Warning: Angry, frustrated rant from a Desi yogi
Do you want to understand how the #BlackLivesMatter movement affects us in India today? And why it does? And why it is not someone else’s problem?
First, you’ll have to accept to open your mind. If your bigotry is going to argue that your prejudice is well placed and that the movement is blowing things out of proportion, I’m call you a Grade 1 as*hole right now and you need to unfriend me – straight away. And while we remain unfriended, go get an education on history & on compassion… and on social media etiquette.
So..
- Just because you have lived in the US or in Europe and haven’t experienced a racial / racist slur DOES NOT mean anything. It means, largely that your blindness to your privilege has made you indifferent to the daily truth of everyone else. The privilege of being of an ‘upper caste’ in the India is what largely carries you to remain in favor of the ‘white man’s goodness’ – a remnant of the supremacy of our colonizers.
- For all your NRIs who think that by living in the US/UK for a ‘decade’ of the ‘4-5 decades’ of your life and to never have seen racism there – it sickens me to my guts at your lack of education and your reluctance to learn because, you are THERE because of Black lives lost to give you the opportunity to go there. And, your 4-5 decades is peanuts because the history of black oppression is way before your dada pardada’s time… 400- FOUR HUNDRED EFFING YEARS! Also, after going there, your brown skin AND your ‘Indian black skin is better than African black skin’ hierarchy is again what gives you the privilege to be a MODEL MINORITY there. Make no mistake, you’re not necessarily favored because of you – but because conditioning is such that you are a better minority to befriend that the Black community who do not even get the benefit of decent education. But wait, why would you effing care, right?? You do the same thing with Dalit rights, muslim rights,minority rights, etc right here in India? You are USED to using your privilege because you were RAISED to be blind to others pain.
- For our UK desis – your blinkers need a special strengths of cleansing solution altogether! Do you know how many Indian lives were killed during the British Raj & even before? Remember Jallianwala Bagh? How many Indians were starved due to rationing that meant that Indian bellies were not entitled to be fed? It is easier to welcome you with open arms and say, “You are one of us” instead of making reparations or even apologizing.. And for the blinded UK desis, hahah… the jokes on you! When the sahib has hugged & taken you under their wing, of course, racism doesn’t exist, right? RIGHT?? Right!
- Let’s talk about privilege again.. because your easy access to potentially everything here in India – education, jobs, cinema tickets, medical facilities, hotels, food, news, etc etc… is all because you are favored because of your caste – you may not carry it as an ID card, but you sure do carry it in your names as identifiers! And if you think your skin is not an indicator, ha-ha-the-effing-HA because you bloody well DO! You know how you look different from someone who is lesser privileged than you. If I know how I look different how come you don’t? No one can say, “We don’t see color! Of course we see color!” We need to see color and check our privilege. Do you? Here’s a quiz question, “Chor kaise dikhta hai?” Do you see a fair, robust, healthy looking chor? Exactly! Check your privilege! And also check your family name and the names of those who agree with you – yes, your family names identify your STATUS and your place in the food chain. If that is not an eye opener, then I don’t know what is!
- Now let’s come to ALLYSHIP. Standing up against racism does not mean that all your white friends are racist. If your feed has ALL your white friends making snide remarks against the #BLM movement, then, sorry, but you’re in quite a lot of sick company. Thankfully, my list has almost all my white & white passing friends & acquaintances who are aware of their privilege – have known 100% that their brown & black friends do experience racist slurs, exclusions and passive aggressions on a daily basis. Why them? Everytime I enter the US – having all my papers in place, spending tons of my hard earned money to their economy, etc – I feel a sense of tension until I clear passport control. The bias is obvious – and I am a tall, fair Indian with light eyes… still makes me feel second class. Imagine what third class feels like?
- White Supremacy – heard of it? No? Don’t believe in it? This is where your miseducation comes into strong effect. White supremacy is what led us to be colonized and to set the tone for everyone to come under the tone of skin that is superior – a.k.a. White Skin. It is where we have our penchant for all this white and fair and … in a videsi roop, it tells us that the White guys are superior. It is what the Middle East does when they look for US/UK/AUS/NZ Native workers who may be HighSchool grads or even flunked out of school but hey, if they have the right accent, they get the salary – but the brown skinned desi gets the grunge labor and zero promotion. So when our desis of privilege (yes, our fair skinned compatriots) get treated like equals, it is easy to think you are one of the white people and join hands to point fingers at the Black guys who are ‘thugs’, ‘thieves’, ‘looters’, ‘criminals’, ‘uneducated’… what else? Help me out here.. yeah.. you know all the words you use otherwise. Add them in the comments, go ahead!
- Some of you haven’t heard of slurs against your desi brown skin? Or your accent? Wait, let me some of my desi bhai behen who have lived there longer than you and born there too – so way before you or your parents were there… let them tell you what they have experienced every day of their lives… and then let me call my black brothers & sisters to share their stories… It didn’t happen to you because you came in with loads of money, have big businesses and perhaps are so blinded by the love of your prejudice that seeing it in your idols makes you both .. EQUALS. Ugh!!!
- And finally, because I just cannot find it in me to type through my tears of anger & fury at some of you who I called friends (note CALLED), George Floyd is not ONE death. The deaths and murders happened systemically & systematically for hundreds of years… just as they happen in India to SO MANY… but for 100s of years, we had no camera, we had no internet and we were just too polite to get you’re a*s dragged for making little of such a humiliating and painful end. Like a friend said, recently, this needs just one word, “ENOUGH” – if you do not understand the pain behind it, you just need to get a real close look a mirror and ask yourself the eternal question that many of us, yogis and non yogis, ask once in a lifetime…. “Who am I?”
Footnotes: not reading back for typos right now… too angry.
The Curvy Yogi 