, Jennifer Roth-Gordon, a research associate at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, teaches a similar course called "Critical Perspectives on Whiteness."

Morgan said his motivation in teaching the course was to "bring to public understanding to the nature of whiteness.

<b>"This concept did not exist prior to the New World ... so that leaves us to find out how it got started, how it is maintained, and what its future is," he said. </b>

<b>Morgan's view of "whiteness" is based primarily on colonialism. </b>

"Ordinary sociology teaches that epochs can stamp personalities. ... During the colonial period, there was an ascendancy of the dominant colonial personality," he said.

What Morgan terms the "colonial personality" reigned from 1500 to about 1950. "<b>One of colonialism's biggest props was whiteness.</b> People have been freed from colonialism. Therefore, the major props supporting colonialism have been superceded," he said.

Morgan cited the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and the liberation of European colonies in Africa as factors further contributing to the fracturing of whiteness.

<b>He said that with current progress in globalization, it is time for a revised definition of whiteness. "This is not an attack on whiteness ... but an attempt to understand that society does not stand still," he said. </b>

Morgan, who is black, said his course was an exercise to analyze the basis for change, as opposed to an ideological attack.

Morgan said students have responded in positive fashion. The demographic in his course of 24 students is varied, with seven to eight people identifying themselves as white, four to five as mixed race and the remaining students as black.

"Sparks are always flying (in class). There is tension, particularly in the first few days of class," he said.

Morgan said the white students in his class were subdued at first but have come alive recently.

"Now that the class is gelling, the environment is not as hostile. We are getting good discussion, friendships are being made," Morgan said. "Everybody is finding they have to revise what they once viewed as canonical knowledge."

Morgan acknowledged the controversy surrounding the subject matter. "Courses on minority relations or criminology deal with outgrowths of earlier emphasis on whiteness -- so if we construct a good course on whiteness, we could potentially face fewer social science courses on the minority perspective," he said.

Roth-Gordon said whiteness studies are groundbreaking because "white people are taken to be the norm. <b>What whiteness studies do is say that if you really want to understand race, you have to understand what whiteness means as well. When we talk about people of color, that's implicitly comparing them to whiteness." </b>

While she agreed that the Civil Rights movement was a backlash against whiteness, she said the current backlash against Affirmative Action is an indication that whiteness is becoming more pronounced.

Roth-Gordon said her whiteness studies course is not a reaction to the rise of minority perspective courses, but an attempt to critically observe the concept of whiteness and privilege. "Often, by not acknowledging the fact that they have white privilege, they are reinforcing a racial hierarchy," she said.

Jody Green '03 completed his own analysis of whiteness in an independent study last year. Green said whiteness is often undetectable in society. "The U.S. has a lot of rhetoric about racial equality and addresses racism as if it's a tangible thing that can be taken care of ... whereas it's something systemic that infiltrates every institution," Green said. "As a white person, it has been invisible for me where I grew up."

At the conclusion of his study, Green said he better understood "my own whiteness ... especially the implications of (it) when joining in grass-roots campaigns with people of color." Green said his study allowed him to see "just how relevant these issues are to the current debate around TWTP.

"The white people who criticize TWTP seem to do so without a real understanding of their own white self or their white privilege," he said.

"None of (The Herald opinions columnists) ask what the role of white people is in anti-racist campaigns. Such questions can only be asked after there is a consciousness of white self," Green said.

Green echoed Professor Morgan's concerns about the effect of whiteness studies on other ethnic studies courses.

<b>"Whiteness studies have the potential to be good, when used in a proactive way. It becomes problematic when discussions on whiteness become too centered, detracting focus from people of color," </b>he said.


© 2002 Brown Daily Herald via U-WIRE<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Performing Whiteness: Postmodern Re/Constructions in the Cinema.(Book Review)
MELUS; 6/22/2004; Engles, Tim



Performing Whiteness: Postmodern Re/Constructions in the Cinema. Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Albany NY: SUNY P, 2003. 180 pages. $65.50 cloth; $21.95 paper.

While reading Gwendolyn Audrey Foster's study of whiteness in film, I was repeatedly reminded of the Race Game, a thought experiment proposed by Thandeka in Learning to Be White: Money, Race, and God in America. As one of several methods toward raising white consciousness, Thandeka suggests that whites spend a week referring to everyone they mention who happens to be white as a "white" person, just as they, and the media, commonly mark people of color with racial adjectives. Foster sets herself a similar task: "Most commercial American films and television programs are still solidly performed and received as white. What happens when we mark these films and television programs as white constructions? What happens when we call them white films?" (93). In the process of doing so with a wide array of films and a few television programs, Foster demonstrates that the same effort in recent "critical whiteness studies" has only just begun, with much to be learned about how the inherent instability of whiteness as a category requires continual enactment to assert itself.

Recent scholarship on whiteness has included a wealth of articles and books focused on cinema, many of which explicitly build upon what remains the richest study of this sort, Richard Dyer's White (1997). Foster's introductory explanation of her theoretical framework draws on Dyer's work as well, also referencing Butlerian performance studies on the way toward establishing her guiding presumptions: that <b>"whiteness is a performed construct,"</b> and that <b>Hollywood cinema has been centrally constitutive in white America's continuous efforts to shore up iniquitous, inherently unstable categories of race </b>(4). Some readers might consider simplistic or old-fashioned her primary, oft-repeated conception of scrutinizing cinematic whiteness as part of "the Lyotardian breakup of the grand narratives" (137). However, while Foster does not do much to advance the theoretical underpinnings of critical whiteness studies, she does succeed in elucidating the myriad extents to which cinematic performances of whiteness have worked to constitute and support ongoing American fables of race. I also found this study loaded with useful heuristic encapsulations, and often entertaining in its wide-ranging choices for analysis, from early cinema to the present.

Foster begins her study with an overview of key insights from the extensive corpus on the history of whiteness, and then examines the 1934 Motion Picture Production Code, which she reads as a tool in part<b> "designed to maintain the borders of whiteness" against the realities of racial hybridity (34). Of course, white womanhood at the time was conceived as an especially precious site of purity threatened by miscegenation, and Hollywood morality tales regularly punished white female characters who transgressed racialized limitations on desire.</b> While some female actors did provide inspired moments of sexual liberation, they sometimes did so in ways reminiscent of the conflicted white emotional investments in blackface minstrelsy explicated by Eric Lott. While Mae West, for instance, has been read as a subversive celebrant of aberrant sexuality, Foster points out that such performances sometimes relied on appropriation of overheated figurations of black feminine sexuality.

Foster's study refines the parallel to be drawn between white actors of cinematic performance and racial whiteness itself as a scripted enactment. As a counterpart of sorts to blackface, Foster posits the notion of "whiteface," which "involves performing whiteness in such a way that traces of ethnicity are erased [and defining] the cinematic landscape as a white space ... where class and ethnicity are homogenized, sterilized, and largely erased" (47, 51). Since, according to an emergent truism in the recent scholarship, whiteness is ontologically dependent on projected figurations of specified racial and ethnic differences, "whiteface" becomes most apparent in cinema as the rather forced, anxious performance of whiteness itself when white characters are set in interaction with others who are clearly marked as non-white. Foster's delineation of standardized musical motifs that typically accompanied the entrance of such otherness (such as low drum beats for "Indian" characters) is useful here, as is her discussion of characters who try to become white in Alice Guy Blache's short film, Making an American Citizen (1912). Blache has been hailed as a feminist filmmaker, but Foster argues convincingly that she coded her depictions of proper male treatment of women as white by contrasting them with degrading portrayals of ethnic, raced, and classed otherness. Blache's short film about a series of lessons in Americanization undergone by a Russian immigrant family dramatizes how early it was that the unstable conception of standard American identity had to be continually acted out in interaction with both properly white and clearly non-white others, in order to be recognized--yet not recognized--as "white." Here and elsewhere, then, Foster's multifaceted analysis of the dialogue between cinematic and everyday whiteness demonstrates how much, in addition to visually apprehended epidermal difference, race is perceived and embodied as both imitative and contradistinctive performance.

Foster explores the Otherness lodged within white identity in one of her more fascinating chapters, an exploration of films depicting "the bad-white body": "white bodies out of control, invisible bodies, bodies missing hands, brains without skulls, monstrous eyeballs, bodies contaminated by nuclear fallout, bodies at war with their own corporeal existence" (67). Foster convincingly reads such films as The Attack of the 50 Foot Women (1958) and The Brain that Wouldn't Die (1962), and their popularity in the fifties and sixties, <b>as nightmarish returns of a repressed white awareness of its own contamination by hybridity.</b> In this sense, the freaks of "bad-white-body" films, who always must be horribly destroyed, "challenge the integrity and wholeness of whiteness ... as well as the notion of a unified performing self" (emphasis in original 69). When contextualized within their era's contests between resurgent racial otherness and reactionary whiteness, the enraged white bodies chopped into pieces and prodded back to life, or provoked by chemical and nuclear contact into gigantic or tiny proportions, are interpretable as enactments of white fear about its own potential slippages into forms of deviance that are commonly projected onto racialized and ethnic others. Again, though, Foster demonstrates that by acting out an uncaged, violent monstrousness that springs from deviant white bodies themselves, the bad-white bodies in these films allegorize <b>how such deviance is muzzled within whiteness' own falsely unified identity,</b> which is why its manifestations must always be banished. As Foster writes, "Whiteness is above all about sublimating forms of identity.... Dualism exists in the white body and its performances cannot be summoned forth without consequences" (78).

I found Foster's chapters consistently engaging, but at times meandering. One on "Performing the 'Good' White," for instance, sometimes strays from a clear conception of just what "'good' white" means. For the most part, it seems to mean performances that fully repress the sorts of troubling badness enacted in "bad-white-body" films, with badness portrayed instead in secondary characters, who again highlight by contrast the goodness of centralized whites. <b>Foster also repeats Dyer's demonstrations that Hollywood's positive white characters are classed in this way as well--faces and body parts are made-up and lit into pristine whiteness against occasional secondary white characters who have been literally darkened as one signifier of their lower class status.</b> Of more interest are the connections Foster draws between cinematic constructions of white womanhood as relatively silent and attentive, and the gradual silencing (and thus, whitening and feminizing) of appropriate audience behavior. If Foster is right here, and I think she is, there is a gendered, racial foundation to the demand for "respectful" silence in most of today's movie theaters.

Foster's final chapter, "Performing White Otherness," explores cinematic deployments of "race drag," ethnic types, and "white trash" in ways that should prompt further scholarly attention in these areas. Foster ends with a solid analysis of an African film, The "Great White" of Lambarene (1994), Bassek Ba Kobhio's recasting of Albert Schweitzer as an unwitting enactor of colonial arrogance and Eurocentricity. As this closing gesture suggests, perhaps belatedly, the understanding of whiteness as a performance advances more rapidly when we attend as well to analytical depictions of it produced by filmmakers of color.

Works Cited

Dyer, Richard. White. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Lott, Eric. Love and Theft." Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York: Oxford UP, 1993.

Thandeka. Learning to Be White: Money, Race, and God in America. New York: Continuum, 1999.

Tim Engles

Eastern Illinois University

COPYRIGHT 2004 The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnics Literature of the United States<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

I didn't read all those links, but in response to your post in the Rig Veda thread, I'm aware that other cultures traditionally have exhibited this behavior to some extent. But, I dare say that I know a lot of non-whites that don't care about this junk. I'm sorry, but I myself do not find white people to be better-looking than my own kind, or any other non-white for that matter. It's one thing to read articles on the internet, but it's also another thing to actually socialize with hundreds of people and find out how they feel. There are non-whites out there (like me) that aren't that stupid to let the media brainwash us.

There are also white people that prefer the "ethnic look," and think that tanned skin looks healthier than pale skin. I wonder why nobody ever writes articles about that? Does anybody ever question why a lot of whites spend so much money and time to just get a tan? If white skin is so great, why can't they just stay white? Why do they ramble on about which tanning salon is the best? Why do they complain about being "too pale?" Why don't they say that they're happy to be born with pale skin? Or, how come nobody seems to notice that some blonde girls dye their hair black? Why do white girls say that they wish they had their non-white friend's lustrous, black hair? Why does the blue-eyed white girl in my class wear black contacts (Yes, black contacts exist)?

Do Indians and Latinos constantly make threads and brag about the fact that some white people would kill for our skin color and hair? Does that mean we have the right to say that ALL whites want to look "exotic and ethnic"? No. So, there's no doubt that some non-whites put a white person's appearance on a pedestal, but not everybody.



That's why I was irritated at these White Nationalists for assuming that every non-white out there is ridiculously stupid enough to treat them like a God, just because of how they look. Why is it okay for them to be proud of who they are, but we can't? The world is a big place. There's always somebody out there that's going to find these people unnattractive, or disagree with what they're saying.

You know, I wonder why Indian parents throw a fit when their son or daughter brings home a white bf/gf? Why do they complain that their grandkids look too "European?" Why some Indian parents even stop talking to their kids? According the White Nationalist argument, if we worship white people so much, shouldn't Indian parents be jumping with joy when their kid marries a white person?

[Guest]

I have no answers to the questions. <!--emo&:lol:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' /><!--endemo-->

But, suffice to say for now, that one thread is about "talking/thinking <b>of</b> race and RgVeda" and this one is "talking/thinking <b>through</b> race - post, pre - xyz era" ..

[Guest]

You don't have to answer those questions. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo--> It's just something to think about, because the hype is always focused on non-whites "desperately wanting to look white," but nobody seems to notice that white people themselves aren't too happy about looking "white" either.

When confronting a white person as to why they tan and such, they get defensive and say that they have no interest in looking like a non-white. Okay, well, then don't point fingers at non-white women for experimenting with their looks by changing their hair color or what not. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='rolleyes.gif' /><!--endemo--> Just to let you all know, a lot of Desi girls (including myself) don't dye our hair to look like a "white woman," regardless of all the stereotypes you hear out there. Believe it or not, even contact lenses aren't worn to look "white." I wore colored contacts during highschool, because I just wanted to try something "new." If you're a female, you would understand the concept of not wanting to look exactly the same for years and years. Some girls just like a change every now and then.

Yes, I'm sure that there are some Desi girls that dye their hair and wear contacts to look "white," but not all of us. Anyways, many Desis still look distinctively South Asian, even when they use such cosmetics. If they want to pass of as white, they're not going to accomplish much. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

The Global Privileges of "Whiteness"

[utepian]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Does anybody ever question why a lot of whites spend so much money and time to just get a tan?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

The answer is encapsulated in singer Mariah Carey's response upon seeing a famine ravaged Somalian(paraphrased):- "Gawd, she is so thin, wish I could be like her"! <!--emo&:flush--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Interestingly, I used to have Tanzanian friend who claimed, although dark she was on the fairer side of Tanzanians. This she believed increased her chances of finding a good Tanzanain mate.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Modern India's complex connection with complexion
(Opinion)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Art.../INDIA06/\
TPInternational/Asia

Modern India's complex connection with complexionBy MIKE MCPHATE
Monday, June 6, 2005
Special to The Globe and Mail

NEW DELHI -- The young woman with pretty eyes and flawless diction aspires to celebrity. But her skin is too brown. One day, her sister hands her a tube of Fair & Lovely skin-lightening cream.

Flash forward. She's decked out in heels and a pink sari, her hair is styled in willowy curls like a film star, and her dusky complexion is pale, nearly as white as her smile. She lands her dream job as a cricket commentator. Mom wipes a joyful tear.

The storyline of such television advertisements, packaged by turn in
themes of love and career, has helped to propel a blossoming market for skin whiteners in South Asia. It exploits a deeply rooted but largely unchallenged reality: to the Indian gaze, dark skin is ugly.

"Racism has become a part of the Indian psyche," Pavan Varma, author of Being Indian, said in an e-mail. "The real irony is that a brown nation looks down on the dark."

India, home to one-sixth of humanity and birthplace of four major
religions, is a country bursting with variety. Inhabitants speak more than 1,500 native tongues, cook from at least 35 regional cuisines and align with as many as 772 registered political parties. Comprised largely of sunny tropics and deserts, most of its people have coffee-coloured skin.

But the sirens of Indian cinema and fashion are with few exceptions tall, slender and honey-hued. It's a colour worn by Aishwarya Rai, the green-eyed former Miss World and paragon of Indian beauty, but possessed by a small fraction of the general population.

Each Sunday, the fair ideal is put on display in the marriage ads that run in Indian newspapers. Male suitors request slim bodies, expertise in household work and skin tones from within the narrow band of "fair" to "extremely fair."

At least 75 per cent of Indian women aspire to lighter skin, according to Hindustan Lever Ltd., maker of Fair & Lovely products.

Studies of southern Asian women in the United States and Canada have found that the darker their complexion the less pretty they feel.

"They believe they are like an onion -- that the inner part is much more shiny bright," says Delhi dermatologist Rishi Parashar, who often sees patients arrive with rashes after applying bleach to their skin. "These people will never be happy."

Indian anthropologists say the preference is ancient, carved into the culture by waves of light-skinned invaders, most recently the British, who left natives with the stubborn notion that they were inferior. The complex spans both city and village, where the majority reside, and afflicts women and men.

Women have invented a variety of tone-battling techniques. In the sunny summer months, they shield themselves with scarves, gloves and big-brimmed hats. They soak their bodies in combinations of milk, honey, lemon, cucumber and almond juice, eating the same during pregnancy with the hope of producing pearly-complexioned children.

With the rise of India's economy and birth of a 300-million-strong middle class, an appetite has risen for more modern strategies.

Western companies such as Avon, Estée Lauder and Revlon have responded with an armoury of new skin-lightening products, commonly containing bleaching agents like hydroquinone and Kojic acid. In the past five years, the fairness-cream market has grown by roughly two-thirds to more than $230-million (U.S.).

Ashok Venkatramani, a spokesman for Fair and Lovely, the leading brand, said in a statement the company does not promote fairness. Women's desire for lighter skin is equivalent to a desire for different hair colour, he said.

The cricket commentator ad, and others like it, he said, "does not condemn a woman who is not fair. It simply delivers the message that it is possible to change one's outlook towards life."

Some observers are careful to distinguish India's colour preference from the kind of racism practised elsewhere, such as apartheid-era South Africa, which involved systematic repression of those with darker skin.

But there are parallels. Tone is not just a measure of beauty in India; it is also a mark of caste. It's believed that caste occupations were originally decided by skin colour, with dark-skinned people assigned to the latrines and light-skinned people assigned to the Hindu clergy.

Thousands of years later, the colour-caste correlation is diluted, but still loosely in place. Aggressive affirmative-action programs have bettered the lives of many at the bottom but India is not nearly yet a land of equal opportunity.

"Caste may not be the same as race. But discrimination has gone on for thousands of years," says Uma Kant, a leading campaigner for Dalits, the so-called untouchables who continue to face cruelty, especially at the village level.

In recent years, some signs of resistance to the fair-skin ideal have surfaced. The portrayal of white privilege in Fair & Lovely ads prompted outcry from women's groups and intellectuals. Fashion bosses point to the success of dark-skinned model Ujjwala Raut, and edgy new Indian films have begun employing browner actors in leading roles.

Radhika Basu, a 24-year-old graduate student at the Indian Institute of Management, says she feels little pressure to whiten up.
"Friends used to tease," Ms. Basu said of her mahogany-toned skin.

"Grandmothers too." The taunts would hurt her feelings. But no more, she said. With her education and "because of the kind of person I am," she says she feels totally comfortable in her skin. "I am single, and if I went in for arranged marriage, I may come across people who would prefer a fair bride," she said. "But then I'd hate to marry into such a family anyway."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<b>Fair is lovely, but dusky is sultry</b>

by Vinod Nair


It’s all in the mind. And the mindset is a-changing. The dusky complexion is now a very inherent part of skin-deep beauty. If Halle Berry and Naomi Campbell spell haute property in the West, back home, ‘fair’ is lovely, but so too is the sultry look.

Dusky girls rule the fashion runway -- this impressive line-up includes Nina Manuel, Sheetal Mallar, Carol Gracias, Nethra Raghuraman, Laxmi Menon, Diandra Soares.

‘‘Ever since I started out, I have never faced any problems at fashion shows because of the colour of my skin,’’ says Nina Manuel, ‘‘But yes, TV commercials and print ads always seem to favour fair-skinned girls! Anyway, even if there is discrimination -- real or perceived -- let it be. I am successful and happy!’’

According to Sheetal Mallar, ‘‘Initially, it was tough for me, but things have changed. I believe that ads have always preferred fair-skinned girls. If they have light eyes, that’s even better! But the dusky complexion is just fabulous for runway shows and designer shoots.’’

Carol Gracias is another model who believes that the dusky look has slowly, but surely, come to be accepted. ‘‘Many a time, I went home disappointed because of the general perception about dark skin. Just imagine, I have done all of two commercials!’’

Beauty, they say, is skin-deep. Perceptions, however, seem to go deeper than the skin. And this makes Carol feel sore. ‘‘A majority of people in our country are dark-skinned. And most products are targeted at them. So, why do people want to use only fair girls in ads?’’ It’s a question of answers. And desi models are certainly not in the dark.




http://ads.indiatimes.com/ads.dll/c...=699&slotid=547

[Guest]

Thanks for acknowledging that the previous article (modern indian culture's obsession with lightness) is an opinion, but I'm honestly getting sick of this particular article. I've seen it posted numerous times by white people (as they attempt to portray it as a fact) to make other Indians feel backward and bad about their own people, as well as their own skin color. This article wasn't even written by an Indian man. How would whites feel if a Hindu sage tried to dictate how white people are?


So, this author thinks that skin color is an indicator of caste, huh? Geez, I guess that means Vajpayee and Nobel Peace Prize Winner V.C Raman must be untouchables. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='rolleyes.gif' /><!--endemo-->



Aishwarya Rai doesn't have green eyes. Has this man never heard of colored contacts?

Her eyes are brown, regardless of whether she wants to admit it or not (or whether her fans want to admit it or not).

The proof lies here:


http://forums.ratedesi.com/attachment.ph...entid=1578



http://forums.ratedesi.com/attachme...tachmentid=1580


On top of that, I don't think the "hiring of brown actresses" is something recent. I'm not an expert on Bollywood movies, but some of the older actresses appear to be brown-skinned in films as well. For example, Rekha, Jaya Badhuri, Amitabh Bachaan, Nandita Das and Smita Patil. Vajyanti Mala was widely recognized as fair, but I have seen a few pictures of her when she looked brown.

[Guest]

Well this article was in a pinko forum, so take it for what it's worth <!--emo&:lol:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

At a recent weekend party, a visitor from India mentioned about this new cream for men called "Fair and Handsome". Here is an article about this cream.

---------------------------------
Every Saturday night, Alok meets his buddies at a theka on the state border for their weekly drinking session. Over Kurkure and Royal Stag, the boys discuss women, work and the world. But the one thing they have an unspoken pact not to discuss about is the tube of fairness cream stashed away in their cupboards.

The obsession with fair skin is nothing new. According to reports, India's "fairness industry" accounts for 60% of skincare sales and brings in USD $140 million annually. 75% of matrimonial ads ask for a fair bride, with some even specifying that fair means 'gori' and not an impartial female.

But what has traditionally been considered a woman's concern is proving to be as much a guy thing. According to surveys conducted by companies that endorse fairness creams, approximately 32 per cent of the buyers of such creams are men, not women.

Kaya Skin Clinic reports that approximately 50% of their clients are men, with most wanting to go in for chemical peels for a "brighter complexion". Agony aunt columns carry desperate letters from teenaged boys seeking advice on what to wear so that they appear fairer. Indeed, screen icons like Hrithik Roshan, Saif Ali Khan and John Abraham are all fair skinned. On the contrary, dark horses like Abhishek Bachchan and Ajay Devgan had to struggle much more before they tasted success. Bollywood apart, the metrosexual male is in general popular topic of conversation. "This whole metrosexual thing has been blown out of proportion. What started out as a label for men who were well-groomed and presentable, has ended with Shahrukh Khan lathering his soft fair hands in a tub full of rose petals," says Dr. Shweta Narang.

However, some people find it hard to believe these studies and surveys that show men buy fairness creams. "Metrosexual or not - men are not going to go out and buy a cream that explicitly promises fairness. These companies were better off simply making the original. At least then men could steal them from their women or use it on the pretext of nothing else being available!" said business Naresh Mathur.General Secretary of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) Sudha Sundarraman claims that it's the companies that sell the products that are responsible. She says that these products first create a demand by making fairness an attribute to look up to (ostensibly through advertising), and then milk the market for their own profit. According to her, after women, men are simply being made targets of beauty myths that have been spun by magazines and advertising agencies. "This is nothing but a result of the consumerist and commoditisation that has come to prevail in our highly globalised world."

Dermatologist Preya Sidhwani finds the process futile. "If males are now being targeted, it's equally discriminatory and disgusting. Such creams only propagate false theories that low on melanin translates into high on beauty- it doesn't make one better over the other," said dermatologist Preya Sidhwani.

There is, however, a silver lining to it all. Sundarraman believes that the fight against gender discrimination just found an unlikely crusader in the fairness cream for men. The product is being seen as a catalyst to unite the sexes against discrimination based on ones skin colour. "Such products might have a positive effect by uniting the sexes against discrimination against one's skin tone," she said.

"Women have been struggling with the fairness stereotype for eons. Instead of tending to that, these companies are destroying the image of the tall, dark and handsome guy - it's just a matter of time before men revolt," says Aniruddh Sarkar, an MBA student.

But while women's groups might be viewing this as an opportunity for men and women to join hands to knock off skin tone discrimination altogether, Shahrukh Khan has just been signed on by Emami as its latest brand ambassador.

Cashing in on this so-called trend is a Kolkata-based cosmetics company that has launched a fairness cream specially designed for men, since they have tougher and thicker skin. The cream is based on the premise that men have long wanted fair skin just like women. It offers the reassurance that they don't have to sneak through women's purses anymore. This throws up an obvious question, why are men sneaking through women's purses for this stuff in the first place?Anoop Verma opines on his blog: "In today's world, white skin represents wealth, comfort, success, and a modern way of life and that is what makes it a thing of beauty. Dark men around the world covet to lighten the hue of their skin because they want to become a part of successful white man's club."

Delhi-based psychologist Meera Avtar corroborates this view: "The concept is around a 1000 years old and has much to do with the colonists. It's not that they colonised countries because they were white - It's just that since they were the ones in power, their skin tone has been equated with supremacy and success."

Historical speculation is not the only "culprit". <b>The media is often held responsible for focussing on fair-skinned individuals, giving the impression that they have 'arrived'. "Take a look around and you'll see that all the people being passed off as role models don't look a thing like the average Indian!"</b> says Interior designer Karthik Nair

[Guest]

<b>Indian men go tall, fair and handsome </b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>'Wheat fields' </b>
The domestic skin-lightening cream industry is valued at over $190m - a strong indicator of the great Indian obsession with fair skin.
  
Mothers are known to tell their daughters not to play in the sun and to be sure to apply sunscreen when they go out because no man would want a dark bride.

Editor of men's magazine, Man's World, Jerry Pinto, says most dark-skinned men are as insecure as women and go to equal lengths, albeit secretly, to achieve lighter skin.

"I don't think men share this notion of tall dark and handsome," he says.

"In India, it's tall, fair and handsome. A look at the matrimonial section, which is a very good way of seeing how men look at themselves, there's not one guy who admits to being dark and attractive, they just say we are wheatish and fair.

"So there is just not one dark-skinned person in this country, they are all rolling wheat fields of masculinity."

Prof Shallini Bharat, a socio-psychologist with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, believes this complex is a result of the country's history.

<b>"India's rulers have always been fair, be it the Aryans in the early centuries or Europeans in later years. Fairness is equated with superiority, power and influence, therefore the preference for lighter skin." </b> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Most advertisements for the creams tend to portray that dark skin will hold a person back, whereas fair skin will mean social acceptance and even success in the chosen profession, as well as among the opposite sex.

The advert for the male cream shows a dark-skinned college boy relegated to the back seat and ignored by the girls until he uses the product. Soon enough, his complexion lightens and girls flock to him like moths to a flame.

Prof Bharat says this sort of advertising is not good for Indian society as it promotes fair skin in a country where a large percentage of the population is dark
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

The Indian as "Black White" and as "Nigger"

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->OUT OF LINE- Neither fair nor lovely
  Indians are perpetrators as well as victims of institutionalised racism
  BY RUCHIR JOSHI
  Link
A FOREIGNER friend once asked me: “What is it you hate most about Indians?” The question had me silent for a long while because the list was a very long one. How to pick and privilege one thing from such a full cornucopia of detestations? We are dirty and unhygienic. We are corrupt, greedy and smallminded. We are braggarts who are actually full of self-pity. As individuals we tend to have contempt for anyone who has less money than us or is ‘lower’ in the caste ladder. As Indian men, we have taken misogyny to greater heights than most other societies in the world. We are violent and cowardly... Ah yes, “As a society we are deeply, deeply racist,” I replied.
What I should have said is we are very racist towards others but even more so towards ourselves.

It’s shameful but true that we are institutionally and individually racist towards people with dark brown skin, especially if they come from Africa rather than from America or Europe. Equally, anyone possessing what our upper-middleclass poetically calls ‘chinky features’ — whether they be Tibetan, Nepali, or from parts further south and east — will have experienced at least unspoken racism. Some from the North-eastern states will even have faced it from the muzzle of a paramilitary semi-automatic rifle.

Now, it’s bad enough that a majority of us think of other people of colour as strange and inferior. What is worse — the flip-side of our projected racism — is that we have swallowed and made part of our psyche the skin-hierarchy of our erstwhile masters. So deep is that training of over two centuries that, even 60 years after Independence, generations of Indians who have never known the Raj still tend to go into ji-huzoor mode before a Whiteskinned person.

This bowing and scraping acceptance of the superiority of those, whom one Jamaican lady in London used to refer to as ‘pinkypeople’, goes from the surface into much deeper areas, into places of the being where it can get hard to pinpoint.

At the most obviously visible level you have the grotesque servility of staff at tourist-heavy sites. Watch hotel door men when they open doors for goras, and then compare this to when they open doors for the darker pigments. It’s not just ‘big bakhsheesh’ you will see turning in their eyes as the bow goes just that teeny bit lower and the smile just that fraction wider. Even though service people depend on all customers for their livelihood, they don’t do the same fawning, kow-tow dance for, say, Arabs or rich-looking Malaysians and Koreans, and very rarely for a desi, unless he happens to be well-known or a billionaire.

You can observe the same thing with waiters and barmen. Wait and watch at any busy 5-star bar or cocktail reception and you will see the pinky-person automatically getting served first. It’s not even as if he or she has to do something like actually jump the queue (though some do, with an ugly insouciance). It’s just that the waiter with the tray of drinks will magically reach them first. Or the barman’s eyes will tunnel through everybody else and find the one Caucasian face that’s there with a cheery ‘And what can I get you, sir?’ Switching from this, let me recount two recent meetings with friends, both of whom have spent a long time working in India for quasigovernmental organisations of two different First World countries. Sitting with the first friend, I got into a discussion about money. Because he had worked for nearly 30 years for a rich Western country, I assumed his salary would reflect that. Not a bit of it. When we reached that stage of the evening when one can discuss salaries and incomes, he told me his pay — the equivalent of what a middle-level TV or ad executive would earn, say someone in their mid-30s who’d been working at the job for five or six years. “And what does your boss get?” I asked, his boss being a younger know-nothing from the mother country of the organisation. “Oh, her… she gets the pay she would get at home, naturally” (i.e., a huge amount for India.) When I tried to probe a bit deeper, my friend, on whose clever and indefatigable shoulders the entire organisation has run for a quarter-century, put a lid on the discussion: “Forget all the liberal veneer. Fundamentally all these guys are racist.” A similar discussion with my other friend, who had just left the job she’d been doing for 15 years, yielded the same words. “At first I thought it was just one or two odd people who were like that. But now I have to accept that most of them have a gora aadmi-kaala aadmi divide in their heads. They are, most of them, racist.” Now, I have known both these friends for a long time and I would not say they were unhappy in their jobs on a daily basis. They are both strong, self-respecting people and I wouldn’t imagine either would put up with out and out racism for a moment. But the subtle, ongoing, bland, institutional ‘this is not us, this is our system’ had finally got to both of them. The question, of course, is how come they put up with it for so long?

I don’t think the answer is in their paychecks. I think the answer is that civility, intra-personal war mth and the edifice of each country’s ‘system’ fooled otherwise intelligent people into believing they were getting the best deal possible. As Indians.

Move away from this and think about the visits of Clinton, Blair, Rumsfeld, Rice and Bush. Or move away even from the well-fingered Anglo-Saxons and try and recall the footage of the visits of Chirac or whichever German Chancellor who came last. Forget about the main players, (I would especially exempt the Sardarji who shuffles along affably no matter who is walking next to him) but look closely at the minor ministers and Indian officials at the margins of the frame. Again, compare their body language to when they receive someone like Mandela, Assad or Suharto. What you will see is the extra bend of the waist, an extra stiffness whenever there is a pinky VIP around, and a much more relaxed air when it’s a person of colour not Condi Rice.

The fact is, some bizarre genetic and historical programming has made us servile and sycophantic by default when we come face to face with people of Euro-Nordic descent. And this cuts from grand state dealings to the micro-daily exchanges on our streets.

It’s as if a cancerous fairness cream that has trickled into our DNA controls us whether we are discussing the purchase of fighter planes and nuclear technology, the commissioning of a TV documentary for a European channel, the delicate pan-fried bekti on the a la carte menu or the purchase of a camel belt at Pushkar. It’s neither fair nor lovely, and it’s about time we washed it off.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[agnivayu]

Before we start bashing and spitting on our own race, let's not forget that skin color discrimination is 10 times greater in East Asia and the Middle East, there is even an ancient Chinese saying 'Fair skin is equivalent to three blemishes'.

BTW, with Blacks in the U.S., there was and still is subtle but extensive discrimination between the fairer and darker skinned.

Latin America the skin color discrimination is obivious with their racist christian caste system. Interesting how every leader of Mexico is a White guy (even Vincente Fox today), when the country is like 6% White and is overwhemingly Mestizo. This is very common in South America also, Hugo Chavez is one big exception, that's partly why he is hated because he wants to break the Christian caste system.

Discrimination in the West is obvious, I think it's funny to see racist Skinheads and Klansmen especially in the U.S. south when it was their own ancestors who brought Africans over. So even their ancestors believed in a diverse society and not a racially pure one.


It's important to point these things out, so Indians don't start thinking that everybody else is wonderful and tolerant while only Indians are evil.

[Guest]

their ancestors brought black slaves not because they believed in ethnically diverse society, but because they wanted free labour hands to work in the cotton fields.

btw, whats the christian caste system you speak of?? details would be nice.


also i'd like to know exactly how many members are willing to settle for a spouse who would be considered "Dark" by indian standards. how many would prefer a Nandita das or Madhaven over a Ravina Tandon or a Rahul Bose. Be dead honest. Sometimes words need to be backed by actions, so i ask how many of you are willing to practice what you preach.

[agnivayu]

I think both are true, the southern U.S. ancestors certainly did not believe in the racially pure society that is advocated by White Nationalists, they didn't consider Blacks as human and wanted the free labor, but they had no problems living alongside them. They just considered them inferior.

Here is a really good website I stumbled upon regarding the caste system in Latin America, BTW caste is a CHRISTIAN PORTUGUESE word so that itself should trigger something, they didn't invent that word to explain what was happening in India.

http://www.zonalatina.com/Zldata55.htm


Here is another website on Japanese untouchables (Burakumin):

http://ballz.ababa.net/uninvited/burakumin.htm

Even today, before marriage in Japan, they check for any Burakumin ancestry. Even Employers do that, which is much worse than what Indian Corporations would do.



<!--QuoteBegin-ben_ami+Mar 26 2006, 09:22 AM-->QUOTE(ben_ami @ Mar 26 2006, 09:22 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->their ancestors brought black slaves not because they believed in ethnically diverse society, but because they wanted free labour hands to work in the cotton fields.

btw, whats the christian caste system you speak of?? details would be nice.


also i'd like to know exactly how many members are willing to settle for a spouse who would be considered "Dark" by indian standards. how many would prefer a Nandita das or Madhaven over a Ravina Tandon or a Rahul Bose. Be dead honest. Sometimes words need to be backed by actions, so i ask how many of you are willing to practice what you preach.
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