How to speak like a Sri Lankan

"Confirmed bachelor." LOL.

South Asians achieving comedic milestones on US and UK television

The always amusing Hari Kondabolu has a nice bit here about seeing a few more brown faces on the small screen these days, with the premiere of Mindy Kaling's new series The Mindy Project.
(This clip is from Totally Biased with W Kamau Bell)



His line that “there are now enough Indian people where I don’t need to like you just because you’re Indian” is so funny because it reflects something real. Often, members of minority groups feel so starved of representation in the media that we will automatically like anyone who ticks that box regardless of how good they actually are. But the reverse can be also true, as we can be overly critical of someone in the public eye who doesn't represent us properly. This might seem silly to some; white people don't tend to feel embarrassed because Honey Boo Boo Child is making white people look bad. But that's because there are enough white people everywhere else on TV that Honey Boo Boo is not going to create or perpetuate stereotypes about all white people. A subset of white people, perhaps.


Meanwhile in the UK, the BBC's first South Asian sitcom, Citizen Khan is well into its first season. Starring its creator Adil Ray, it portrays a British-Pakistani family man who overestimates his influence and importance as a community leader. Its debut episode stirred a lot of controversy and complaints that it mocked Islam and relied on lazy stereotypes. The latter count is true enough - it often feels like something that was made in the 70s or 80s rather than 2012. But it also plays with the stereotypes cleverly enough at times to make it just about worth watching, even if the laugh track seems overdone.
As for the accusation of being insensitive or insulting to Islam... meh. The aspect of the show that seemed to cause the most consternation was Mr Khan's daughter Aisha, who plays the perfect Muslim daughter in front of her parents but leads a rather different life when they are out of sight. But as Homer Simpson once said: "It's funny 'cause it's true." It's reflective of one of the major themes that runs through the show - the contrast between the public facade and the private reality, exemplified by Mr Khan himself. Also cleverly done is the interaction between Khan and the mosque manager, a white Muslim convert.

Funny-wise, Citizen Khan has a few laugh-out-loud moments but overall is well below the standard of the UK Asian sketch show Goodness Gracious Me, and perhaps not even at the level of The Kumars at No. 42. But I actually think this is an important show, even if it's not quite as funny as it should be. Being able to laugh at oneself, and by extension one's own culture, seems to be an important part of fitting into the British way of life. And frankly, if there's one community that needs a show like this, it's the British Pakistani community.

Sorry, I didn't mean to racially abuse those Indians, I meant to racially abuse THOSE Indians...

If you happened to see episode 3 of ABC2's Dumb, Drunk and Racist, you would have noticed a particularly nasty incident that occurred while filming in the streets of Melbourne's CBD. As two of Joe Hildebrand's Indian guests go for a walk around to get a sense for whether Melbourne was as hostile and dangerous as had been portrayed in the Indian media, they are accosted by a drunken individual who swears at them, calls them racists and tells them to go back where they came from, ending with "White pride, motherfuckers!"

You can see it here from about 3:45 onwards.



It's an odd exchange that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, but is noticeable for how coolly Amer handles the whole thing. (Amer is consistently awesome throughout this series, by the way.) It certainly makes it seem like random drunk racists are just waiting to come out of the woodwork on central Melbourne's main street.

The show's website features a page that puts it in a bit better perspective, and is disturbingly hilarious in its irony. It's a written apology from the drunken racist douche, who explains that it's all a case of mistaken identity:

To whom it may concern On the way home from a night out I walked past a group of people with a camera crew who I thought, at that particular time, to be the provocative Indian comedy duo "Fear of a Brown Planet". My comments were aimed at this comedy group solely, not the people who I have recently found out were Indian tourists from overseas.At the time I had had a disagreement with my fiancé and was not in a good frame of mind and had been out having a few drinks watching a band. I said some ridiculous things which I would not normally say. I live and work in a very multi-cultural area and associate with many cultures including Indians. This incident has strained relationships between myself and my family. I do sincerely apologise for what I said and the way I acted which is very out of character.
I apologise to the Indian tourists and want them to know I had no idea it was a documentary on racism and acted out of my dislike for the comedy group. I am extremely worried and stressed how I come across in the program. I am very embarrassed about my actions on this evening and am remorseful of any hurt I have caused. Thankyou.

Note the obligatory "Some of my best friends are Indians" line he sticks in there, which is the standard disclaimer you make when you've said something racist and you want people to think you are not racist.
I guess he wants us to think, "Ah, that's not so bad, he wasn't just abusing random Indians, he was abusing what he thought was a controversial comedy duo who some regard as being anti-white."

Of course, this "controversial Indian comedy duo" are not actually Indian - the Fear of a Brown Planet guys are Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan, but whatever, it's all the same, right? And considering this chap basically saw two young South Asian guys with a camera crew and immediately assumed they were FOABP and began abusing them... well, that's understandable I guess. I mean, it's an easy mistake to make, right? Why, just the other day, I went to buy some curry and naan from my local Indian restaurant, when I thought the woman behind the counter was the provocative Indian duo "Fear of a Brown Planet". So obviously, I racially abused her, as one does in those situations. How embarassing for me!


Essentially, he is giving his own answer to the question posed by the show's title; he's not really racist, he was only dumb and racist because he was drunk. Ok then.


If you are wondering about who these Fear of a Brown Planet fellows are that seem to inspire such antipathy from random passing drunken douchebags, I've blogged about them here before.


Recently ABC1 featured them on Australian Story, which each week does a somewhat mushy profile of interesting Australian people. There was also a 2 hour special on ABC2 recently which featured their whole act. The guys, Aamer Rahman and Nazeem Hussain, are a couple of young Muslims whose act focuses primarily on racism, and the experience of being South Asian and Muslim in Australia. There has been an ongoing debate going on in Australian politics about the alleged left-wing bias of the ABC (the government-funded broadcaster), and this sympathetic profile of an act that tends to make white people a little uncomfortable is more grist to that mill. 

 

In any case this profile is interesting to look at how South Asian Muslims balance their identity with an Australian one, and how the two guys balance their humour and decidedly liberal activist views with a religion that is both rather illiberal and not especially known for its humour.

An unbleached vadge? Eww, how horrid!

Oh, India. Birthplace of Buddhism, the mathematical concept of zero, cotton cultivation, cataract surgery, and Ayurvedic medicine. Now add vaginal bleaching to that list. Dear God.



Yes, apparently there are dudes out there who simply can't get enjoyment out of their woman's vagina because it's just too dark. If that sounds weird and kinda f*cked up, that's because it is. But this is the bizarro universe that so many South Asians inhabit when it comes to skin colour.

It's notable as well that the Indian woman in the above commercial has a lighter complexion than just about any Indian in the history of Indians. She could actually be one of the Cullen family from Twilight. So if HER vadge is too dark, what chance does anyone else have? How much paler can she actually get? Perhaps the object is to have genitals that are actually transparent.

What happened to the days when guys were just happy to be getting anything at all? Now they are all hung up on the aesthetics of the punani. Now, I know it's important to have standards when choosing one's significant other, but that is just a wee bit too fussy.

There's a pretty funny take on this at Jezebel that you should check out as well.

See also:
Indian film stars vs Regular Indians

"Why My Mother Wants Me Dead"

Interesting story in The Daily Beast this week by writer Sabatina James about the sort of family environment and mentality that gives rise to honour killings.

To my parents, my rebellion was a source of deep shame. They felt embarrassed among their Pakistani peers in Austria. They became more determined than ever to marry me off and restore the family “honor.”
When I was 16, my family visited Pakistan. I remember walking outside in an outfit I felt was perfectly modest—loose pants and a blouse. Others saw it differently. A crowd of men formed, hooting and catcalling. That day my mother beat me again, in front of a roomful of relatives.
And then she beat herself. I knew there were Pakistanis who flagellated themselves when they suffered, but I never expected to see my own mother doing it. I watched as she struck herself repeatedly in the chest with a rod, saying, “I have given birth to a whore!”

Full article here.

One of the things that constantly fascinates me is how many women often play a part in their own oppression, and the oppression of their fellow women. The behaviour of the mother in this case is extreme but not that surprising.

So is this the fault of Islam? Yes and no. South Asian cultures tend to be incredibly patriarchal anyway, regardless of their religion. The reasoning may differ to this case, but the scale of violence against women in India, across the religious spectrum, is beyond belief. And it's notable that honour killings are virtually unheard of in Muslim Southeast Asia, a region where the treatment of women is comparatively more benign. But unlike most other religions, Islam has very specific outlines governing women's behaviour. Nowhere does Islam ever condone honour killings, but in cultures predisposed to that sort of thing, the Islamic ideal of female purity gives men plenty of ammunition.


(Via Brown Pundits)

Why this Kolaveri Di song so popular?

CNN recently declared Why this Kolaveri Di? (meaning something like "Why this murderous rage, girl?") this its song of the year. Haven't heard of it? It was released in mid-November as promotion for the upcoming Tamil movie 3, and quickly became a viral sensation around the desi internets. Sung by actor Dhanush in a drunken "Tanglish" (that's a hybrid of Tamil and English), the original clip has swiftly racked up over 32 million views on Youtube, while various other spinoff, remix and parody versions in various languages (Malay, Punjabi, Arabic) have garnered another 20-odd million views. It's won a Youtube Gold Award for the greatest number of hits within a certain time frame.



Here is the song itself:


In a sense the song playfully references the way contemporary Tamil speech has co-opted numerous English words, even though the precise meaning of some of them might require translation to the average English speaker. A "soup boy", for example, refers to a guy who has lost out in love.

My first encounter with the song was at a Punjabi Sikh wedding reception, as members of the groom's family performed a choreographed dance to it; anyone who's been to an Indian wedding knows that sort of thing is not unusual. My second encounter was after seeing the CNN report and needing to figure out "why the fuss?" My initial reaction: meh. It's ok.
I then proceeded to sing it to myself on repeat for the next 3 hours.

Is that the key, then? Is it merely the song's catchiness, pure and simple, that has allowed it to win fans across linguistic and cultural barriers? Or is it something more? Because there are many songs that are extremely catchy that never cross into any sort of public consciousness. After talking to some Tamil peeps, this is what I can deduce:

* Dhanush is a popular Tamil movie star.
* Dhanush's father-in-law is the superstar Rajnikanth, who is sort of like the Tamil version of Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro and Jesus rolled into one. Anything even vaguely associated with Rajnikanth automatically gets the Midas touch in South India. Rajnikanth's daughter Aishwarya is also in this clip and she's hot.
* Indian media was plugging this Youtube clip like crazy, so its status as a "viral" hit was somewhat engineered.
* Dhanush's singing drunkenly about getting drunk appeals to a lot of young folks (think Afroman's Because I got high as an example) and the theme (guy getting rejected by a mean girl) is easy to identify with.
* The fact that it's in English, or at least a sort of English, means that Indians who aren't Tamil can also relate to it easily enough.
* The large number of English-speaking Indians and Sri Lankans around the world can be amused by this Indianized variant on the language.

I dunno. Just enjoy.

Moowee

This is too good to have only 1,646 views. From Canadian comics Ali Rizvi Badshah and Frank Agyemang.

South Asian diets and flatulence

Originally posted at Brown Pundits.

“Beans, beans, the musical fruit/ The more you eat, the more you toot” – children’s song

As you probably know, legumes (beans, lentils and peas) have high levels of oligosaccharides, which result in increased levels of flatulence. Whenever I hear someone mention eating baked beans (one of the principal legume-based dishes of Anglophone culture), someone else almost inevitably makes reference to their fart-producing capacity.

But brown people eat legumes like no one else. The average person in South Asia eats some kind of dal at least once a day, and probably more.

There are of course numerous other culinary cultures that revolve very heavily around legumes – Egyptians, Ethiopians and especially Mexicans – but South Asia is the global capital of legume consumption. India especially, given that around 400 million of its people are vegetarian and thus rely on dal as their primary source of protein; although due to poverty, I figure dal is still the main protein source even for the majority that do eat meat.

That would seem like a lot of farting.

Now, I haven’t done the research on this, and frankly I don’t want to. But would it be fair to say that Indians are the farting-est nationality in the world?

Or does one’s digestive system acclimatize to a diet high in legumes, to the point where flatulence is no longer a problem?

It is notable that both Mexican and Indian cuisines make extensive use of ingredients which supposedly lower flatulence levels. In India it is the powdered resin known as hing or asafoetida, while Mexicans add the herb epazote to their bean dishes.

As a vegetarian myself, and one who is very partial to Indian food, I eat a lot of lentils and chickpeas, and thus can personally testify that things can get pretty windy afterward. But I still don’t eat legumes quite as much as the average Mexican or Indian. So does the average desi household resemble dinnertime with the Klumps?


See also:

Foods that make you stink - Fenugreek

"The very foreign correspondent"

I was a fan of the UK series Balls of Steel. Sure, it was occasionally puerile, and prank-based humour can often be annoying rather than funny, but it did the genre better than most. Now Balls of Steel Australia is out on Foxtel. I haven't watched it since I'm too cheap to pay for Foxtel, and I'm a bit sceptical anytime someone tries to take a winning British comedy and replicate it in another culture. But here's a taster, and it features comedian Nazeem Hussain of Fear of a Brown Planet and Salam Cafe fame.

Comebacks to stereotypical and racist comments (Part 2 - South Asian version)

Ever had someone make a racially insensitive remark to you, but you couldn't think of a comeback to put them in their place?


I did a post on this a while back, dedicated to responding to some of the comments that East Asian people might hear. (It's here.) This one is for my South Asian brothers and sisters.


"You people smell like curry."
Comeback: "That's because we eat curry. You smell like shit. What's your excuse?"

"What's with the red dot on your forehead?"
Comeback: "That's my third eye. It enables me to detect douchebags. Funnily enough, it's buzzing right now."

(In mocking Apu-esque Indian accent): "Thank you, come again."
Comeback: "Funny, your mama said the same thing to me last night."
 
 
I'm aware that these comebacks aren't particularly intellectually sophisticated. But neither is the kind of person who is going to racially abuse you, so they're a good fit. But make sure you have your running shoes on, just in case.

The thorny question of Muslim youth and rape

British former Home Secretary Jack Straw courted controversy this week when he commented on a case of a gang of young men, primarily of Pakistani background, who sexually assaulted a number of white British girls in Derby. He said:

"Pakistanis, let's be clear, are not the only people who commit sexual offences, and overwhelmingly the sex offenders' wings of prisons are full of white sex offenders.

"But there is a specific problem which involves Pakistani heritage men... who target vulnerable young white girls.
"We need to get the Pakistani community to think much more clearly about why this is going on and to be more open about the problems that are leading to a number of Pakistani heritage men thinking it is OK to target white girls in this way."
Mr Straw added: "These young men are in a western society, in any event, they act like any other young men, they're fizzing and popping with testosterone, they want some outlet for that, but Pakistani heritage girls are off-limits and they are expected to marry a Pakistani girl from Pakistan, typically," he said.
"So they then seek other avenues and they see these young women, white girls who are vulnerable, some of them in care... who they think are easy meat.

The convicted men were ringleaders Mohammed Liaqat and Abid Saddique (pictured below), as well as Graham Blackham, Mohammad Rehman, Faisal Mehmood, Akshay Kumar, Naweed Liaqat and Farooq Ahmed. They groomed vulnerable teenage girls with drugs and alcohol, then sexually assaulted them. There were 27 victims in all.

Straw's statement predictably met with a flurry of criticism from some quarters, yet also agreement from others. What do you think? Do the South Asian and/or Muslim communities have a problem with rape, particularly towards white women? Is it a racist statement to make? Or is it a serious issue that the cultural Left are too scared to touch?

It's important not to be simplistic here. I have quite a few views on this, not only as the child of a Muslim Asian migrant but also as someone who has worked with many clients who have offended against women, and heard the full spectrum of young men's views about sex and relationships.

You could note that in Cornwall, another gang was very recently convicted of preying on mostly white girls as well. The details were very similar... yet these guys were white. Clearly the primary problem here is of gang culture, and possibly young male culture, rather than Pakistani culture.

However... as an Australian, the case sounds all too familiar. It is chillingly similar to two gang rape cases that shocked Sydney in the early part of the last decade. One was a group of 4 Pakistani brothers ("The K Brothers") and one Nepali who sexually assaulted as many as 18 teenage girls. Another was the 14 young men of Lebanese background  led by Bilal Skaf (pictured below) who gang-raped teenage girls at train stations. In the Skaf case, all the girls were "Aussie" (ie. white), and this was specifically mentioned as justification for their treatment. I'm unsure of the ethnicity of the girls in the K brothers case, but there is clear implication that they were not Pakistani.

Why white girls? In the Skaf case, there was clear racism at play. The gang members told one victim "You deserve it because you are Australian." Another was called an "Aussie pig", asked her if "Leb cock tasted better than Aussie cock" and explained to her that she would now be raped "Leb-style". In the case of the Asian gang recently convicted in Derby, there is some evidence of racial abuse. It should be pointed out that while the gang may well have had a prejudiced view of white girls that led to targeting them, I would guess it is largely due to opportunity and availability. White teenage girls, I would assume, are on the whole less conservative than Asian teenage girls and thus more vulnerable to grooming with drugs and alcohol. And with Asian girls there would be a greater chance of retribution from vengeful relatives.

Of course, it is important not to conflate the actions of a twisted few with an entire religion or culture. All three gangs I've discussed here are predominantly made up of Muslims; but are they actually Muslims in anything other than name only? Certainly they came out of a Muslim culture, yet when a sex offender is white, is his religion or ethnicity ever deemed relevant? It's probably safe to say they weren't devout religious people. It must be said that nowhere in Islam does it condone rape, and indeed the Islamic punishment for rape is severe. And I'm quite certain that the incidence of rape in Pakistan is nowhere near as high as that in places like the UK and US.

Yet... culture can give mixed messages. For example: Western male culture, in the main, abhors rape and views rapists as scum. But simultaneously, it promulgates the very attitudes that perpetuate a culture in which rape can thrive. For example, the idea that a promiscuous woman is a slut and thus less worthy of respect; the idea that a man's ability to "score" is reflective of his manhood; the idea that a man should be dominant when it comes to sex and relationships. These attitudes are not taught explicitly, yet most men unconsciously absorb them to some extent.

Those same values are present in all societies, to various degrees. It is worth noting that one of the victims of the K brothers claimed the police didn't take her seriously because she had been drunk, and had implied she was a slut. In South Asia and the Middle East, arguably the most sexually conservative regions in the world, the disdain for promiscuous women is taken to the highest degree, and links in with the so-called "honour killings" that sometimes happen there. (Note: while honour killings do correlate strongly with Islamic cultures, they are absent from much of the Islamic world, such as West Africa and SE Asia. They also occur among Indian Sikhs and Hindus.) 

When a man commits a sexual crime, he normally has certain beliefs about himself, the world, and the victim. Foremost among these is that the victim somehow deserves it, and that the perpetrator has some kind of entitlement to do so.


Religious conservatives love to blame the permissiveness and so-called immorality of modern Western culture for the incidence of rape. And while they may have a point, conservative morality can also fuel this kind of behaviour. It is a worldview that sees a sexually free woman as a slut, a whore, and thus someone of degraded morals and worthy of scorn. Such a person is often seen as "deserving" of what fate befalls her. You can see it discussions of rape and in rape trials, when the revealing nature of a victim's clothing is called into question, or likewise their sexual history.

It is generally accepted that Western society is more sexually free than most others; at least to the extent of being more open about it. Australia has a female PM living in a de facto relationship and no one bats an eyelid. Celebrities sexual exploits are popular tabloid fodder, and magazines dispense sexual advice to male and female alike. You could say that there is plenty of pre-marital sex happening in various non-Western societies, but the difference is that there still remains an "official" cultural stance that such behaviour is frowned upon.

When migrants come to the West, they are almost always more conservative than the mainstream society around them. This often changes, of course. But among many, particularly the more conservative older generation, there remains a prejudice about the young Westerners, particularly Western women. The more emphasis a culture places on chaste behaviour for its young women, the more it tends to view those who step outside these boundaries with distaste.
This is not a universal view among migrants by any means, but it is nonetheless a common phenomenon in virtually every ethnic group. Stick to "our" girls, because "their" girls are a bit, well, slutty.

This sort of attitude can be found to some degree amongst any migrant group, be they Korean, Kenyan or Kazakh. But it must be said that Islamic cultures take it a step further. Islam, with its rigid disapproval of premarital sex, places great emphasis on the tempting nature of women. Thus the need for hijab, covering up women to prevent men harassing them and being led into temptation. Now this might work in a sense, but it also has the effect of giving some men a very juvenile mindset when it comes to temptation. By primarily giving women the responsibility for not encouraging sin, it is easy for men to abdicate their own responsibilities. The idea that male sexuality is so powerful that men themselves cannot control it is common in many cultures, including in the Anglo-Saxon world, but it has achieved greatest currency in the Islamic world.

The distinction between a "good" woman and an "impure" one is made even more clear by clothing and behaviour. A good woman is one who covers her body and behaves properly. One that goes out partying, wears make-up, reveals a bit too much skin, or is perceived to be promiscious - she is impure and immoral, and thus not deserving of the same respect as the "good woman".

Now, in conservative countries where women cover themselves up and behave conservatively, this might work; yet it is still easy for women to be disgraced for relatively innocuous things, such as being seen with a boy. Consider then, the culture clash when someone from these countries arrives in the West and sees women in crop-tops and miniskirts. Most adjust to the new social norms they are faced with, but some cannot shake the view they have grown up with, which divides women up according to their level of moral correctness. And the girls who show off all that skin and go out drinking at bars, in this worldview, do not gain much high regard.

It is widely acknowledged that one of the most shocking incidents of racist violence in Australia's recent history, the Cronulla Riots in late 2005, was a reaction to the behaviour of a group of Lebanese men who routinely harassed blonde women at the beach and frequently called them "Aussie sluts".

Bilal Skaf's father once said that if the girls had been wearing hijab, they wouldn't have been raped.

The excellent British-Pakistani journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, speaking about the current case in Derby, says in this article:

Most Asian men do not go around raping young white girls and women; many have happy and equal relationships with white partners. However, an alarming number of Asian individuals, families and communities do believe that white females have no morals, are free and available, deserving of no respect or protection.

Up in Bradford a few years back, I met Muslim pimps, some wearing mini Koran pendants on heavy, gold chains. "Not our girls," they reassured me, "just them white girls from the estates, cheap girls. They love it man, all the money they make! What else will they do with their lives? We're helping them make a career."
Much laughter, until I asked them what they would do if a white pimp groomed their daughters. They would kill the pimp and the girls too, they said. They would too.

The sort of young men of Muslim backgrounds who commit this sort of crime are certainly not acting out any religious or cultural imperative. Rather, they are cherry-picking whatever cultural influences serve their purposes in the worst way. The rebellious sociopathy of the gang lifestyle; the lure of easy sex and cheap titillation that abounds in Western countries. These things of course are totally at odds with the culture of Pakistan, Lebanon or any other traditional country. Yet by channelling that traditional perspective of female morality, and victimising only those they view as degraded and cheap, it becomes that much easier to justify.



So back to the original comment by Jack Straw. He seems to generalise about Pakistani men, but given the overall context of his statement, I think it's clear he doesn't wish to tar the whole British Pakistani community with the same brush. I actually think he's spot on, and the British Asian community, and certain migrant communities elsewhere in the world, do need to do some soul-searching on this matter. It's one of the nastier consequences of a sadly too-common tendency among some migrant groups: to live in the West, yet view Western culture with distaste. This sort of thinking surely has no bright future.


See also:

Knobhead of the week: Samir Abu Hamza

Was Islamophobia a factor in the wrongful conviction of Farah Jama?

Define "race-based attack"

Usman Khawaja, Australia's first Muslim cricketer

Given how mad for cricket Australia's South Asian community are, it is only a matter of time before we see more of their presence in the national team. This week saw the debut of one promising youngster, Usman Khawaja. The 24-year-old lives in Sydney but was born in Islamabad, Pakistan. He is the first cricketer to represent Australia who is of Pakistani descent, and the first Muslim.

Khawaja is not the first person of South Asian descent to represent Australia, however. Dav Whatmore, born in Sri Lanka, had a short test career of 7 matches. Michael Bevan, also with some Sri Lankan heritage, played 18 tests and carved out a specialist career as one of the greatest one-day cricketers of all time.

Khawaja made a gritty 37 runs in his debut innings. He bats at number 3, often regarded as the most difficult place in the batting order, so the road ahead of him is not easy, but he is a highly rated talent. Time will tell if his talent has a full chance to express itself.

See also:
West Indians now more Indian than ever

Forever a foreigner in New Zealand

TVNZ shock jock Paul Henry has apologised for saying that Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand was not Kiwi enough for the job.
Henry caused a storm after he said this morning that Sir Anand did not look or sound like a New Zealander when he asked Prime Minister John Key whether the next Governor-General would be more Kiwi.
"Is he even a New Zealander?" Henry asked. ''Are you going to choose a New Zealander who looks and sounds like a New Zealander this time?''
Sir Anand, who has Fijian-Indian parents, was born and raised in Auckland, and worked as a lawyer, judge and Parliamentary Ombudsman in New Zealand before becoming Governor-General in 2006.

Full story here.

Ok, so a shock jock makes offensive comments. Nothing revelatory, just sad and fairly typical. I thought this was interesting because it is a perfect example of certain racist thinking and behaviour.
 
This is Henry's pseudo-apology:
 

Henry told Stuff earlier today he did not regret the comments, but has since issued a statement apologising.

"I sincerely apologise to the Governor General, Sir Anand Satyanand for any offence I may have caused. I am aware that Sir Anand has made an outstanding contribution to New Zealand.
"Anyone who knows anything about me will know I am a royalist, a constant defender of the monarchy and the role the Governor General plays in our society.
"If my comments have personally offended Sir Anand, I regret it deeply."

Catch that? "IF my comments have personally offended Sir Anand, I regret it deeply." IF.
Maybe this is just something people say. But it's a classic way of avoiding a proper apology.

Translated, it means "I don't think I said anything wrong at all. But if someone was so sensitive that they had to go and get all offended about it, then that's sad, I guess. I really don't care."

The other interesting thing is the idea of what a New Zealander is meant to look and sound like. Let's pretend for a moment that there actually IS a proper way that a New Zealander is meant to look and sound. What is it?

Below is a very short bit of footage of Satyanand speaking. What does he sound like to you?

If you answered, "A New Zealander", full marks for you. He speaks with a NZ accent, which is unsurprising since he was born and raised there.

Ok so does he look like a New Zealander? Well it's funny, because I seem to recall that the original New Zealanders are a brownish sort of people called the Maori. And for what it's worth, Satyanand actually looks considerably more like a Maori than does Paul Henry (pictured).

What it shows is that for people like Henry, some people will forever be foreigners. Immigrants are often criticised for not integrating or not proving themselves as citizens of their new country. Yet Satyanand has worked his way up to the top of his field to hold one of the country's highest offices, and yet he's still not worthy of shaking off the "foreigner" tag. And - he's not even an immigrant! He was born in Auckland!
 
(Hat tip: Ruth DeSouza)

Check these related posts:

You're damned if you do...

"Send them all back"... even if they are Australian?

When is an American not an American?

More "Obama's not an American" nonsense

"The suspect is of Indian appearance..." Oh wait, no he's not.

I have written in the past here and here about some of the problems with ethnic descriptors of criminals. A news story this week raises more of these issues.

I was listening to the radio the other day and heard the report about a man who was suspected to have committed several sexual assaults at several Melbourne train stations. The most recent one involved him inappropriately touching a 13 year-old girl from behind while on an escalator at Flinders Street Station.

The description of him given on ABC774 was being "of Indian appearance."

Is this based on the police description? I'm not sure. They describe him here as "about 175 centimetres tall, of average build with black hair, tanned skin and was wearing a blue top". So did the radio station see the picture and make their own conclusions about his ethnic appearance?

Here's a photo of the man. You decide whether he is "of Indian appearance".

If you thought, "Nah, he doesn't really look Indian,", you'd be right. If I had to guess, I would pick him as someone from Northern Africa, of mixed African and Arabic ancestry.

Indeed, the man has been caught and has been found to be a 27 year-old Libyan student, Almahde Atagore. He has only been in Melbourne 41 days and has indecently assaulted at least 3 people.

Now for a member of the public in a position to help the police with their inquiries, would the description of him as "of Indian appearance" be helpful or not? I would guess not. This man only looks Indian if you don't really know what an Indian looks like. If I had seen Atagore walking around, and was then asked if I'd seen a man of Indian appearance, I don't know if I would make the connection. Fortunately they did catch him, and it was probably based on the visual footage rather than the radio's description.

The other issue is that radio reports like that are not particularly good PR for the Indian-Australian community. Recently I have heard of a number of widely-reported sexual assaults in Melbourne committed by men described as Indian (who were indeed either Indian or at least South Asian). My first reaction upon hearing this latest one was "Damn, another Indian?"

Perhaps that says something about the way I see the world. But I do not doubt that there will be many people who hear descriptions like that and use it to reinforce certain prejudices and stereotypes they have about Indians. I remember this case in which a Malaysian man was brutally bashed to death in Sydney by two men described as having olive skin and curly hair. Straight away a lot of people assumed the assailants must have been Lebanese or Pacific Islanders (two groups highly represented in cases of violent crime in Sydney). It turns out the men were Indonesian; but that initial reaction tells you a lot about preconceptions.

Describing someone as looking Indian can be useful, certainly. Everyone knows roughly what an Indian looks like, whereas using the more accurate term "South Asian", which is not all that commonly used in Australia, might actually confuse people - they might confuse it with merely "Asian", which in Australia is usually taken to mean someone of East Asian appearance.

Yet it is problematic at the same time. Yes, there are lots of Indians in Australia, but they are not the only South Asians. Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis also fall into this category. You will also find people from Mauritius, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iran and Burma who could accurately be described as "South Asian in appearance". Indeed, so could many people from the Middle East (and apparently, if this case is any guide, Afro-Arabs as well).

Indians, as the most prominent nationality of this bunch, end up carrying the can. We don't describe suspects as being "of Chinese appearance". So why Indian?

Make yourself whiter on Facebook

Facebook now has an application for everything, no matter how messed up. Its latest comes courtesy of Vaseline, who release their latest weapon in their race to capitalise on the collective colourist insecurities of Indian people.

The application lightens half of your profile picture, to demonstrate how much fairer (and therefore "better") you could look if you used Vaseline's new whitening product.

If you aren't all that familiar with colour prejudice within India, this might seem odd, but it's all very run-of-the-mill. Check out these ads below for skin whitening cream, both of which present dark skin as repugnant and something to be ashamed of.








Funnily enough, if you consider the Indian population as a whole, neither of the characters being ridiculed for their swarthiness is actually all that dark.

Some might point to this as Indians desiring to be more like white people. While there might be an element of truth in that, the roots of subcontinental colour prejudice are actually far more ancient.

South Asia has seen countless populations moving in and out and blending for thousands of years, so I don't wish to oversimplify its complex racial and genetic makeup. But in general, North Indians tend to be lighter-skinned and South Indians tend to be darker. A similar light-to-dark gradation is observable in the caste system, with Brahmins and other castes tending to be fairer than people from lower castes.

Historians generally agree that the story goes something like this: the Aryans, who moved into India several thousand years ago, hailed from the steppes of Central Asia and spoke a language of the Indo-European family (which includes modern Hindi and Punjabi, as well as Persian, English and most other languages of Europe). They brought with them a belief system that would eventually become Hinduism, and they were light-skinned. In India they discovered a darker-skinned people who mostly spoke languages of the Dravidian family (including modern Tamil and Malayalam).

The social order put in place by the Aryan peoples was to enshrine their position in society as higher than those whose lands they had conquered. This would soon become the caste system; the Sanskrit word for caste, varna, can also be interpreted as "colour" (from which the Malay world for colour, warna, is derived).

So skin colour in India has deep-seated connotations of not just beauty, but of class and status. Read Indian personal/matchmaking columns and you'll sometimes see people referred to as "wheatish"; in other words, the ideal skin colour resembles the colour of wheat. In addition, prejudices may be reinforced by the association of dark skin with working out in the sun (and hence being lower class), as occurs in most of East Asia. Later, the Persians, Portuguese and English who all had turns ruling parts of the subcontinent, would also add to the perceived link between light skin and high status.

How prevalent is this prejudice? According to this article, "In 2009, a poll of nearly 12,000 people by online dating site Shaadi.com, revealed that skin tone was considered the most important criteria when choosing a partner in three northern Indian states."

The film industry reflects this as well. Check out this article about the most popular actresses in Tamil Nadu. Then by contrast, have a look at the faces in this picture of a street scene in Chennai in Tamil Nadu.

So while so many Westerners are desperate to risk skin cancer in order to get a good tan, many people born with that colour seem desperate to get rid of it. And of course, amongst it all are big corporations making easy money of our insecurities.