As South Asians, we can’t be complacent anymore. Black Lives Matter!
The murder of George Floyd has been one in many unjustified uses of excessive force by the police in America. The protest worldwide is a call for solidarity amongst various factions towards the injustices Black community face in America as well as the greater Western world. Anti-blackness is “toxic” because it perpetuates a generalization about Black individuals shaping the modern socio-political system that marginalizes against people of colour in totality. South Asian and East Asian immigrants in America are considered “model minorities.” Though this term is an American construction, the attitude it promotes find roots in Asian diasporas all over the world. I am an Indian living in the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada, I can attest to some problematic anti-Black sentiments within the Indian diaspora as well as broader South Asian one. There is an acceptance of the “model minority” tag, a narrative perpetuated by white majority ruling classes. This classifies which immigrant group is non-problematic and can adhere to the “laws, culture and ethics” of their land; this places the South Asian community on a higher pedestal. We learnt to take pride in being engineers and doctors — hard workers who’ll put their head down to do the work- laying a path for our upward economic mobility. But this acceptance of the cultural identity of “model minority,” validates an assumption rooted in a system that facilitates and rewards “whiteness.”
The Black communities often do not get grouped in a minority category which is “model.” The stereotypes about Black people perpetuated by white supremacy get passed down to “us”- the model minority group. Instead of solidarity that one minority community should have for another, we often see the perpetuation of stereotypes and generalizations about the Black community. This is beautifully showcased in one of the rare depiction of an interracial couple (both minorities) in Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala (1991). Many a time, there isn’t a deeper nuance or context given to the historical injustices faced by black communities across the Western world which has created socio-economic traps that restrict black youth’s access to high-quality education and economic mobility. On the other hand, for many young South Asian diasporic members, Blackness is often co-opted to gain cultural agencies; black culture through music, dance, cinema and art has created a space in urban popular culture to represent their unique voices; it’s the co-optation of the N-word into a term of endearment which must not be used by non-Black communities.
South Asian as a minority group that vies for cultural recognition shouldn’t co-opt Black culture because their immigrant experiences don’t match up to the daily experiences of a Black person. Again, there is no comparison of who’s oppression is greater, but rather solidarity amongst various racial and ethnic minorities. Hasan Minhaj in his visible frustrations through his Netflix show Patriot Act makes us confront the hypocrisy rooted in South Asian culture, where we have normalized the usage of a term like Kaala — employed while making fun of darker-skinned members of our community. In South Asia, it’s evident that many black students (mainly from Africa) face racism and discrimination. Their perceptions in South Asian communities are often unfavourable and racist; this is partially because of what I see as a failure of decolonization, where colonial notions of whiteness still ring. South Asian popular culture projects “light/fair skin” as a mark of beauty and social status, this is evident in Bollywood and other regional film industries across India — where lead roles are often offered to fair skin actors, and the dark skin ones who get cast in any major roles — are deemed as beautiful only in “contextual” sense. Dark skin is often co-related to poverty, where fair skin actors wear black/brown face in a bid to appear poorer. Many Bollywood stars are seen promoting skin-lightening cosmetics, solidifying South Asian obsession with “whiteness.”
Similarly, the racial attitude held by white supremacy trickles down to the “model minority,” where the South Asian immigrants who do well economically disassociates themselves with other minority categories. This complacency of accepting the “model minority” tag hurts us in the long term. When we start seeing ourselves through the lens of “whiteness.” It’s accepting racial injustices part and parcel of accepting the privilege that comes from closely associating with “whiteness,” well we may very well are part of the problem, I suppose! We must use our newfound socio-economic and cultural privileges to deconstruct systems of white supremacy. The conversations have to happen now: with the growing and thriving South Asian diasporas in the West; there are many prominent South Asians like Hasan Minhaj, who is speaking about it; he is criticizing the bigotry held by South Asians; evident by the mega “Howdy Modi” rally, where the Hindus are appeased by the white conservative base of America through the whispers of we want more model immigrants like you — the group who isn’t criticizing the “caste-based” discriminatory system that’s been reignited in India. Similarly, Minhaj also points out that even South Asian Muslims communities perpetuate this perception when interacting with many Black Muslim communities. Anti-blackness in South Asia and as a matter of fact in Asia transcends religion, it’s a problematic manifestation of olden colonial supremacy that dictated such racial distinctions.
Affluent South Asian communities in the West can’t be complacent now. We need to address the anti-Black sentiments that are plaguing our communities and the larger system. The hard conversations with Uncles and Aunties have to happen now; they need to understand that being a good American/Canadian/British etc is not about satisfying ourselves with the tag given to us by the status quo. Our economic mobility is a consequence of the historical efforts led by many Black leaders across the globe who paved the way for civil rights and easier immigration rules for people of colour; now we have to help pave way for our Black friends for a socio-cultural revolution where we don’t mimic whiteness, but rather embrace in-between categories of South Asian and the West, and become an ally in a movement greater than our self-interest by supporting the Black communities who have been facing the ire for centuries, and shouldn’t have to explain themselves to another ethnic minority. Black Lives Matter.
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Anushray Singh is a Juice Editor who has completed his MFA in Film & Media Arts from the University of Windsor. His academic and artistic work aims to facilitate a space for a South Asian “transnational” network. Find out more about Anushray on our team page. You can also follow his Forking Opinions Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Originally published at https://juicedroplet.com.