"Caste or Colony?: Indianizing Race in the United States," Modern Intellectual History 4 (2007): 275-301.

== Summary ==
This
article examines the two competing vision of “how blacks in the U.S. are
understood to relate to Indians: one vision identifying race with case, the
other identifying race with colony.” (275) Thinkers in both countries,
Immerwahr argues, “have disagreed, sometimes passionately, over whether being
black is like being colonized or like being untouchable.” (276) Moving beyond
the black-Indian analogy (Gandhi-King), we see both moments of mutual inspiration
and bitter contention. Immerwahr explores the long connection of India and the
United States, from the missionary-abolitionists to Ambekdar to black Americans
(Thurman, Rustin, etc.) visits to India and Gandhi, all of which occurred
before King’s travels and adoption of non-violence. Throughout, there was a
contentious ideological relationship with how each compared to the other. Even
King, upon returning to the U.S. after his trip, adopted
government-interventionist approach to ending discrimination that echoed
Ambekdar’s view in the 1930s (a view he took from the United States, in
particular the civil rights bills during the 1860s, and one that Gandhi
opposed). In a circuitous way, King was adopting an American idea, via India.
Moreover, King’s views represented race-caste approach (returning to the sociological
perspective of the 1930s) that contrasted with the black internationalists’
race-colony argument, later adopted by the Black Power Movement. Ultimately,
Immerwhar shows how the connections between Indian and the U.S. created two
threads of comparison: race-caste/race-colony.