Are We All Secret Racists?
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Sundararaman Viswanathan | Jun 05, 2009
“Contemporary racism is not conscious, and is not always accompanied by dislike, so it gets expressed in indirect, subtle ways.” Jack Dovidio
Recently, when I saw and read about hate crimes and racist attacks, my heart went out to the college kids who bore the brunt of attacks. It must have been traumatic for the parents who saw their kids on television with horrific injuries! Punitive action should be taken against the attackers – no doubt!
But, if you think a little deeper, what we witnessed was just another case of random violence which went terribly wrong, and the ramification was severe because the attacker and victim were of a different skin colour!
Why do people with darker skin need to feel that they are facing “racial” discrimination? Do dark skinned people implicitly admit that fairer skinned people are superior? Are dark skinned people not racist or discriminatory as well?
Consider the following situations…
1. A trader at a tourist location charging more for a bottle of water from a “foreigner” than he would for a fellow country man.
2. Our own Indian government which charges different rates for foreigners and citizens to visit Taj Mahal. I am quoting this as an example because, if our government had built the monument and is collecting a toll to recover the investment, it would be absolutely acceptable to have a two-tier admission fee. But, we invited the tourists and encourage them to travel to India and see the best of it, didn’t we? Why discriminate against them?
3. In India, it’s a common sight to see “chinkis” (someone please sue me for using this word) from the North Eastern states waiting on us or cleaning up in restaurants. Why? Do we secretly believe that this is their core competence?
4. “Sardarji” jokes are the most popular e-mail forwards!
5. We all love making fun of “Madrasi” accents when Indians from the south speak Hindi!
6. Reservations for “SC/ ST / OBC / MBC / BC” – Oh my God! What s blatant admission of our racist or discriminatory behavior!
7. Why on earth is “Fair and Lovely” running ads that encourage people to become fair? Isn’t this the most racist advertisement and product ever? Or are the products catering to a need in some of us who prefer to have lighter toned skin?
8. The so-called representatives of the oppressed class – the political parties, spreading messages like “Tilak, tarazoo aur talwar unko maaro juthe chaar” – which means “Hit the brahmins, businessmen and warrior class with shoes”!
9. Imagine the innumerable situations when we have made fun of foreigners. Think of Incredible India – a campaign run by our Indian government which strives to persuade natives to treat foreigners with respect. Why does the government have to do this if we were not already differentiating people based on color, ethnicity, religion and nationality?
10. After conference calls in IT companies, when we get together to discuss smugly how Americans or whites in general cannot do mathematics and how they are unable to understand a simple concept or design, are we not being racist?
11. How many times have you seen a dark skinned male in a marketing and sales team in our new age IT companies?
12. Let us go a little international.
a. Rwanda – An African country torn apart by civil war between two clans: the Hutus and Tutsis. The only physical feature that separates them is one has a longer nose than the other, nothing more.
b. Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka. Both are dark skinned but there is bloodshed.
c. I am sure an informed African would be able to make a laundry list (Senegal, Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia etc) of the brutalities committed by his own people against his own people in his own continent!
Given these examples, I believe that dark skinned people are just being hypocrites by calling the fairer skinned ones “racists.”
Come to think of it, I believe the term “racism” is used only in cases where a lighter skinned person is the attacker and dark skinned person is the victim. We as humans, by nature, differentiate ourselves on the basis of skin colour, the language we speak, the religion we follow and and so on. But why do we see such rage and media coverage only when we experience discrimination based on the colour of our skin?
I believe that racial discrimination is no bigger evil than any other form of discrimination!
Furthermore, all forms of discrimination we see, hear, do and experience in our day to day lives, eventually culminate in racial profiling and hence I tend to believe that, probably, there is a racist in all of us. It is simply that most of us don’t go around wielding weapons and attacking people. However, we do certainly hurt people, especially those different from us (socially, economically and in any other way less fortunate than us) in many subtle ways (knowingly or unknowingly) in our day to day lives.
There is only so much one could contain using laws and legislations. Humanity has come a long way on the issues of slavery and human trafficking. Beyond these, there are certain human tendencies, which, cannot be overcome but have to be endured. The best we can do is to strive to avoid confrontations or to level the playing field!
In the recent case in Australia, what could we have done differently to avoid confrontation?
Simple: “Be a Roman in Rome”!
When we travel to a foreign land for any purpose, it is our responsibility to integrate as far as possible with the society. We should respect the local customs, culture, values and belief systems. We should accept that we are an alien in a foreign land and should make an effort to understand and adapt to their way of life.
To understand how we can overcome subtle forms of discrimination at the work place, let us take another example. The world has become a “flat” and a multi-cultural work place. There have been stories in the past where racial discrimination formed a glass ceiling for many talented individuals. Today, an Armani suit, a game of golf and standardized wine and dine etiquette, seem to level cultural disparities and have allowed people from a different ethnic backgrounds to take charge of large multi-national companies. Again, the underlying theme is to be a Roman in Rome and immerse oneself in the corporate culture where ever in the world the company might be located.
Let me clarify one thing. When I say “Be a Roman in Rome”, I am certainly not suggesting that you to compromise on your fundamental value system. All I am suggesting is work towards integrating with the alien system instead of standing out. Take the example of a metal plate. When we fix a fracture with a metal plate, the device is designed to integrate with the human body – or at the least not to be allergic to it!
We humans will continue to have our own perspectives, prejudices and in some way or the other discriminate against others for all kinds of reasons. Think of this world as an ecosystem. There is a certain hierarchy and an inherent flow of energy one level to another. This flow is the essence of life. Ups and downs, highs and lows, good and bad, right and wrong, superior and inferior are the prime movers of material life on this planet. So discrimination or to put it positively, “preferences or preferential treatment” will always exist! The only way to overcome discrimination in any facet of life is by being a “Roman in Rome”.
So, let us not make much ado about nothing! The latest incidents are typical examples of certain natural human tendencies which were blown out of proportion by middlemen like the media and politicians who thrive on sensationalism and cheap publicity. We need to understand that no one is better than the other and that it is natural for humans to differentiate and react.
I am sure that the examples I shared with you might have sparked off a debate in your minds or at least provoked some thoughts. Please feel free to share your thoughts on the same!
Filed Under: Miscellaneous
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Your article’s great, but it’s all humbug about the Incredible India campaign being a kind of discrimination. On the contrary it says ‘atithi devo bhava’, a call for being a good Indian and showing respect to the foreigners as our brethren. Please dont point fingers at the govt. when it’s doing something constructive
@ Rupali, thanks for your comments. If you carefully read my point about Incredible India campaign, you can see that I feel bad that Govt., has to re-iterate the “athithi devo Bhava” because lately we have been demonstrating racist behavior and attacks on foreigners have increased. I am not being critical of the campaign instead, I feel we have to spend resources to remind people of good behavior.
Hope this clarifies.
Very good post. Racism is embedded. It is funny to read ”Blink! The Power of Thinking without Thnking” and ”Outliers”, both of Malcolm Gladwell. In Blink!, Gladwell takes the test of instant associations and discovers that he has a negative bias towards blaks as compared with whites, which is racism. But Gladwell’s mother is black, so he isn’t quite white! Other black students got similar results.
The reason is related to long time exposure to attitudes, movies and situations where black was considered bad, so the same attitude gets printed on our subconcient mind.
In Outliers, Gladewell speaks about the history of his family that has as ancestors a black slave from Africa and a slave owner from Jamaica. He speaks about the racism in Jamaica, a black inhabited country, where a black light skin was considered superior to a blak dark skin.
Anyway, I consider myself pretty open. I judge people by how they behave, not who they are as race, religion and ethnicity. However, I fail the supreme test of an open-mind: what would you feel if your son (daughter) would marry a … black, asian, gipsy, Indian etc.
I would feel great if he would marry an asian, black, Indian, whatever, except of Gypsy. I am Romanian and we do have a racist bias to gypsies. I would fear how he and his family would be treated, how her gypsy relatives would treat him, how would their children be treated. I agree, it is racism and I shouldn’t feel like that, but discrimination is a fact of life and you would not want your family to be subject of discrimination. I treat fairly all gypsy I meet, but I don’t want my son to fight the prejudice as a victim of it.
Dear Sundararaman Viswana,
Your article shows that you are racist. How can you say that people from North Eastern states works as cleaners in restaurants?
Havent you seen other people from other community working there?
Agreed that Rascism is embedded and we have to adapt etc.. but could the confrontation in Australia be avoided simply by being australian in australia…!!I dont think so..This is the country which had a “White Australia policy” till 1973. I think australians are not even ashamed of their country being labeled as rascist and experssing their “natural human tendency” by thrashing Innocent people. Sometimes I wonder wheather such incidents are a result of rascism or just the feeling of insecurity against hard working people.
I don’t think, you need to be a roman to live in Rome. British lived in India as British and we still call them British not as Indian. We call Indian living in US as NRI (Non Residence Indian) but still INDIAN, Not American. So your thoughts have to be changed! Mind it
“So discrimination or to put it positively, “preferences or preferential treatment” will always exist! The only way to overcome discrimination in any facet of life is by being a “Roman in Rome”.”
The first sentence says discrimination WILL ALWAYS exist. The second sentence proposes a way to overcome the ‘WILL ALWAYS EXIST’. A contradicting statement at the very next line? Sundar, you can do much better than this.
I think what you are trying to say is not to provide a trigger for the discrimination to take some ugly turn and keep it at the subtle level we exhibit in day to day life. Ain’t I right?
I don’t think dark-skinned people are challenged by fairer ones.Wasn’t Cleopatra a black beauty? Naomi is dark but is one of the top models in the world today.
Hey,
I forgot to mention handsome darky Denzel Washington. His features are said to be equidistant when an imaginary vertical line is drawn at the center of his face. This phenomenon is rare and is one of the attributes of a handsome face.
Your arguments do make hell lot of sense and are very convincing in driving home that dark skinned people could be perpetrators of racism too. However, the current happening of series of attacks cannot be seen as ‘sporadic’ incidents. I am afraid. things have crossed that stage. Also the we-are-racists-too arguments cannot and should not in anyway undermine the severity of the racism lurking in the civilian societies in the west or in the context of confrontation between White and Black/Dark/Brown/Coloured. But, of course, these incidents should not just make us stop at the condemnation of racism outside and they also call for introspection to understand the ‘mire’ within us.
Australia also hosts hoards of migrants from other Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan and China. But a cursory look at the crime incidents over the last few years would only indicate that Indians have been the most vulnerable lot.
Racism is not always directed against dark skinned or people from the East. With in European countries also, one could see racism channelled by a white man against another white man. “How many Irish you need to fix a bulb?” was a popular joke featured heavily in the English circles. The antagonism that prevails between the French and the English is well documented. The presence of cultural (and so many other differences) give birth to prejudices and stereotypes sometimes based on random incidents.
Now focusing on your ‘situations’,
#1 is a mere case of economic exploitation of a stranger. Go to chennai and speak in Hindi to a auto driver. Most likely, you wouldn’t be asked for a reasonable fair, especially, if the auto driver grasps that you are new to Chennai. In our own Bangalore, Auto drivers would expect exorbitant rates if you ask for a ride on M.G Road as they could easily get many customers who wouldn’t bargain at all.
#2 is a conscious discrimination of rates against the foreigners to take advantage of their economic potential, keeping in mind of the currency differences. Of course this cannot hold good if the tourists are from neighbouring countries. As the westerners are the targeted tourists, our gov.t perhaps doesn’t care about the discrimination being applied equally to the tourists from poor countries. In the UK, universities charge different fees for the students from non-EU countries. Now can we call it an act of racism?
#3, #4 and #5 – completely agree. Although Sardari jokes have become outdated and have, thankfully, fallen out of trend. I cannot emphasis enough – North-Eastern states have always been given step motherly treatment. I am glad you mentioned it.
#6 – Reservations are an attempt to correct the social inequities that exist because of the racism you explained.
#7 – Fair & Lovely ads go beyond just being racist. They are only a minute fraction of the advertising that elevates the western way of living as superior and role model to the world.
#8 – Not sure which political group you are referring to. If it is BSP, Mayawathi no more pursues an exclusionist policy and has learnt the political trick of lumping together Bramhins and Dalits in the same basket. Indian electoral democracy has its own way of moderating the views of separatists.
#9 – It is possible that foreigners are vulnerable to the anti-social elements. But it is just at that. I don’t think civilians poke fun at foreigners.
#10 – True. One cannot generalise that all westerners are dumb based on a white man’s performace in a conference call. However, there is nothing wrong in calling your western counterpart a dumb fellow if he happens to be one. Don’t we call our friends or brothers names if they do badly at something.
#11 – Yeah. True. Let us blame bollywood, films and TV (advertising for that). Social conditioning. I know the name now.
#12 – I see where you are coming from. The cultural clashes cannot be reduced to the cases of racism.
I think I have already been quite long. I will stop here for now. Before I end, I must admit your writing is as enjoyable as your speeches. The above are only my thoughts. I would keep an open mind when I hear out your responses. Thanks for inviting me to your blog.
- Sampath
@ Freeman
@ Anitha
@ Avadhoot
@ Lung Burner
@ Your old buddy
@ Sampath – Thanks a ton for your incisive commentary
@ Amit Arora
Thanks a ton for your views. It really helps in broadening my perspective… since I wrote this article, I have really developed further and become a little more sensitive, matured and open to understanding people.
I also came across the following offline comment which I wanted to share…
“Prejudice is Racism without action.”
“If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed and color, we would find some other cause for prejudice by noon.”– George Aiken
Thanks for sharing your views.
- Sundar
Perhaps it’s worth deconstructing the entire concept of race. The election of President Obama, from mixed race parents. offers an excellent platform for the United States to move to a post-racial future. Perhaps more folks will read and understand “The Mismeasure of Man” by Stephen Jay Gould, a brilliant Harvard professor, on the bogus foundations for race and racial prejudice. And perhaps, one day, more people in India and Australia will follow Dr. King’s advice to “judge people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin.”
Perhaps.
@EricRoth:
I know you mean the most positive thing when you point to the election of the mixed-race Barack Obama to the Office of President of the United States. Unfortunately, he has squandered his opportunity to be the uniting force for good in the area of racism in the U.S. He did so, knowingly, by taking the last question in his ‘health care’ new conference about the unfortunate confrontation at Cambridge, MA, USA. He chose to do this because he is friends with the Professor that was arrested. He chose his words poorly, but speaking off the cuff often reveals the tenor of one’s true beliefs, so he cannot take back or explain away what he said.
This supports totally what Sunder is discussing in this fine article. The true color of ones emotion will be there, and the only way to manage it is to understand it, and decide not to practice it … ever. Our President failed this test, and now reaps the reward. He should read Sunder’s article.
We humans, sculpt our environment to our image and are also products of our environment.
Race like lots of other concepts we have accepted and integrated in our lives is an anchor so we can feel we belong to something, Unfortunately it’s not the best anchor.
In our long history on this planet, we’ve been through different stages and along the way, we lost something. We lost it and didn’t notice it because we were too busy trying to “advance” our civilization through technology and science.
Today we have reached a stage where we feel we need to take care a little bit more of ourselves and that’s when we realize that something is missing. we try to find out what it is that is missing and we can’t put a finger on it. Some point to it, but torn between our environmental conditioning and feelings of compassion, pity, disgust, distrust, guilt and sometime despair we don’t easily spot it.
We do not need to be Romans in Rome, we need to LOVE EACH OTHER unconditionally as HUMAN BEINGS like ourselves.