Here's the latest caricature of India emanating from the US, through the eyes of an African American, believe it or not:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103003246.html
Sounds a little superficial to me, catering to his own prejudices about Indians.
It reminds me of another example of knee-jerk attitudes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyvqhdllXgU
7 comments:
A "little" superficial? It is completelely superficial. The author exudes his own African American biases; otherwise who would write this about India
"Austin, you have to realize that here the darker your skin is, the less opportunities, the less access [that you have] and the less confidence that many of them display as a result of it."
Btwn: since when did Tamilians become an ethnic minority in India? It only confirms as long as you write something negative about India, you are sure to find publicity for it.
It is not simply superficial but ignorant. Tamils an ethnic minority? Stooopid! And what is an American doing at JNU, where apart from the science departments the rest is pretty badly run? In such total contrast to several of my African-American friends who have lived and worked in India extensively.
I've read that there have been a lot of racial tensions inside the Washington Post, reflecting the local politics of DC itself. To me, that's what seems to be colouring his writing.
The early quantum physicist Pauli's remark about a really sloppy research paper: "It's not even wrong." So is this "African American's" Bushwa about India.
San,
Not really. The WaPo and the NYT are a part of the old liberal establishment, that can only patronise. To some extent the GOPer press is different in seeing India as bein able to take care of itself, and also misunderstands "caste" (their creation not ours) as an original version of the elitist control they would rather have in India. So a old-time liberal will credit progress in India to Nehru, while the rich GOPer would credit it to the British jackboots. Both see India as a land of sloth and backwardness that needs to be uplifted. I find the old-time liberals insufferable and very different from the classical Indian liberals, Minoo Masani, DV Gundappa, and others.
The NYT are part of the Atlanticist establishment that sees America's future only through blood-ties with Europe. They're anti-Orientalist and anti-globalization. They basically want to preserve the primacy and specialness of the relations with Europe. India doesn't fit into that agenda, and that's why we get rubbished by them. Pakistan is their much more useful stick against Moscow, so that's why they get preference over us.
this is probably what obama thinks of india as well.
blacks see indians as uppity darkies who have stolen the jobs that rightly belonged to them.
they don't see pakistani mohammedans that way, because they have the axiom that mohammedan == good.
besides, obama being a clever fellow will know that he can do anything to indian hindus and get away with it. can't do that to mohammedans, even if he's not on the saudi payroll.
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