A year and a few months ago, the UK and of course India went into a tizzy about racist remarks against our very own Shilpa Shetty on Big Brother. The point that most people forgot to stress upon, amidst all the outrage and the displays of patriotism, was that racism in this context was not so much an expression of a nation’s inherent insensitivity towards minorities but an instrument used by one contestant to mentally harass another contestant on a reality show. If Shilpa Shetty hadn’t been brown, she would have been harassed based on her sexual orientation, her weight, her looks or her intelligence—but since Ms. Goody couldn’t get her on the first three and was too dumb herself to get Shilpa on the last, she had to go on her skin color.
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