Archive for the 'Racism' Category

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Shilporama

The “Rang De Basanti” effect on the collective consciousness of the nation was evident once again today as Gen X gadget-activists came out in full force SMS-ing, emailing and online-petitioning in support of Shilpa Shetty, the subject of vile racial abuse on UK’s Big Brother.

Neha Hingorani represents this new-age awakened citizen. A far cry from the khadi-clad Gandhi topiwala from yesteryears, we find her sitting in the lounge of a multiplex, working furiously on her Motorola Razr sending SMS-s to all her friends and to public polls on all the TV channels.

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Desis on a Plane

‘Snakes on a Plane’ is this year’s campiest C-grade “so-bad-it’s-good” (which the Oxford dictionary now defines as “Mithunian’) movie in which a mafia-lord lets loose a zoofull of assorted poisonous snakes, made horny and aggressive by being sprayed with pheromones, [which is why, according to a character in the movie, they attack females more than males----a fact borne out by a snake biting a lady's exposed nipple and another "pleasing" a sleeping lady in a way I did not think possible ] in order to bump off a witness for the prosecution.

However, if you ask a flight attendant whether he/she prefers to rumble with a cobra in heat or with a desi on a trans-Atlantic flight, I think he/she might go for the snake.

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Profiles in Hypocrisy

One of the hottest news on national TV in US in the last few days has been of Cynthia McKinney, an African-American Congresswoman from Georgia who was entering an official building without her Senator pin. On being asked to stop by a policeman, she refused to do so (possibly considering herself above the law) and then when the policeman tried to physically prevent her from entering [by gripping her arm], she assaulted the police officer. (kind of like an American soul sister of Uma Bharati who once hit a policeman with her chappal) and just to make her martyrdom complete, also threw in the accusation that she was “inappropriately touched” .

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Handy Ghandhi

Gandhiji on the train . The racist ticket checker asks him for id. Gandhi turns around and sings this jingle.

I spent my time adding spice and flavor
From family recipes back home in India
I like to introduce you now in South Africa
So come and try today
Handy Ghandi is my name
Handy Ghandi
ooh Handy Ghandi
Handy Ghandi great curries no worries

Enough of fooling around. Handy Ghandi is the name of an Australian chain that sells Indian food (I first read about it on Ranajit’s blog

The irony of it all.

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Sand Niggers

Reading Sunil Laxman’s rather chilling brush with racist violence got me thinking about similar experiences I have had during my 6 years of life in the US. Fortunately, no bottles have been thrown at me and none of the bad experiences I have had were violent in nature.

Being singled out because of the color of your skin is such a common experience that you become inured to it. Smiles of shopkeepers vanish mysteriously when they see my brown skin, aloofness enters the voice of the grocery store clerk, the seat adjacent to me in a bus is often the last place to be filled up (which is a good thing incidentally). Not for a moment I am saying that I have never encountered smiling faces or a friendly “Hello”————far from that. But there have been quite a few times I have seen people’s attitudes change the moment they have had to deal with brown skinned people.

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