In a pursuit to be color (or race) blind
The following views are solely my own. Hopefully, this piece makes you see a different perspective, maybe it makes you spare a thought, maybe something actionable. You tell me. Oh and keep some salt by your side and take this with as many grains as you may like…
Just when most of us had begun to make peace with the once-in-a-century pandemic, we had an abrupt realization of the racism that has been present among us since the dawn of our civilizations. There have been several recent and aggregated triggers that have brought this to the forefront, particularly within the context of the black brothers and sisters of our race:
- A jogger was shot by vigilantes
- A woman was shot in her own house by the police
- An already overpowered man was choked to death by a policeman as other cops watched this happen.
Sadly, it wasn’t a mere coincidence that these folks were black. It was a sad coincidence that these events were recorded. We now have hard evidence that this phenomenon is pervasive in our so-called modern society. The question is what are we going to do about it? Can we ever be color blind? Or race-blind? The answer is probably yes but realistically this is a difficult, uphill climb.
Allow be to share some facts and perspectives as an (almost) outsider and perhaps some learnings from my own upbringing, exposure and history to help see the issue (racism) in a different light.
Let us begin by asking ourselves what, in our mind, makes a black person, black? What is the first thought that pops up? Really ask yourself, what in your mind, makes a black person black? Whatever it was, unless melanin was the first thing that showed up, you are probably a racist. For those who never took a biology lesson, melanin is a natural, dark skin pigment that blocks (most of )the harmful UV radiations of the sun. Blacks have the most of it, whites have the least of it. (By those definitions, technically, my natural tan should make me grey.) It is one of the many anatomical advantages that make black people the superior race in my honest opinion. (I would list the other aspects but the goal of this post is to educate, the last thing we want out of here is to trigger another FOMO but turn on any sports channel and you will see what I am saying.)
Coming back to the topic, the ongoing protests are just the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it. The pandemic of course makes it difficult to fight for both science and social justice at the same time. Fortunately, for some in this country, you can choose to look outside for a chance to get some answers…
Do you want to travel with me to India for a bit and maybe learn a thing or two from our history? I don’t want to be the guy who comes to a breast cancer conference and asks the question, “All this is great, but what about Movember?” or shouts “All cancers are cancer!!” All I am saying is that we have been dealing with racism for quite a while and it is much more nuanced than black or white. I am not proud of it. Nor am I denying it. Human race is imperfect. (I have accepted that. (And yes, that includes me.)) If we look at our present and our past, we have been mostly wrong about most things and if the goal is to be less wrong, we can, perhaps, learn from one another. Now, ready to travel with me?
Let us go about a hundred years in time, to a place near Amritsar, India, Jallianwalla bagh (or garden) on the auspiscious day the Sikh festival of Baisakhi. India was then a colony of the crown. Reginald Dyer, the acting British military commander, proceeded through the city with several city officials, announcing the implementation of a curfew beginning at 8 pm that night and a ban on all processions and public meetings of four or more persons. The proclamation was read and explained in English, Urdu, Hindi, and Punjabi, but few paid it any heed. By mid-afternoon, thousands of Indians had gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh near the Amritsar. Many who were present had earlier worshipped at the Golden Temple and were passing through the Bagh on their way home. Apart from pilgrims, Amritsar had filled up over the preceding days with farmers, traders, and merchants attending the annual Baisakhi horse and cattle fair.
Estimates say that anywhere between 10,000 to 20,000 people had gathered The Jallianwala Bagh was surrounded on all sides by houses and buildings and had only five narrow entrances, most kept permanently locked. The main entrance was relatively wide but was guarded heavily by the troops backed by the armored vehicles. Dyer, without warning the crowd to disperse, blocked the main exits. He stated later that this act “was not to disperse the meeting but to punish the Indians for disobedience.”
Dyer ordered his troops to begin shooting toward the densest sections of the crowd in front of the available narrow exits, where panicked crowds were trying to leave the Bagh. Firing continued for approximately ten minutes. Cease-fire was ordered only when ammunition supplies were almost exhausted, after approximately 1,650 rounds were spent.
Fast forward hundred years, India is now independent but how (most) Indians behave in the presence of white superiors corporate boardrooms is unknowingly and subtly influenced by our recent history. Most of my kin automatically turn servile in the presence of white skin. I am not saying that all browns are servile, nor am I saying that my white bosses are using my history to exploit it to their advantage for the perceived supremacy. The point I am trying to make is, that when we see an individual, we do not see the burden (or advantage) from history any particular race or individual carries with them.
Has India eradicated racism then? Not at all. Left unattended for years, it has, in fact, aggravated. I think we were most united when we were fighting for a common cause, against the British. Present-day, we are letting our migrant workers starve to death (when I can fly back to India at a subsidized price), feeding elephants firecrackers, and very recently we were fighting about which God gets the land. Indians, some may argue, have even lost their right to peaceful protesting and are beating up students for raising their voices or taking a stance. It rips my heart to highlight our drawbacks but the hope is that some readers in this part of the world may see the similarities and act sooner perhaps.
(To be fair, and on the brighter note, India has also benefitted from its invader migrants. The Portuguese set up the trade route for spices, the Mughals built the Taj, the Brits gave us our new unifying religion (cricket), railways, a taste for tea, and a language that I type in. All these aspects are now a part of the identity that we are proud of. At least, I am.)
Now India did make attempts to address the racism induced not through color but through a highly sophisticated (and snobby) caste system, which is much more deep-rooted because it evolved over several millennia. At the backdrop, we have several major religions, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, and of course, Hinduism. Each of these has further classifications and at the risk of being terribly wrong, variants of Hinduism broadly include the four classes in the decreasing order of self-assigned swagger — the Brahmins (priests, scholars, learned), the Kshatriyas (also called Rajanyas, who were warriors, rulers and administrators), the Vaishyas (artisans, merchants, tradesmen and farmers), and Shudras (laboring classes). Here are some external perspectives from BBC and Bloomberg. That is just one religion, being a racist in India is a subject of the scholars. The number of castes just in Hinduism run well into thousands.
The Shudras (also known as the Dalit’s) had it the worst. According to this (now admittedly dated) article, more than 160 million people in India are considered “Untouchable” — people tainted by their birth into a caste system that deems them impure, less than human.
Human rights abuses against these people, known as Dalits, are painful even to read. A random sampling of headlines in mainstream Indian newspapers tells their story: “Dalit boy beaten to death for plucking flowers”; “Dalit tortured by cops for three days”; “Dalit ‘witch’ paraded naked in Bihar”; “Dalit killed in lock-up at Kurnool”; “7 Dalits burnt alive in caste clash”; “5 Dalits lynched in Haryana”; “Police egged on a mob to lynch Dalits”.
“Dalits are not allowed to drink from the same wells, attend the same temples, wear shoes in the presence of an upper caste, or drink from the same cups in tea stalls,” said Smita Narula, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, and author of Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s “Untouchables.”
Although considered illegal on paper, India’s untouchables are relegated to the lowest jobs, and live in constant fear of being publicly humiliated, paraded naked, beaten, and raped with impunity by upper-caste Hindus seeking to keep them in their place. Merely walking through an upper-caste neighborhood is a life-threatening offense in some rural parts of India.
Dr. Ambedkar, (Indian version of MLK, ) about over 70 years back with a noble intention and to give a headstart to these communities started a diversity and inclusion program focussed at giving these communities some headstart to make up for the centuries worth lack of opportunities. He helped pass a resolution that mandated that a certain percentage of public schools, top-class national education institutes and Government jobs would require that the spots be reserved for members of scheduled castes or scheduled tribes. Incidentally, Gandhi opposed it and threw another fasting tantrum until Ambedkar talked him out of it.
After 70+ years of caste politics, coupled with the infinite subcastes demanding a seat at the table about 50% of all seats India are ‘reserved’. The concept of reservation itself breeds more racism. In my lifetime, where I fall in these definitions of whether or not I can avail a reservation has been changed by law and so have the perceptions of how people view me. As an equal opportunity complainer, I can tell you that while the intent was right, India did not execute well and reservations introduced the creamy layer problem in which the benefits of the reservation were being snatched away by the top creamy layer of the backward class, thus leaving out the weakest among the weak and enabling the fortunate layers to consume the whole cake.
In America, the 2020 protests are the closest thing to revolutions America has seen after Rosa Parks was jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man and Martin Luther King Jr. organized civil disobedience. This stuff has the potential to make it to the history books. As an immigrant who made many Pakistani friends on American soil hasn’t lost hope in the American dream.
“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality”. — Martin Luther King
The history lesson was just to help draw some analogies. Now for some actionable things. Please consider texting, calling, reaching, or hanging out with your black friends. They need you to go much deeper than just checking in. Learn about their history, ask about what they hardships they had to face to get a seat at the same table. Keep that curiosity past these few weeks and scale it for life. Invite them for dinner. If you don’t have black friends, now is the best chance, make some new ones.
The same goes for friends from other communities. Like why not lookup things like Langar? Be curious about foods served an iftar? Also not every sneezing Asian has COVID, also India is in Asia and some of my friends from Sri Lanka or Pakistan or Bangladesh look a lot like us (and some of us don’t) and some of us may not work in tech. Many of us are vegetarians and many others aren’t. Saying Chai tea is like saying tea tea, since Chai means tea. And finally, at the yoga class, say Namaste before the class not after. Unlike Aloha, Namaste is our hello and cannot be reused as a good-bye. It is also a good way to greet in these COVID-times. I am just teasing but I hope you get my point. As long as you remember that with the melanin, the anatomical advantages, the swagger and the fight they put up against a system historically designed against them, the blacks are the coolest of the bunch, we are good.
With that, I hope we are a little less wrong the next time. A little more curious maybe. I hope we refrain from making stereotypical judgments because we can’t judge a tree by a forest or a forest by a tree. And incidentally a leader, whom I really admire, pointed out this poem recently that argues everything that we need to know to live through these times, we mostly learned in Kindergarten.
Tl;DR
- The pursuit of being color (or race-blind) is the pursuit of being less wrong.
- Understand the historical context.
- Have a common united mission, that unites beyond race or color.
- Invite people from different walks of life for dinners.
- Be fair. Be kind. Be curious. Read the whole post.
