Only a white bigot or a very ignorant, impressionable person ensconced in privilege will say racism doesn’t exist. You encounter it everywhere — the blogosphere, predominately white countries and hell, even in Asia. You’ll find the puritanical preacher from the deep South, arriving in ‘poor impoverished India, where the cheats and scammers live, the crude layabouts loiter, and vulgar, illiterate savages piss on the streets and don’t bathe regularly,’ giving us poor sods the gospel while living in a five star gated colony with a heated swimming pool, and flying to Goa during church camps while he makes us take the bus.
“There’s nothing wrong with having money,” he’ll say. “It’s the love of money that’s wrong,” and you’ll wonder if a six-bedroom apartment, parties every weekend with other white folk and a few Indian sycophants who worship his drawl, expensive wine, golf, and scuba diving falls under just having good money without loving it.
Then there’s the blog world. You’ll see the extremely conservative, white old man with an all white family following blogs by white authors only, but making sure he likes a post about racism. That’s one way to assuage the guilt, I guess. Then the strange white, middle-aged man leaving flirtatious comments on the blogs of good looking Indian women (irrespective of if they write well or not), but never following an Indian man who writes well. The double standards I tell you! Why don’t you simply admit that you’re racist, but lust-driven at the same time? You don’t want the ‘ugly, tobacco-chewing, unwashed, unclean, third world brown man,’ but there’s something about that brown woman with a nice bum that makes you toss aside your white wife, white friends, and convulse in desi-throes.
Then there’s the white woman who’s a racist. Post a poem that’s decent under your real (unpronounceable to her) name, and she won’t bother following you. Post the same poem under an anglicised pseudonym like Mark, and voila, she’ll leave a beautiful, long comment. Comment on her post as Ravindranath and you’ll get a curt, one word response. Comment as John, and you’ll get an essay length one with emoticons.
Then there’s racism in real life. There are degrees to this. If I were a brown man with an American accent who grew up there, I’m better off than being a brown man with an Indian accent who went there to study. You’ll find videos of some sick, twisted, abominable white man hating on an Indian, saying, “How dare you come here? Why do you want to live off the white man’s land?” And the poor, brown bugger walks in circles, not knowing what to say because if he said, “Listen, you crow shit skinned ignoramus. Who asked you to colonise us? Steal all our produce. Divide us and rule. Destroy our way of living,” the white dude might scream, throw hands, or worse, pull out a gun. So, the poor Indian continues walking aimlessly, enduring venomous garbage.
Finally, is racism innate or something learnt? I believe it’s something learnt, but this is where our woke warriors and BLM supporters (who I think is a nefarious organisation run by frauds who stole millions from people and did nothing except build enormous houses for themselves) get it all wrong. Now don’t get me wrong. Do black lives matter? Yes. Just like Indian lives and Chinese lives matter. Are people of colour treated poorly in the West? Yes. Does white privilege exist? Yes. But I’m not for a moneymaking scam that makes moolah out of these truths. Especially one that doesn’t give back to the community they collected so much from.
Moving on, some bizarre freaks go to the extent of saying that classifying darkness as evil and light as good is racist. What in the world are we coming to? People learn to be racist. It’s ignorance, upbringing, the people that surround you, the internet, terrible experiences, etc that make a person a racist. Everyone has their prejudices. Nobody is open-minded. Some prejudices might even be healthy. For example, you might be a ‘prude’ who hates pre-marital sex. Some might frown upon it while others might like it. It might be just something you believe in and stick to. So what’s wrong with it? Nothing.
But then, prejudices which lead to hate, and sometimes violence, aren’t helping anybody. But that prejudice itself isn’t something that a neutral law causes, or something you’re born with. It’s something you learn. Just like wokeism. Being woke and cancelling everyone who disagrees with you, robbing them of their livelihoods because of something said, and pushing your views on everyone is just as big a horrible prejudice as racism is.
And I believe that a black or brown person can also be racist. Call it reverse racism or whatever, but it’s present. A lot of Indians hate people from the north-east, using derogatory terms to stereotype them. That’s an example of racism by Indians against Indians. It’s tragic.
Anyhow, I digress. I’ll end this by reiterating that racism exists. I saw it in the white guy who asked me if I knew the song Hotel California and then said he was super impressed, and in the white guy who asked if we could beat up the police in my country. Imagine him even considering something like that in the US. It’s everywhere. But it’s something that people learn because for every racist I’ve encountered, I’ve met many people from other countries who are genuine, empathetic and not judgemental.
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Ordinary Person 
6 responses to “Racism (Hot take)”
Racism is learned, by socialization, we watch the adults in our lives, and, we behave like them, and, these patents now, are racists, or way too, conservative, so, the next generations are like so too.
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Wow. I’ll have to disagree with almost every point in this article… but I guess that’s my white fucking privilege speaking, right? Heaven forbid a WHITE person have a fucking opinion. Wow. Talk about a racist against white people commentary.
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So white privilege doesn’t exist? White folks don’t come to India (a country you’ve never been to) and treat us like crap, preaching the gospel while complaining about the beggars, and dirty Indians? White people in India don’t fly first class during church camps while asking the rest of us to take the bus? White people don’t condescendingly applaud us for knowing Hotel California (which everyone fucking knows)? White people aren’t Karens asking people to go back to their fucking country? A white person is entitled to his opinion even if it involves degrading a person of colour? Great! Nothing I’ve mentioned here is fiction. You’ll find myriad videos online, and I’ve experienced racism in my own freaking country. But still a white person must have their opinion, even if it involves pulling down someone else. And I’ve mentioned in the last paragraph that my opinion doesn’t involve all white people. Only the bigots. I’ve even said that racism isn’t inherent, but something learned. I’ve also said that black people and Indian people can be racist. So how is this racist against white people? Having said that, if you’re triggered by this, then you know where you stand. No point even explaining it to you. Maybe this video will give you an idea. But you’ll probably agree with the white man saying he’s just stating his opinion. And I’m sure a lot of white racist bums here, jobless and perverted will agree with every word you say.
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Wow. That’s a shitty way of being to me Nitin, who has claimed to be my friend for what, five years? I’ve met plenty of racist black people and plenty of Natives. I’ve met a few racist white people too. But I refuse to sit here and not be able to share MY opinion because I look like a white person. Your response to ME tells me everything i need to know about YOUR racism to white people. Is every Indian perfect? No. Is every white? No. Is every Italian? No. Is every black? No. Putting a huge group of people in a bullshit box is racist. I agree, it’s completely fucked up for a group of people to come into another country and try to say that your way is wrong or to try to cookie cutter mold you into their image. Believe me, I know. I live in a place where Native culture has been demonized and railroaded by orthodox religions to the point most natives don’t remember what the old ways were. It breaks my heart and in my house we attempt to remember and practice as many of our traditions as we can. My father-in-law, being in his mid-eighties is one of the last remaining folks in my community who remembers life here before the roads and before Alaska was made a state of the United States.
I’m not going to watch the video. The title “parasite invader” rubs me the wrong way and I’m not going to allow perverted, disgusting mindsets or behavior into my life. I have a REAL life, as a mother and a wife, as an artist and as a community member, as a writer and a farmer. My tribe is very important to me and is important to my family. I have no tolerance for those who are trying to take over my community. But I’m not ignorant enough to sit here and say every religious person is racist or every white person is racist or every -insert skin color here- person is blameless.
My “trigger” as you claim, is in the self-righteous attitude, making grand claims about me or any other person. The only person you REALLY know is YOURSELF. The blanket statements you’ve made are weak and small-minded and I was disappointed to see them coming from you, someone who I had, until this, had great respect for you and have often enjoyed reading your pieces and the deep thought that goes into them. But this… this is wrong. Every person is allowed to have an opinion and a way of life… even if you disagree with it. That means bigots get an opinion. That means white people get an opinion. That means Muslims and Buddhists and Christians and pagans and adults and children and Indians and Russians and South Africans and homeless and rich and everything in between gets an opinion, even if you disagree with their point of view.
I’m sorry that this is the way you want to handle disagreement. It’s disappointing. Thank you for letting me write my comments on your blog.
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I’m not agreeing with Tara. I think she misinterpreted your intent. The evangelists coming to India, can sometimes be quite mad. There was that guy who went to the Andaman islands and got killed by the tribals living there. I think you’ve had a somewhat skewed experience of white people.
That said, a lot of racism does exist, and MAGA flags can be quite scary for coloured people in America, especially since there is no real gun control there. Racists exist in almost every country now. Progress was made, but now we seem to be heading backwards. There are people in every society who view themselves as the ‘master race.’ Hateful organizations like the neo nazis and the KKK are tolerated by the rest of society, which is not a good thing.
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Yeah she misinterpreted my intent. I wasn’t intending to be racist against white people. Maybe I’ve had bad experiences with the ones that come here, and that shaped what I had to say in a big way. Looking back I feel this post was too provocative. The guy who got himself killed is an example of someone trying to push his perspective on people of a completely different culture without heeding any warning, or taking their way of living into account. It’s a tragic tale. But he’s a guy who actually seemed to have wanted to reach out and not one who wanted to use Indians and treat them like crap, while living in mansions, etc.
I don’t think anyone can deny that racism exists. I think some people vote republican because they’re against abortion, etc. Having said that, the ones who are for the cult of Trump, and defend him despite what he says or does are creepy, and can be racist. You have a lot of white supremacists endorsing him. And you’re right. Racism exists in every country. Even the caste system here is a form of terrible racism. And tolerating organisations like the KKK and neo-Nazis tells us what we need to know about the kind of society we’re living in.
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