From: vishram@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Vishram P.Dalvi)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Oriental bias against Indians - Originator
Date: 15 Apr 92 06:44:01 GMT
Reply-To: vishram@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Vishram P.Dalvi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
Originator: vishram@happy.cc.utexas.edu


 Hi SCAA readers,

	I am the originator of this article. I wanted to clarify
a few points about which I have been receiving/seeing a lot of
posting on net (it's my fault).
	What I DID NOT disclose is that "I did ask this girl out"
and it was her reaction that prompted me to post this article on
the net. I am an incorrigible optimist and so, I went ahead despite 
my friend's warning, with the idea that "at the worst, she'll say no".
	This girl was pretty friendly with me earlier and we used
to talk every time we passed each other and she had dinner at my 
place once and acted pretty nicely and we played nintendo and so on....
but one thing that I noticed was that she would visit my apartment 
mostly WHEN SHE NEEDED HELP but if I visited hers (when she didn't 
need help) she would not entertain me for too long. Also going by
the Indian custom, if someone would help me with say fixing my 
apartment, then I would have invited that person over to my place
for a party or atleast a regular meal (just out of gratitude) but
this girl NEVER did that. I always saw her Caucasian/Chinese and
Black friends dropping in and spending hours chatting with her but
neither me nor my room-mates (who had helped her too) were ever
invited. This irritated me a lot because I thought that if she has
SO MANY OTHER FRIENDS, then why doesn't she ask THEM to help her ?
Why is it that when it comes to helping, it is the "friendly Indian
neighbour" but when it comes to chatting, it is the "non-Indian
friends" ?
	Then my friend's words came back to me and I felt that they
might be true. Maybe there IS a bias against Indians. Like someone
else said on the net, even though there is no OVERT bias against any
race, one can still feel the vibes. It's much lesser if one is in
some Engineering school (like I am) where the students get a LOT of
exposure to Indian fellow students, Teaching Assistants, collegues
and Professors. But if I talk to people outside engg school, then I
kinda' feel that the Caucasians and even Orientals DO treat me like
an OUTSIDER ! The only people who have ALWAYS got along well with
me (and a lot of my friends too) are HISPANICS. So does it all boil
down to COLOR ? Am I treated differently because my skin is darker ?
	Some of you will say that IT MIGHT BE A CONCEIVED BIAS. I FEEL 
LIKE I AM BEING DISCRIMINATED AGAINST BECAUSE THIS FEELING IS HIDDEN IN
ME AND NOT BECAUSE THERE IS ANY DISCRIMINATION. But that's not true !
I am a VERY confident person and am intelligent and knowledgeable enough
to be able to converse with any American without a feeling of inferiority.
Also I can speak in English fluently (My entire education has been in
an English school back in India). 
	Do Caucasians and Orientals (raised in this country and probably
looking up at the Caucasians as ideal people/friends) think that just 
because a person is dark skinned, he/she is less intelligent/smart/COOL
than they are ? Do some Indiana Jones fans think that there REALLY are
snakes/tigers/elephants roaming the streets of India ? Do they think
of India as the land of Rajah's and magic and fakirs ? Do they think
that people eat monkey brains and live serpants for dinner ? If they
do, all I can do is pity their ignorance. A lot of American movies feed
people the kind of shit that they WANT !
	Take any movie shot in an Asian/Arab nation and here's what you
will see : LOT's of turbanned people, dilapidated houses, dark skinned
natives, guys carrying monkeys on a chain (?), veiled women, haggling
merchants, some one with a sword/scimitar chasing our Caucasian friend
Indiana or James Bond. Have you ever seen any movies which show the
industrialized/educated facets of these countries ? How many people know
that India is a Non-Aligned (neither Russia nor America) nation which
has launched satellites in space, has nuclear capability and is YET
peaceful (No STAR-WARS or Hiroshima), has super-computers for weather
prediction, a BIG industrial sector in textiles, automotives, chemicals
pharmaceuticals, petrochemical industries, communications, computer
manufacture and a lot more ? Compare this with how many people here know
about the former image (Indiana Jones) and the caste system and the cows
and the mysterious Hindu Gods !
	With this kind of negative portrayal of us, how will the bias
get eliminated ? It is not just the matter of my having been rejected
by a girl (:-)), it is matter of an IMAGE, a PERCEPTION that really
irks me ! Like yet another person quoted earlier, is it that Caucasians
consider themselves superior just because most Caucasian nations are
powerful AT PRESENT ? Why are Asian/Arab/African nations termed as 
"THIRD WORLD" ? Which is the REAL "THIRD WORLD", the one which had well 
developed social political and scientific system when the Europeans were 
still floundering in the Dark ages or the one which developed the concept 
of a numeric system (misnamed as Arabic numbers) and laid the foundation
of Herbal medicine and had vastly advanced concepts in Mathemetics and
Astronomy when the Europeans were still burning witches at stakes ?
	All this was brought to naught by our own profligate, imtemperate
ostentatious kings in the last few centuries and by British suppression.
It is not that the people are inferior or unintelligent. No race is
genetically inferior or unintelligent (regardless of what a latest report
says about Blacks). It is just a matter of opportunity. Most Americans
who grow up with a computer and get their own car when they go to school 
probably never realize that there are other people in this world who cannot 
get two square meals a day nor a pair of good clothes to wear BUT have the 
gift of an intellect that has been bestowed upon us through the process of 
evolution. I do not want to continue this topic any further since I am 
getting kinda' sentimental and will probably go on typing for the next one 
hour. 
	All I have to say is that "ALL OF US ARE EQUAL" Do not despise any 
human being just because he/she is not as affluent as you are or because 
he/she doesn't look as good as you all do. Be a true Christian/Hindu/Muslim
/Buddhist or what ever you are, but don't forget to be a TRUE HUMAN BEING ! 
Weed out the poison of discrimination from your hearts and accept all people 
as your own. I'll stop here. 

My sincere thanks to all the people who have contributed to this article
and shared their ideas and wisdom with me.

sincerely,

vishram
(vishram@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu)

PS: Just a curious question here : Why is it that a lot of Orientals
either raised here or students from Asia adopt a Caucasian name like
John/Bob/Max but ALL Indians retain their Indian names (or Indian
kids raised here have Indian names). This could well be the topic of
another controversial discussion.
 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american