Finally, the law has changed. Congrats to at the activists in India that made it happen! Our hats off to you.

In a landmark ruling Thursday that could usher in an era of greater freedom for gay men and lesbians in India, New Delhi’s highest court decriminalized homosexuality.

“Discrimination is antithesis of equality,” the judges of the Delhi High Court wrote in a 105-page decision that is the first in India to directly guarantee rights for gay people. “It is the recognition of equality which will foster dignity of every individual,” the decision said.

Homosexuality has been illegal in India since 1861, when British rulers codified a law prohibiting “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.” [Link]

Doubtless many readers saw the recent article in the New York Times, profiling Katherine Russell Rich, author most recently of a book called Dreaming in Hindi — a memoir of a year spent in Rajasthan, learning Hindi.

Something about the article in the Times bugged me, starting with the following passage:

One store owner insists in English that she is not actually speaking Hindi; when Ms. Rich explains, in Hindi, that she studied the language for some time in Rajasthan, he retorts, in English, “They don’t speak Hindi in Rajasthan.” (This happens not to be true.)

When Ms. Rich returned to New York from abroad, she spontaneously spoke Hindi to a friend of a friend. “He told me that when I spoke Hindi to him, it was like a body blow,” Ms. Rich said. “I think to Indians, sometimes it feels like I’m eavesdropping on a private conversation, like I’m breaking the fourth wall.” (link)

Wait, couldn’t it also be that the people Rich has been accosting, taxi drivers and convenience store clerks, might simply find this persistent American annoying, and have refused to speak Hindi with her mainly to make her go away? Lady, I’m sorry if your being in New York means your newly-acquired Hindi is going to start getting rusty. But I got a job to do, and that involves speaking English to patrons as I sell them stuff, not teaching you how to pronounce “lajawab” correctly. Next in line, please?

The question has to be asked: why does Katherine Russell Rich want to learn to speak Hindi? Is it to communicate with Hindi speakers while living in India? That would be a perfectly fine reason, indeed, an admirable one. But I suspect that sadly her real desire was to a) get paid for writing a book where she can talk all about her Hindi lessons and her impressions of Rajasthan, only to b) promptly move back to Manhattan, where she’ll irk Hindi speaking New Yorkers with her persistent demands that they speak Hindi with her?

Another annoyance in the article is the presumption that people refuse to acknowledge a white woman who speaks Hindi because we desis like to gossip about Americans in our secret language:

To some people from India, Ms. Rich learned, it is insulting to be addressed in anything other than English, a language of the privileged. And for some immigrants, domain over a language unfamiliar to most Americans must feel like one of the few riches they can claim. (link)

I really don’t know where the author of the article got this idea. (Why not ask an actual Indian, Hindi-speaker before making the speculative statement that “domain over a language unfamiliar to most Americans must feel like one of the few riches they can claim”?)

Finally, there is the obligatory dis on second-generation, “heritage” students who take Hindi classes at their universities:

“A lot of Indians who were born here or moved here when they were very small want to rediscover the language,” he said. (Ms. Rich said that she had overlapped with such students at New York University, and that many were already proficient in the language, less interested in their heritage and more interested in an easy A.) (link)

I’ll have you know, Ms. Rich, that most second gen, Indian-American college students do not take Hindi for this reason. I myself took Hindi at Cornell, and my professor gave me a “B” in intermediate Hindi (I deserved it, but it still smarts: certainly not an “easy A”).

In fact, most Indian-American college students actually take Hindi to meet, and flirt with, other Indian-American college students. So there.

The June issue of Khabar magazine has a touching first-person piece called “How I Became a Patel,” in which Rick Beltz, a onetime alcoholic, describes how he transformed his life. The turning point, he writes, came a decade ago, when Vipul and Bharti Patel bought the motel in rural North Georgia where he worked as a handyman.

As a Native American who had lived all his life in Toccoa, Georgia, before meeting the Patels, I had very little experience with other cultures. Indeed, my only exposure to other cultures came from my interactions with Hispanics. Other than that, what I knew about worlds outside my North Georgia cocoon came from movies, where foreigners are often portrayed as evil, scheming, greedy characters. To me, people from India were turban-wearing dolts working at the local 7-Eleven. [Link]

That’s the impression he had back then, as a non-turban-wearing dolt working at the local motel. The Patels, including Vipul’s mother, Gulaben, helped bring him around, saving him from alcoholism, as well as ignorance.

The Patels … would completely demolish my preconceived notions about Indians and foreigners; but that is the least they would do. Over the years, I would come clean with myself, quit alcohol, start believing in myself, in people, and in life—all because this one family gave me unconditional acceptance and love almost from the time I first met them. [Link]

This week’s New Yorker has another article by doctor and health care policy expert Atul Gawande. In the article he attempts to probe why medical costs in this country are spiraling out of control, singling-out one particular outlier in Texas:

It is spring in McAllen, Texas. The morning sun is warm. The streets are lined with palm trees and pickup trucks. McAllen is in Hidalgo County, which has the lowest household income in the country, but it’s a border town, and a thriving foreign-trade zone has kept the unemployment rate below ten per cent. McAllen calls itself the Square Dance Capital of the World. “Lonesome Dove” was set around here.

McAllen has another distinction, too: it is one of the most expensive health-care markets in the country. Only Miami—which has much higher labor and living costs—spends more per person on health care. In 2006, Medicare spent fifteen thousand dollars per enrollee here, almost twice the national average. The income per capita is twelve thousand dollars. In other words, Medicare spends three thousand dollars more per person here than the average person earns. [Link]

By systematically eliminating all the likely suspects (e.g., it’s the lawyers and their malpractice suits that cause health care costs to soar), Gawande comes to a conclusion that many doctors probably already grudgingly realize through experience. It is doctors (not all, just the ones who increasingly advocate for tests that the patient probably does not need) who are driving up health care costs for everyone:

“McAllen is legal hell,” the cardiologist agreed. Doctors order unnecessary tests just to protect themselves, he said. Everyone thought the lawyers here were worse than elsewhere.

That explanation puzzled me. Several years ago, Texas passed a tough malpractice law that capped pain-and-suffering awards at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Didn’t lawsuits go down?

“Practically to zero,” the cardiologist admitted.

“Come on,” the general surgeon finally said. “We all know these arguments are bullshit. There is overutilization here, pure and simple.” Doctors, he said, were racking up charges with extra tests, services, and procedures. [Link]

Picture this: You’re a single woman in your early forties who has taken a liking to a handsome twenty-something guy who lives in your apartment building. Hey, if it works for Demi, why not you? So you gather the courage and leave a box of samosas at his door, with a note that says, “Just made a batch and thought you might like a few.”

An hour later, there’s a knock at your door. He’s standing there in shorts and a tank top, looking as studly as ever. “The samosas were great,” he says. “Thank you for thinking of me, Aunty.”

Well, that scenario probably never happened to Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan, but she’s nevertheless peeved about being called “aunty” by people she barely knows, as she states in this month’s Khabar (her piece originally appeared in India Currents, linked below).

Today, the title “aunty” is so overused and misused that it has lost its position and meaning. Indian-American children are taught that every adult female is a potential aunty; many carry this presumption to the conclusion that any adult female older than them can be an aunty. I’m not referring to school children here, but to those I see as adults, the lipsticked and bearded variety, who ought to know better. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with terms like ammayi, or cheriamma, or edathi, all specific Malayalam words that acknowledge individuals who are close family members and deserve rightful respect in the family’s pecking order. There are equivalent terms in every Indian language: terms like maami, mausi, and didi that all validate close family connections. But amongst English-speaking Indian Americans, the frequent use of “aunty” or “uncle” is more often an example of lazy speech, or a desire to bump the individual in question into the category of doddering older-other, than it is a thoughtful moniker of respect. Therein lies the problem. [Link]

The last few days I have been tweeting about a set of unfortunate circumstances surrounding young Rubina Ali, the young girl that played the child Latika in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. First, a British paper engaged in some investigative reporting and alleged that Ali’s parents were attempting to sell her off for a high bid (in order to buy their way out of the slums or just out of plain greed). Then it appears that Indian police began investigating this serious allegation. Finally today, a vicious cat fight occurred between Ali’s mom and step mom as the poor girl watched on in tears. This is of course a really sad story born from a seemingly happy one. There aren’t a lot of details I can add to this that you can’t simply read in the three articles I linked above. Instead, the focus of this post is in about a single sentence from the third article which caught my eye:

After seeing Munni [the step mother] talking to reporters, Khushi [the biological mother] launched a verbal attack, accusing Munni of using black magic to control Rubina. [Link]

Allegations of witches and witchcraft are not new to India and at least a few times a year the western media highlights them. They also occur quite regularly in the U.S. and all around the world for that matter. It is a phenomenon that spans borders, cultures, and time. A must-read piece at Slate today highlighted two new books (The Enemy Within and The Last Witch of Langenburg: Murder in a German Village) on the subject of witch hunts and why vulnerable women or young girls are most frequently the victims of these sort of hunts which seek to expunge “evils” from within a group.

The allure of witch hunting can grip any of us if we abandon our adherence to reason and evidence. As a tribal, poorly evolved species, we are very vulnerable to believing that we are surrounded by secretive, wicked people who might seem like us at first glance but who are, in fact, conspiring against us—and must be rooted out and destroyed. John Demos explains how this differs from other forms of persecution: “Witch-hunting alone finds the other within its own ranks. The Jew, the black, and the ethnic opposite exist, in some fundamental sense, ‘on the outside.’ … The witch, by contrast, is discovered (and ‘discovery’ is key to the process) inside the host community.”

We know that witch hunts break out most ferociously at times of trauma and stress. There was no concept of child witchcraft in Congo until the war began and 6 million people were killed. Now a broken and terrorized population has turned on its own children in a desperate, futile attempt to find some way to regain control. The first great witch hunt in Europe came after the Black Death killed one-third of the population. The second came between 1580 and 1650, when the climate cooled and crops failed. Similarly, witch hunting erupted in America—on the dirt-tracks of Salem, Mass.—at a time when 10 percent of the colonists were being killed and all lived in constant fear of the American Indians who were trying to defend their civilization from extinction. [Link]

Los Angeles Korea town has had a contentious battle of turf over the years. Some may recall the tension from the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots between the Korean and African American community. the LA Times had an article this week about how now, the battle is with the Bangladeshi community.

Although [Maminul Haque] is standing in the heart of Koreatown, he and many other Bangladeshi Americans say the name does not reflect all its inhabitants. Now, the community is seeking recognition of its own “Little Bangladesh” within the area west of downtown popularly known as Koreatown.

The proposal has angered longtime residents who have worked hard to promote the district as a Korean cultural destination and economic hub.[latimes]

The Bangladeshi area here is unlike other L.A. ethnic hubs. Whereas on Pioneer Blvd. in Cerritos there are clean sari stores, or bright chaat houses, not so here. Located in the heart of the grittiest part of Los Angeles, the Bangladeshi business are interspersed with Korean and Mexican stores. There is no section of stores. Food is fast food and grocery store combined. But the community does exist - they have annual parades, they have an Independence Day festival in the park behind Shatto lanes, and South Asian Network has organized a housing campaign in the neighborhood.

A few months ago, I mentioned a unique proposal from Alan Greenspan for addressing our housing-led recession - basically, import desis to shore up the buyer side of the market -

Here We Come to Save the Day... Again.

"The most effective initiative, though politically difficult, would be a major expansion in quotas for skilled immigrants," he said. The only sustainable way to increase demand for vacant houses is to spur the formation of new households. Admitting more skilled immigrants, who tend to earn enough to buy homes, would accomplish that while paying other dividends to the U.S. economy.

He estimates the number of new households in the U.S. currently is increasing at an annual rate of about 800,000, of whom about one third are immigrants. "Perhaps 150,000 of those are loosely classified as skilled," he said. "A double or tripling of this number would markedly accelerate the absorption of unsold housing inventory for sale -- and hence help stabilize prices."

In the meantime, several other pundits have come forth with similar proposals including Thomas Friedman -

I came across a brief blogpost about the correlation between literacy, GNP and suicide rates in Europe and it spawned some rambling thoughts Perhaps this is exactly what blogging's meant for -

Does He Have An Answer?

Dr Andrej Maruai, a Slovene psychiatrist involved in organizing the conference, presented a paper called "Suicide in Europe: Genetics, Literacy and Poverty" which convincingly shows the links between the social factors of literacy and poverty, and suicidal behavior. . . .

According to Maruai's theory, the higher any given country's literacy rate and the lower that country's GNP, the more likely the country is to have a high suicide rate. The theory can be convincingly applied to the countries with the highest suicide rates in Europe, namely the three Baltic states, Hungary and Slovenia, where literacy is at almost 100 percent and where the GNP and standard of living have been adversely affected by the transition process.

Maruai's hypothesis certainly fits one of the oft-cited downsides of "the Kerala model"

...among other states of India Kerala has highest suicidal rate. This is in spite of the fact that Kerala is having the highest rate of literacy and Kerala is having an accepted model for Health Care Delivery System. In this context it is also important to note that Kerala is the largest market of psychiatric drugs in South India and our state is having the highest rate of unemployment and the highest per capita alcoholic consumption.

Why is this so?

This Sunday, I woke up to an email from a girlfriend who is not Desi. She said that there was a really thought-provoking article in the New York Post, which reminded her of some of our conversations. She thought I might enjoy it. Enjoy it? I could have written parts of it. It was about Dating While Brown— and dating other Browns, to be specific.

The piece was called, “MELTING NOT: Why Young People Like me Started Dating Within our Race”. In it, NYP reporter Raakhee Mirchandani wrote a sensitive, honest explanation of her views on love— and I can just imagine the nastiness she might be encountering because of it.

It’s never easy to put yourself out there, so I salute her for doing so. Besides, with this issue, you can’t win. You date outside your community and you’re either a sell-out, desperate or a coconut. Date within it and you’re insular, insecure and biased. Ugh. Can’t we all just get along? I hope we can remember to be kind to one another, as we discuss an issue which affects all of us, albeit in different ways. We’ve got to let love rule, or whatever Lenny screams. On to the story.

::

I know so many friends, whose experience mirrored this:

Growing up, the man in my dreams was a mystery; he was white, he was tall, he was dark, he was slick. He was always handsome. In my fantasy it didn’t matter if he was Catholic or Muslim, European or African, if he ate pigs or worshipped monkeys. It didn’t matter if he understood that I came from a rich tradition of Indian Hindus who were strict vegetarians, quietly conservative, obsessively dedicated to family and maniacal in their love for cheesy song-and-dance movies with mediocre acting and music.

And so when we met, freshman year at Boston University - the street smart Eastern European with a gorgeous smile, big heart and wicked sense of humor and the artsy Indian girl with a penchant for big hair, Bollywood and Biggie -it seemed like the perfect cross-continental match.

Ah, Biggie. I pour some of my Robitussin with Codeine out for you.

But somewhere along our six years together, the Indian girl from Jersey, who had naively promised him Catholic children, steak dinners and consistently defended his refusal to hang with my family as a simple difference in opinion, had a change of heart. And he did, too.

I remember him looking at me on an evening not far from our last and saying, “It’s like all of a sudden you became Indian.” In a way so quiet I didn’t even realize it was happening, the brown from my skin must have seeped in and colored my heart.

That line just slays me. I project emotions and explanations all over it. Is it accusatory? A blurt of hurt? Is becoming “Indian” a negative thing? The defending “his refusal to hang with my family” is also poignant. America may be a country of individuals, but most of us who are of South Asian descent are tightly tied to our families, for better or for worse. No one wants to be caught in that vise between one love and another.

The Washington Post featured an article this morning about ethnic dating patterns, primarily those in the Asian and South Asian American communities. At first I assumed, “here we go again, another hackneyed piece about arranged marriages or something.” While there were a few clichés in the article, it did feature an intriguing revelation (to me at least). 2nd generation South Asian Americans (like some other ethnic groups), are increasingly marrying within their race. The magnitude of the trend was somewhat shocking to me since South Asian Americans are better assimilated than our European counterparts, and truly homogeneous ethnic enclaves which would foster such trends are very rare in the U.S. I thought for sure there would be a minor slope in the opposite direction:

The number of native- and foreign-born people marrying outside their race fell from 27 to 20 percent for Hispanics and 42 to 33 percent for Asians from 1990 to 2000, according to Ohio State University sociologist Zhenchao Qian, who co-authored a study on the subject. The downward trend continued through last year, Qian said.

“The immigrant population fundamentally changes the pool of potential partners for Asians and Hispanics. It expands the number and reinforces the culture, which means the second generation … is more likely to marry people of their own ethnicity,” said Daniel T. Lichter, a sociologist at Cornell University.
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Increasingly, singles are turning to a growing number of niche dating sites on the Internet, such as http://Shaadi.com and http://Persiansingles.com. [Link]

A recent book titled Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age also tracks the dating and marriage patterns of 1.5 and 2nd generation South Asian Americans and finds similar results:

Researchers spent a decade following 3,300 children of immigrants in the New York region as they navigated adulthood, which led to a study published last year called “Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age.” They followed both the “second generation” children born in the United States and the “1.5 generation” — children of immigrants who came as youngsters — who were Dominican, Chinese, Russian Jews, South Americans and West Indians.

Researchers found that their subjects were constantly struggling with the desire to be open to people of all backgrounds vs. family expectations, and their own desires to sustain their culture. Most paired with others who shared similar racial or language backgrounds. [Link]

I'm pretty lukewarm on Thomas Friedman overall but he's built quite a franchise on turning a good phrase or 2 and he does occasionally deliver some solid bits. Lately, in a media environment where every other article about Islam involves beheading, suicide bombs or sharia, he's been doing a great job of recognizing the important & emerging pockets of liberalism in Muslim society writ large. In Iraq, for example, he recently noted an important reversal of the usual storyline for what happens to an intellectual who violates Arab society's norms -

Combatting Islamophobia His Own Way...

Here's a story you don't see very often. Iraq's highest court told the Iraqi Parliament last Monday that it had no right to strip one of its members of immunity so he could be prosecuted for an alleged crime: visiting Israel for a seminar on counterterrorism. The Iraqi justices said the Sunni lawmaker, Mithal al-Alusi, had committed no crime and told the Parliament to back off.

That's not all. The Iraqi newspaper Al-Umma al-Iraqiyya carried an open letter signed by 400 Iraqi intellectuals, both Kurdish and Arab, defending Alusi. That takes a lot of courage and a lot of press freedom. I can't imagine any other Arab country today where independent judges would tell the government it could not prosecute a parliamentarian for visiting Israel -- and intellectuals would openly defend him in the press.

More stories like this & I believe Islamophobia worldwide would be taken down a notch or two. Towards the same end, Friedman has a great column this week about the Indian Muslim community's response to the Mumbai attackers & how it contrasts with too many Arab Muslims -

On Wednesday’s NYTimes op-ed page Tom Friedman forwarded on a novel solution to our financial mess and housing crisis:

Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration.

”All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.” [Link]

Once you get past the model minority stereotyping in the first paragraph, he does have a good point. In all the talk of bailouts, stimulus, bad banks, etc., the one thing nobody is talking about (not even the Obama administration) is immigration policy. Now may be the best time to swing the doors open so highly skilled immigrants can enter the U.S. and help stimulate the economy:

… the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.

Bad signal. In an age when attracting the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world is the most important competitive advantage a knowledge economy can have, why would we add barriers against such brainpower — anywhere? That’s called “Old Europe.” That’s spelled: S-T-U-P-I-D…

If there is one thing we know for absolute certain, it’s this: Protectionism did not cause the Great Depression, but it sure helped to make it “Great.” From 1929 to 1934, world trade plunged by more than 60 percent — and we were all worse off.

We live in a technological age where every study shows that the more knowledge you have as a worker and the more knowledge workers you have as an economy, the faster your incomes will rise. Therefore, the centerpiece of our stimulus, the core driving principle, should be to stimulate everything that makes us smarter and attracts more smart people to our shores. That is the best way to create good jobs. [Link]

In stark contrast to Anna's picts of pro-Obama Pakistani kids, Reuters recently published some picts of less than happy Pakistani adults -

Obama! Keep Your Hands off my "Tribs"!

Supporters of the Pakistani Islamist party Jamat-e-Islami protest in Karachi, January 25, 2009. The protest was organised by Jamat-e-Islami party against military operations and drone attacks in tribal areas. U.S. drones fired missiles into Pakistan late on Friday killing 17 people, intelligence officials and residents said, in the first such strike since Barack Obama became U.S. president. REUTERS/Athar Hussain (PAKISTAN)

Former UN USG Shashi Tharoor recently published a provocative piece titled "India's Israel Envy" exploring the seemingly unlikely sympathy for Israel from India -

Shashi Tharoor

As Israeli planes and tanks exact a heavy toll on Gaza, India's leaders and strategic thinkers have been watching with an unusual degree of interest - and some empathy.

India's government has, no surprise, joined the rest of the world in calling for an end to the military action, but its criticism of Israel has been muted...

Both countries face terrorists launching attacks from neighboring, ostensibly sovereign territory and both suspect that authorities lend different shades of support to the behavior. With Israel biting the bullet and invading Gaza to (hopefully) curtail the rocket downpour, India might be tempted to do something similar to Pakistan. However, Tharoor argues, India has far more effective international leverage to bring down upon its misbehaving neighbor than the Israeli's do and hence could / should make use of that avenue first.

Perhaps due to his UN heritage, I think Tharoor overly focuses on geopolitics as the source of the "empathy" - e.g. both India and Israel are in similar transnational situations. I've done some work in Israel over the years and have personally noted a far more broadbased alignment between Israel and India. One response to Tharoor tracks this shift over the last 50 yrs-

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Israel hasn't won much praise for invading the Gaza Strip. This unpopularity abides even though Israel is bombing Gaza to stop Qassam rockets from hitting its own towns. Still, Israel has at least some supporters in what might seem an unlikely place: India. Not official support, mind you.

...Still, a growing mutual admiration between India and Israel is showing up at levels both commonplace and lofty...This Israel-India link is a change. Born at the same time, the two nations at first stood out for their differences...Over the next decades, a shift commenced. India discerned that it had little to gain by keeping Israel at a distance, since Arab nations would surely back Pakistan over India regardless of the latter's policy on Jerusalem.

My assertion is that beyond the strategic relationship to Islamic states, both countries have also become surprisingly socio-politically aligned internally and thus the "envy" runs far deeper than the current situation.

How so?

The Atlantic has the absolute must read piece of the day (seriously) about the coming minority majority in America. In the rhetorically titled, “The End of White America?” Hua Hsu of Vassar College examines a basket of issues surrounding the idea that it is no longer even mildly desireable to be “white” in America. According to Hsu, white youth are trying desperately to mimic the cultures they see within minority groups as a means to escape the blandness of their “non-culture”:

Whether you describe it as the dawning of a post-racial age or just the end of white America, we’re approaching a profound demographic tipping point. According to an August 2008 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, those groups currently categorized as racial minorities—blacks and Hispanics, East Asians and South Asians—will account for a majority of the U.S. population by the year 2042. Among Americans under the age of 18, this shift is projected to take place in 2023, which means that every child born in the United States from here on out will belong to the first post-white generation.

Obviously, steadily ascending rates of interracial marriage complicate this picture, pointing toward what Michael Lind has described as the “beiging” of America. And it’s possible that “beige Americans” will self-identify as “white” in sufficient numbers to push the tipping point further into the future than the Census Bureau projects. But even if they do, whiteness will be a label adopted out of convenience and even indifference, rather than aspiration and necessity. For an earlier generation of minorities and immigrants, to be recognized as a “white American,” whether you were an Italian or a Pole or a Hungarian, was to enter the mainstream of American life; to be recognized as something else, as the Thind case suggests, was to be permanently excluded. As Bill Imada, head of the IW Group, a prominent Asian American communications and marketing company, puts it: “I think in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, [for] anyone who immigrated, the aspiration was to blend in and be as American as possible so that white America wouldn’t be intimidated by them. They wanted to imitate white America as much as possible: learn English, go to church, go to the same schools.”

Today, the picture is far more complex. To take the most obvious example, whiteness is no longer a precondition for entry into the highest levels of public office. The son of Indian immigrants doesn’t have to become “white” in order to be elected governor of Louisiana. A half-Kenyan, half-Kansan politician can self-identify as black and be elected president of the United States. [Link]

The case of The United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind mentioned in the article (someone we’ve blogged of before) refers to the 1923 case in which an Indian American veteran argued that he should be considered white (a precondition to becoming a naturalized citizen) because Indians were descended from Aryans:

Associate Justice George Sutherland found that, while Thind, an Asian Indian, may have had “purity of Aryan blood” due to being “born in Village Taragarh Talawa,near Jandiala Guru, Amritsar, Punjab” and having “high caste” status he was not Caucasian in the “common understanding”, so he could not be included in the “statutory category as white persons”.[1] George Sutherland wrote in his summary: [Link]

She tried.

She tried to make her marriage to a violent new husband work, and when that failed, she did what she was supposed to do; she summoned the courage to leave. She got not one, but two restraining orders. She switched coasts, to take shelter with the only relatives she had in this vast country, and put 3,ooo miles between herself and her abuser. He drove across that vastness, with a single purpose: to take back what was “his”.

She did everything right, and he still hunted her down, and killed her, in front of the Holy of Holies, in God’s own house, while a hapless congregation was on their knees, reciting prayers for the dead.

A 24-year old Indian immigrant from Kerala trying to escape an abusive marriage, was killed by her husband, who also shot two other persons injuring them critically at a church in New Jersey. [express]

The shootings happened at 11:44 a.m., a witness said.

The gunman ran from the church and drove away in a green convertible Jeep Wrangler with a black soft top and the California license 5JHD200, said the police, who identified him as Joseph Pallipurath, 27, of Sacramento. He remained at large Sunday night as the New Jersey State Police and law enforcement authorities in northern New Jersey widened a manhunt on highways and at transportation terminals. [nyt]

Police kept the parishioners inside the defiled sanctuary for two hours, to gather statements. Then,

Stunned, teary-eyed congregants emerged from their Clifton church this afternoon after a gunman shot three people in the head, killing his estranged wife from an arranged marriage, and leaving the other two victims clinging to life.

Reshma James, 24, died about 4 p.m., police said. The other two victims, identified by fellow parishioners as Dennis John Malloosseril, 23, and Silvy Perincheril, 47, were in what police termed “very critical condition.”

Friends of Malloosseril said he was near death and family members were making arrangements to donate his organs late tonight. [NJ.com]

Malloosseril did die tonight. Besides being on the church’s Board of Directors, he was a computer analyst who took responsibility for the parish website. Had Malloosseril survived, this heroic man would have celebrated his birthday on Tuesday. Instead, he is a victim of what the New York Times called “the climax of a violent domestic quarrel that had reached from California to India to New Jersey over the past year”.

I’m playing a new online video game today. It’s called “Homeland Guantanamos” and it has transformed me into an undercover journalist whose task is to unearth clues about the mysterious 2007 death of Boubacar Bah, a Guinean tailor who was held at a detention center in Elizabeth, NJ for overstaying his visa.

“Homeland Guantanamos” is the latest multi-media offering from Breakthrough, the human rights organization which uses media and popular culture to raise awareness here and in India. [Abhi covered their video game “I Can End Deportation” or I.C.E.D. earlier this year. ]

We’ve all heard stories about immigrants (illegal and residents) being detained without explanation or for prolonged periods of time. At the website, I got to see what life might be like on the other side of the fence. I took a tour of a simulated immigration detention center and collected clues to help solve the mystery of Bah’s death (he died of a skull fracture and brain hemorrhages). Along the way, I saw other detainees (eg: a pregnant woman kept in shackles during labor) and witnessed conditions of the facilities, including the solitary confinement room, the bathrooms, and the dining hall. Though this is a simulated experience, the content is based on factual sources such as news articles, court documents, and interviews.

Why call the site “Homeland Guantanamos”? According to Malikka Dutt, executive director of Breakthrough, “the Department of Homeland Security is violating the human rights of legal and undocumented immigrants” and some of the inhumane conditions of detention centers where these immigrants are being held are not all that different from the facility at Guantanamo Bay.

As the comments section of Ennis’ post on the GOP’s efforts to reach out to minorities indicates, many of us saw the video below on ABC News last night. I know I wasn’t the only one who immediately hit rewind, out of a combination of incredulity and astonishment.

Natural disasters are awful and over-worked, frazzled law enforcement officials are under much strain, but that still doesn’t justify ignorant reactions like the one captured above. I wonder if that same cop instructed other drivers who annoyed him or “talked back” to perhaps return to Africa or England? I’m thinking not.

Reader Suede wrote in to the tip line, with this update:

3:40am PST.

World News Now on ABC 7

Vinita Nair and her co-host are covering a story about the devastation in Texas, and they show a clip about how cops are turning people back and not letting them return.

The clip begins with a guy (desi) in a car arguing with the cop who is not letting him go through. The cop finally tells him “go back to India”. After the clip, Vinita didn’t just shove the comment under the rug, but instead, she was shocked and raised her concern about the trooper’s comments.

Go Vinita! As a massive insomniac (who grew up in a home with no cable), I have always loved WNN— I even list it under my favorite TV shows, on my facebook profile ;). Now that the beautiful and brainy Ms. Nair is co-anchoring it, consider me a rabid fan. Yay for calling out stupidity and not glossing over the truth.

I saw it myself and then a few of you blew up the tip line (thanks, Taara), my twitter and my skypager; on Sunday, the Grey Lady featured an article about Vogue India’s…interesting choice of models, for one of their recent editorial shoots. The “creative” (and by creative, I mean not at all) direction the magazine (which I still can’t procure in DC) stumbled through raised your threaded-eyebrows as well as some of your hackles, and rightly so.

Giving impoverished people $10,000 bags, Burberry bumbershoots and Fendi bibs for their children reeks of an appalling level of arrogance, an utterly clueless infatuation with “edginess”, and a heartless disregard for those for whom India does not yet shine. But let me tell you how I really feel, as I fisk the NYT article freely:

NEW DELHI — An old woman missing her upper front teeth holds a child in rumpled clothes — who is wearing a Fendi bib (retail price, about $100).

A family of three squeezes onto a motorbike for their daily commute, the mother riding without a helmet and sidesaddle in the traditional Indian way — except that she has a Hermès Birkin bag (usually more than $10,000, if you can find one) prominently displayed on her wrist.

Elsewhere, a toothless barefoot man holds a Burberry umbrella (about $200).

Welcome to the new India — at least as Vogue sees it.

Way to keep it classy, VI. Also, just so you know, the text on that picture says, “Baby’s Day Out: It’s never too early to start living in style.”

…instead of having the humility and decency to remove it. He must really like the taste of toe jam (or not have anyone around who can administer the Heimlich). To each their ignorant own (thanks, anonymous tipster).

Who is Dan Cox, you are surely muttering? He’s the writer and producer of a documentary on the Governator, but no one here at the bunker cares about that— what’s more mutinous is his eyebrow-raising post over at Mediabistro’s “Fishbowl LA” blog, which one of you was sharp enough to catch and release our way. The title of his post is “Spielberg wants Bollywood”, and its relevant text is below:

Steven Spielberg, ever the iconoclast, is just saying NO to the studios these days. As has been reported over and over, he’s doing a deal with India’s Reliance ADA Group.

The India contingent is putting up a billion bucks to give Spielberg carte blanche (or however that translates to Indian) to make and distribute whatever he wants.

Regardless, Speilberg’s looking and the majors are all considering (but not relying on, ho ho) his Reliance cash, but invariably it’s likely that Spielberg will be back in bed with Universal, where all of his filmic links have been in the past, whether DreamWorks SKG or Amblin.

The India Reliance deal is supposed to be completed this week. We’ll see if Spielberg starts wearing a Sari or has a red dot implanted on his forehead. [link to stupidity]

Classy. Now I’m no big-shot, one documentary-creatin’ Hollywood insider, but I do understand “American” words loud and clear; I mean…the American language surely exists, because such a successful person would only conjure a tongue called “Indian” if it were true, no? He wouldn’t be THAT lazy or willfully ignorant? Oh, wait…

I’m not going to back down from anything I posted.There was nothing negative intentionally spoken or implied about Indian or Pakistani of Hindi or Bengalese culture. There was simply an amusing look at why and how Steven Spielberg is more interested in $1 billion from an Indian contingent than he is in finding it on Wall Street or from the studios or from his backyard. [link to stupidity]

THAT is from a comment he posted, in response to outraged readers who called him out for his inexcusable kundi-holery. He says his piece was “simply an amusing look at…”, I say “you know exactly what you were doing and for that, YOU SUCK”. Tomato, thekkalikya.

But wait! THERE ARE MORE CRINGE-INDUCING WORDS WHERE THAT CAME FROM!

Now, maybe it wasn’t all that amusing.Maybe I come off as a club-footed xenophobe. [link to stupidity]

Remove two “maybes” from that quote and lo! It’s suddenly, magically accurate.

But hello India, what I wrote also wasn’t a diatribe about the sub-continent.

I’m fully aware that a sari is a female garment as well as the fact that a red dot on the forehead is not there to be made fun of. It may have cultural or religious relevance. But what should be made fun of is the fact that Spielberg is taking his money from whichever provider that he can find, whether his head is adorned with pink polka dots. [link to stupidity]

Oh, honey…I’m so sorry to break this news, but…India ain’t reading you. India (unlike me) has better things to do with her time, than read you. Also, if you are fully aware of who wears saris and what red dots might signify, then Dan, you have no excuse for what you wrote.

And now, some interesting news from down under. The beautiful country of New Zealand is in the final process of rounding up 40 illegal immigrants (aliens? undocumented workers?) of Desi descent who entered the nation under the guise of a Catholic pilgrim group. The 40 had entered New Zealand in the run up to the Pope-sponsored World Youth Day in neighboring Australia -

About 220 Indians came to New Zealand as part of Days in the Diocese, a pre-World Youth Day event that gives pilgrims time with Catholic families and acclimatises them to the host country’s culture. For the first time, Days in the Diocese was extended beyond the host nation, with Sydney’s organisers asking New Zealand to be included.

During those days, though, 40 Indians went missing at different times in what appears to be an orchestrated attempt to stay in New Zealand.

…Parish priest Fr Peter Murphy said host families were “obviously upset” that the young people went missing, some leaving in the middle of the night ­- even jumping out windows.

Interestingly, the local Sikh society played a key role in the drama & in rolling up the ring -

As a shameless carnivore, I’m not a likely PETA supporter. The campaigns are needlessly provocative, silly, and substance-free. This is of course, my opinion only, and a lackluster one at that. Let those kooky morally righteous beautiful people have their fun, cavorting naked in advertisements. My shoulders barely cared enough to shrug.

But this incident is really so vile, I’m speechless:

Ashley Byrne, a Washington, D.C.-based campaign coordinator with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), talks with Memphis police officers during a recent demonstration outside City Hall that coincided with World Vegetarian Week. When officers inquired about the well-being of intern Shawn Herbold (bottom) and volunteer Thomas Olsen, a sweat-soaked Herbold replied that she was in pain and feeling nauseated from the heat after being wrapped in cellophane for 30 minutes, and also asked how much longer she needed to stay there. Byrne let her know it wouldn’t be much longer and left her under the hot afternoon sun for 30 minutes more while debating with the officers. link

Yeah, this holier-than-thou hag wrapped two kids in plastic and left then in the blazing sun for over an hour. To demonstrate (against? for? can you tell?) World Vegetarian Week. And by the way? The East Coast is experiencing a heat wave of unbearable magnitude right now. I can only image what PETA would say if someone wrapped cute kittens and puppies in plastic and let ‘em bake in 100 degree heat. Hypocrite, much?

Larger version of this image (warning: close up is disturbing) and more on PETA’s activities in India, after the jump.

A report issued yesterday by NYU and the College Board attempts to lay out a case for why we should remove “model” from in front of “minority” with respect to AAPI students. The New York Times covers the report:

The report, by New York University, the College Board and a commission of mostly Asian-American educators and community leaders, largely avoids the debates over both affirmative action and the heavy representation of Asian-Americans at the most selective colleges.

But it pokes holes in stereotypes about Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, including the perception that they cluster in science, technology, engineering and math. And it points out that the term “Asian-American” is extraordinarily broad, embracing members of many ethnic groups. [Link]

I’m a census data geek so I had already flipped through a Powerpoint presentation of some of the study results before the Times write-up. I should admit that even before looking at the data I was slightly biased in that I thought it would be skewed in favor of the results that the “mostly Asian-American educators and community leaders” wanted to see. These types of studies usually seem to be. I agree that it is demeaning and not nuanced enough to label Asian Americans as model minorities, but I am also against making weak arguments to prove the contrary. Besides, if we weren’t “model minorities,” then why would Hollywood always portray us so? Here is Robert Teraishi’s presentation.

Figure by Robert T. Teranishi, N.Y.U.

Something about the above graph surprised me. It makes sense that Asian American groups (AAs only, not the PIs) with the shortest orange bars would be relatively better-off economically than those with longer orange bars. However, Chinese Americans seem to break that pattern. As a group they have a pretty long orange bar, indicating a substantial subset with poor English skills, and yet as a group they seem to have been pretty successful. I’m guessing the reason my perception is a bit skewed is that the absolute number of Chinese Americans is far greater than Indian or Filipino Americans. Maybe percentage-wise they haven’t been as successful as I assumed.

One of the classic ways abusers internally deflect responsibility is via a twisted transferance of blame to the victim. In other words, it was something little Tommy had done (or heck, simply who he was) that made Dad (and, alas, it’s usually Dad) beat him black and blue.

What makes the dialectic particulalry insidious is that should Tommy accept the blame, the abuse leaps from being merely physical into psychological & emotional. In that strange realm, Tommy’s self-sufficiency & worth plummets as Good/Bad is no longer something he can independently judge for himself but rather, becomes wholly determined by the tormentor’s chosen response.

Sadly, the recent bombings of the Danish embassy in Pakistan has brought forth language that’s more fitting a domestic abuse case than international diplomacy -

Fauzia Mufti Abbas, Pakistan’s ambassador to Denmark, agreed that the Mohammed cartoons, first published in Jyllands-Posten newspaper in October 2005, had incited Muslim anger and were possibly the motivation for the attack, which killed eight and wounded as many as 30.

‘It isn’t just the people of Pakistan that feel they have been harassed by what your newspaper has begun,’ she said. ‘I’d like to know if your newspaper is satisfied with what it has done and what it has unleashed?’

Thankfully, the Dane’s recognize their values have worth & aren’t willing to accept blame -

Jørn Mikkelsen, Jyllands-Posten’s editor-in-chief, defended his newspaper’s decision to print the cartoons.

‘The decision to do so was in full accordance with Danish law, Danish press ethics and Danish press traditions. That the facts have been twisted in the rest of the world and misused for purposes that are no concern of Jyllands-Posten is something we can and will not take responsibility for.’

Bravo. The real criminals are the ones hurling bombs, not operating printing presses.

I’m a big fan of Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution and this summary of one of his talks reminded me of a story from early in my career….. Although (or perhaps because?) I’m more libertarian than anything else, I’m also quite a bit of a culturalist and civil societarian. The distinction being that I think in many cases, informal culture (no matter how impossible it is to precisely define) has a far greater bearing on “social progress” than formal economics or policy. So, Cowen’s Libertarian Heresies don’t rattle me too much .

The example Cowen cites in his talk is the relationship between wealth and corruption in Russia -

He then moved into territory that is politically dangerous, but needs to be addressed: one of the things that helps promote both liberty and prosperity throughout the Anglosphere is citizens’ widespread ability to be loyal to a set of abstract concepts. Russia, he pointed out, is failing as a free society not because it is poor - Putin’s shrewed management of high commodity prices has put paid to much Russian poverty - but because Russians tend to privilege their friends and contacts above all else, leading to epic levels of corruption. Corruption, of course, is a signal rule of law failure.

He then asked, somewhat rhetorically, if liberty was confined (and defined) by culture: ‘We should not presume that our values are as universal as we often think they are’. What happens, he asked (also rhetorically), if - in order to enjoy the benefits of liberty and prosperity - societies have to undergo a major cultural transformation, including the loss of many appealing values? Cowen focussed on Russian loyalty and friendship, but there are potentially many others. Think, for example, of the extended family so privileged throughout the Islamic world, or the communitarian values common in many indigenous societies.

I really wish I could have been playing the new video game Grand Theft Auto IV this week. Unfortunately I don’t own a gaming system. I used to be an obsessive gamer as a kid so its best that I don’t go near one now that I have real responsibilities (like blogging). I can however, get my fix online. I’ve been trying my hand at a game that looks similar to GTA-IV. Instead of smacking hos and jacking cars, I’ve been learning about “my” rights as an immigrant child. The game is I.C.E.D. (I Can End Deportation):

Breakthrough’s video game, ICED, puts you in the shoes of an immigrant to illustrate how unfair immigration laws deny due process and violate human rights. These laws affect all immigrants: legal residents, those fleeing persecution, students and undocumented people.

ICED has been featured in overwhelming amounts of press including: MTV News, Game Daily and has been covered on popular blogs including, Gothamist and The Huffington Post. To get a full list of media, please look at the left-hand tool bar.

How do you play?

THE OBJECT OF THE GAME IS TO BECOME A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES

Game Play:
As an immigrant teen you are avoiding ICE officers, choosing right from wrong and answering questions on immigration. But if you answer questions incorrectly, or make poor decisions, you will be detained with no respect for your human rights. [Link]

Is your knee jerk reaction that you think this game might exaggerate the plight of immigrant kids, especially those brought over by undocumented parents? Think again. More about that later, after the fold.

The news out of Myanmar/Burma keeps getting worse. On Thursday evening the British paper The Sun is blaring the following headline: THE death toll in cyclone-ravaged Burma could hit 500,000 - more than TWICE the total killed by the Boxing Day Tsunami. The biggest problem right now is that the effort to fly in precious water and food are being thwarted by the paranoid military junta that runs the country and is too suspicious and inept to grant visas to aid workers:

With up to 1.5 million people in Myanmar now believed to be facing the threat of starvation and disease and with relief efforts still largely stymied by the country’s isolationist military rulers, frustrated United Nations officials all but demanded Thursday that the government open its doors to supplies and aid workers…

“The situation is profoundly worrying,” said the United Nations official in charge of the relief effort, John Holmes, speaking in unusually candid language for a diplomat. “They have simply not facilitated access in the way we have a right to expect…” [Link]

The Tsunami was unimaginably bad…BUT at least the rest of the world wasn’t as impotent then as we are now. Considering the massive devastation in 2004, the world actually responded relatively quickly to minimize deaths after the actual event (certainly faster than the Hurricane Katrina response). This however, is just frustrating. Children are dying of thirst because visas aren’t being granted! For my part I am doing what I can. I found out that the relief organization CARE International was one of the first to have boots on the ground in Myanmar since they had an office there. They are actually disbursing aid. I also know that the first of the checks that our Uncle Sam is sending our way to help with the U.S. economic recovery will be hitting our bank accounts this week. I know it flies in the face of a sound economic strategy to send money meant to boost our economy straight overseas, but I’m willing to upset those “elite” economists. I just sent a chunk of change to CARE. I’ll just pretend there was no rebate. UNICEF is a good bet too.

A guy wrote the following letter to the “Dear Prudence” column at Slate.com:

I am a 25-year-old Indian-American who has been in this country since I was 5. I started dating a Caucasian classmate four and a half years ago in college. The romance bloomed, and we are still together. She is kind, loving, beautiful, and a great inspiration. I see us together for the rest of our lives. There is only one problem: My parents are very traditional Indians and have told me since I was a young boy that they wanted me to have an arranged marriage, and if I did “bring home an American girl” that they would disown me. After two years, I told them about the relationship, and they were rightfully hurt and upset I’d kept it a secret. They say now that they were “joking” about disowning me and that I should have come to them. But it is close to three years later, and my girlfriend has still never met my parents. I greet holidays with a sense of dread because I feel pulled in two different directions. Even when I bring her up in conversation, they quickly change the subject or just walk away. They say that my relationship is just “a phase” and that I will “come to my senses.” I also feel a sense of embitterment from my girlfriend for being completely shunned by her potential in-laws. My parents have told me that they will accept my girlfriend when we become engaged, but by then I fear that their attempt to build bridges will be too little, too late. I know that my parents love me and want the best for me, but is there anything I can do to unharden their hearts? (link)

Prudie’s advice in response to this was pretty good, I thought (read the column to see). But I was wondering — what would you tell this person? Would it be better for him to push his parents, and demand they accept his girlfriend, or is it better to kind of wait and see (until, say, getting engaged)? Do parents really mean it when they say “we’ll disown you,” or is it just something they say?

Finally, do people have experiences of their own along these lines they want to share?

Regular SM Commentor Razib has a great post on one of his blogs about the racial mix of doctors in the USofA. What instigated a fresh take on the classic question was an article in SFGate decrying the lack of “minorities” in the medical profession -

A new study on physicians in California shows a glaring gap between the number of doctors of color compared with the state’s ethnically diverse population, especially among African Americans and Latinos.

At the same time, the state has a disproportionate number of Asian and white doctors, according to the UCSF study, which focuses on doctor ethnicity and language fluency.

The linear implication, of course is that if one group is under-represented, it must mean that other groups are over-represented and therefore must get penalized to address the imbalance. Advocates of measures to address this directly assert that minority under-representation is the product of historical transgressions by the over-represented majority. So, the penalty is a form of inter-generational justice.

We all know the endless debate within our community between “traditionalists” and “modernists” about assimilation. Post 9-11, this debate became broader and more politicized, especially w.r.t. British Muslims. In the UK, public figures argued that Muslims need to be more fully assimilated into British society if further violence was to be avoided. A variant of this argument claimed that the hijab and niqab should be discouraged or banned outright.

A new study out undermines the broad claims of the assimilationists, claiming that Brit-Bangladeshi girls (between 11 and 14 years old) “who wore traditional clothing were significantly less likely to have mental health problems than those whose style of dress was a mix of traditional and white British styles.” [Link]

Interestingly enough, they found no effect of clothing choice on boys at all. To clarify, that means that a boy’s clothing choice didn’t influence his own happiness. I’m sure girls’ clothing choices have a strong impact on the happiness of an 11 to 14 year old boy . The “Brick Lane” hypothesis found little support.

Professor Kam Bhui, one of the study authors, said that the result was “surprising” - he had expected that girls who were less fully integrated to show signs of greater strain. “Traditional clothing represents a tighter family unit, and this may offer some protection against some of the pressures that young people face. What it suggests is that we need to assist people who are moving from traditional cultures and becoming integrated into Western societies, as they may be more vulnerable to mental health problems.”

Professor James Nazroo, a medical sociologist at the University of Manchester, said that the findings meant that “notions of Britishness” should be dealt with in a sophisticated way. “There are many ways in which people can be British - these girls who have good mental health, and still have a strong traditional culture, are by implication settled and comfortable with their identities…” [Link]

The article does not explain what researchers meant by traditional clothing. I think it means salvar kameez rather than the hijab/niqab, but am not sure. If so, it doesn’t really inform the debate about the veil at all. Nor does it speak directly to terrorism, or even to social alienation by adults.

Most importantly, I want to reassure all our readers that no matter how overwhelming the evidence collected, no matter how many studies pile up, I’m sure that Gurinder Chadha’s films will have exactly the same trite hackneyed plot that they did before.

The paper is available here. [Thanks Razib]

What does it mean to get tanned when you’re brown to begin with? This is a question particular in some ways to South Asians living in northern countries — where you don’t get much exposure to sunlight much of the year, and where you are surrounded by friends and colleagues who do take pride in “getting a tan.” (In India, home of “Fair and Lovely” ointments, there is no culture of tanning.)

This came up for me because I recently went on a short vacation with my family in the Caribbean. We went to the north coast of the Dominican Republic (a major tourist destination, I know). We rented a small villa near, but not in, one of the massive resorts that dominate the “Silver Coast.” Quite nice, overall, and restful.

I didn’t actively seek to get a tan, but I definitely came back a lot darker than I was when we left. My wife also got quite dark, and even my 18 month old son got a bit darker, though we were careful to keep his delicate skin protected wherever possible from direct sunlight.

Now, I generally like getting a bit tan — it seems to bring out some rich orange tones in my “brown” complexion. And I’m certainly not one of those people who would ever say that fairer skin is more appealing than darker skin. There are many different ways of being beautiful, and I find the desi obsession with skin tone (especially as it indexes with the matrimonials culture) tedious and embarrassing. (And sometimes tragic, as in this recent story posted on the News Tab)

Nor is it the case that getting tanned is new to me: living on the east coast of the U.S., one generally finds one’s skin tone in August to be a few shades darker than it was in May, even if you’re one of those people who tends to hide indoors in front of books and/or a computer 95% of the time.

But here’s the odd part. On occasion, over the past couple of days since coming back, I’ve found myself feeling slightly embarrassed to be so tan — as if part of me is thinking, “wait, everyone, this isn’t my normal skin tone!” And then I’m immediately embarrassed to be embarrassed — because what the initial embarrassment perhaps reveals is an unconscious skin tone bias that comes out if and when one’s skin tone does in fact become darker. (More forgivingly, it might simply be that one is always embarrassed to look a little different from how one normally looks.)

Has anyone else ever been embarrassed to be tan? Or conversely, are there desi readers who particularly enjoy seeing their skin get tanned?

Looks like it’s defend-a-dictator week here at Sepia Mutiny… So it’s pretty convenient that the IHT just published a great interview with the grand-daddy of modern benevolent dictators, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew. Lee tackles several topics that should be of interest to mutineers, starting with his long term prognosis for India -

India’s economy can grow to about 60-70 percent that of China. I see that as the long-term trend. They’re not going to be bigger than China - on present projections.

But 60-70 percent of China with a population which will be bigger than China by 2050, is something considerable, and they’ve some very able people at the top. I draw this historical lesson which I believe will be repeated, though not in exactly the same way, but will manifest itself in a similar pattern.

Given India’s current real, per-capita GDP of $1000 vs. China’s $2800, and an overall GDP of $1T vs. China’s $2.8T, Lee is projecting some pretty rapid gap closing by India. Still, it’s interesting that he doesn’t think it will close the gap completely and he certainly doesn’t see India overtaking China anytime soon.

Other parts of Lee’s interview dive rather directly into the Liberalism vs. Capitalism vs. Democracy question that’s got some mutineers riled up…

This past Sunday I went down to the University of Pennsylvania for a rare, open Q&A session with Kal Penn. As readers may remember from Anna’s earlier post on the subject, Penn is at Penn this spring, teaching a class on representations of Asian Americans in the Media. He’s also shooting episodes of “House” (go, House), and stumping for Obama in his free time, though with that schedule I’m not sure how he has any.

As I understand it, there was initially some controversy about the class — is this going to be a stunt, or a real asset to a the Asian American Studies curriculum?

If it were just about bringing a little glamor to campus, I would be skeptical too. But I think it’s fair to say Penn is both an actor and a careful observer of the representation of Desis in both Hollywood and the Indie film world. If you listen to him talk, it’s clear that he’s thought carefully and self-critically about his experiences and choices (he’s very aware that his role as a home-grown, Muslim-American terrorist on 24 might be seen as “problematic,” for instance — though he still defends the choice to take the role). He’s self-conscious enough to know what a racist representation of a South Asian character is, and call it by that name. But at the same time, he’s open about the fact that minority actors sometimes need to play ball to get an entree in Hollywood.

In response to one of the questions posed by a student at the Q&A Kal Penn effectively acknowledged that this was the dilemma he faced when he auditioned for his first Hollywood movie, “Van Wilder.” Unfortunately, Penn also suggested, in response to another question, that things aren’t all that much better even now, for actors who are just starting out:

“I think things for me personally as an artist have changed dramatically, but I know that overall, that change has been slow and incremental. There is no shortage of truly talented actors of South Asian descent in places like New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and London. There are folks who majored in theater, studied film, and are experiencing the same struggles I went through when I was starting out. I think that was my main point: things for me have begun to change, but things for others are perhaps remaining the same.” (Kal Penn, from an email)

I wish we were beyond this exasperating stupidity. Via TOIlet (no need to visit and catch a VTD, the entire article is quoted below:

Three-month-old Livya was rejected thrice by prospective Indian parents, who found her too dark. A year later, however, an American couple chose to adopt her and flew her to the US. She now lives with her parents and has two siblings — one from Korea and another from Vietnam.

Livya was lucky, but the story is not the same for other adoptable children. Many who are legally free for adoption continue to face discrimination as wannabe Indian parents look for a “fair and lovely” baby, though the law prevents one from picking and choosing babies for adoption.

Perhaps those overlooked children are better off without such complexion-obsessed parents. After all, there is always the Angelina effect (aside: once again, Madonna is associated with the word “wanna-be”):

But most foreign couples prefer children who are dark-skinned, older or with medical concerns, HIV positive and with special needs.

And here, the reason for my title (and the explanation for the painful noise my jaw made when it fell on my desk):

Secretary for the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), O P Sirohe, says in-country adoptions have been encouraging and there is a long list of parents waiting. But still, they ask for fair-skinned, healthy and, preferably, Punjabi child as it is usually chubby. A child is no market commodity and adoptions become meaningful only when there is a change in people”s attitude, he says.

Preferably a Punjabi child. Wow. I love chubby babies, too (my Godson’s nickname wasn’t “The Pudgesicle” for nothing)…but this just makes my stomach twist. What are you adopting? A baby or an accessory? What does this even mean? That it’s too much work to feed your new kid butter-laced everything, so you can chub them up sufficiently yourself? “Honey, let’s go shopping for a baby on Saturday—I heard they have new Punjabi models in stock!” And to my Punjabi peeps…um…how do you feel about being objectified due to such a dubious distinction?

Foreign couples are more open to adopting any child, irrespective of its age, religion, skin colour or looks. Children who are older, with special needs and medical conditions are finding homes overseas, he says.

“NRIs and couples from Italy, Germany, US, Spain and Sweden take home kids with special needs. We place such children in Indian homes too, but they are an exception,” says Dr Aloma Lobo, chairperson, Adoption Coordinating Agency, Karnataka.

And thanggawd for it.

The following concern isn’t exclusive to India; American “waiting” children don’t have much luck when they are in their teens, either. Everyone wants a baby. And sometimes, a chubby one.

Another hurdle in the adoption of children is their age. For instance, Lakshmi, who is 13 years old, has still not found a home as her age is a major deterrent.

Oh, this story is so sad (thanks, Filmfat).

Police have charged a Brampton woman who sent hundreds of rambling emails to Premier Dalton McGuinty with threatening a member of his staff – but she contends it’s all a cultural misunderstanding.

Neelam Vir is also prohibited from contacting McGuinty, his family, staff or any other politician, and barred from Queen’s Park.

“I never meant to harm anyone,” says a tearful Vir, 40. “My Canadian dream is shattered. I just want to go back to India.”

The level of misunderstanding in this story is so epic, it could be a script for a comedy of errors. Unfortunately, a confused woman was jailed twice for her inability to negotiate different cultural norms; that’s not really funny-haha.

The charge follows an incident on Sept. 30, when Vir sent a packet of mix for making gulab jamun, an Indian sweet, to McGuinty to express her “love and affection,” dropping it off to staff member Monica Masciantonio.

The same night, she emailed McGuinty, asking whether Masciantonio had given him the mix.

“I said, `If she didn’t give it to you, I’ll kill her.’ It’s just slang,” Vir said. “I use this term all the time with my husband and my kids. In Hindi, it’s, `Mein tumarhi jaan nikal dungi.’”

Well, you can surmise what occurs next…

Vir received no reply but, on Nov. 20, after the election, half a dozen police officers showed up at her door. They confiscated her laptop, cellphone, camera and papers, and hauled her to jail on a charge of conveying a death threat. There she spent a frantic six hours until her husband bailed her out. “I was so upset I couldn’t stop crying. I kept asking, `What wrong did I do?’”

But wait, it gets worse. In a move which inspires forehead-slapping, poor Vir frantically emails the Premier to make amends and proclaim her good intentions…which results in a second arrest, for violating the terms of her release. For her clueless efforts, Vir was gifted with a psych consult. But let’s start from the very beginning, a very good place, to start…

Via Manish’s News Tab, here’s an article about Indian detectives who research potential spouses on matrimonial sites in the Washington Post. The best example in the article of a wedding detective’s intervention is probably the first one:

Judging by his online profile, the groom was suitable and eager to be a good spouse: a quiet, stay-at-home kind of guy who never drank and worked as a successful software engineer. Perfect, thought the bride, a shy 27-year-old computer engineer.

Too perfect, according to Bhavna Paliwal, one of India’s wedding detectives, who are being hired here in growing numbers to ferret out the truth about prospective mates.

“These days, you need to check the facts. And in India, it’s the servants who will tell you 100 percent everything,” Paliwal, 32, said in her office, located in a rough-and-tumble neighborhood of New Delhi. “The key is talking up the drivers, the cooks and the housekeepers. They are busybodies and aren’t afraid to tell you.”

In the case of the computer engineer, Paliwal found out that the 29-year-old groom-to-be had been less than honest. He had been having an affair with his housemaid. He spent many of his “quiet” nights straddling barstools around town, drinking heavily. There were signs he could be prone to violence, having been in an altercation that left him with a knife wound on his stomach.

As far as Paliwal was concerned, he was busted. The marriage was called off. (link)

(Oh, snap!)

Interestingly, it’s women detectives who are better at this work than male counterparts. According to this article at least, it’s women who are better able to get the scoop out of servants and doormen.

Reading articles like this makes me think that the internet matrimonial system is really quite flawed. It’s a cross between the old arranged marriage system and an internet personals ad on Craigslist. In the old system, one’s parents would do much of the work because they “know better”; they know people who know people, who might be able to speak for a seemingly suitable suitor… In the new internet matrimonials universe, family networks that build trust are of little relevance, and this becomes especially dangerous when people are trying to find partners in distant countries. It pretty much comes down to the “biodata” people post on the internet (perhaps matrimonials sites should start incorporating some of the elements of social networking, which might be another way to build up a sense of trust?). In short, internet matrimonials are an uneasy hybrid of old and new social forms, which potentially preserve some of the bad parts of the arranged marriage system (i.e., fetishization of caste), without giving potential couples any of the benefits of the western system of dating, where one make a strong effort to get to know one’s potential partner.

Still, if this wedding detective thing is here to stay, people in India will definitely be looking for people who can do the same work in the U.S., Canada, and the UK. (Entrepreneurs, take note!)

As desis we feel that the burden of meddlesome parents is uniquely ours. Exhibit A, an email from Yo Dad to Abhi:

Also please try and select life partner before next January !! Good luck !! Love…. Dad… [Link]

How typical, right? How very … African. The text that follows is from a BBC forum on the proper role of parents in childrens’ love lives in Africa:

Should African parents stay out of their children’s love lives? Or should a happy medium be reached between traditional match making and modern dating? … Is a marriage between two people or between two families?… [Link]

That’s right, it’s not just brown parents that like to … help their children and who view marriage as being a partnership between two families, it’s African families as well. There’s a reason why Bollywood fillums are so popular across Africa.

Similarly, we feel that pressures to be pragmatic about relationships are uniquely desi. Well, what about these quotes from a first world writer:

What they understood is this: as your priorities change from romance to family, the so-called “deal breakers” change. Some guys aren’t worldly, but they’d make great dads. Or you walk into a room and start talking to this person who is 5’4” and has an unfortunate nose, but he “gets” you. My long-married friend Renée offered this dating advice to me in an e-mail:

I would say even if he’s not the love of your life, make sure he’s someone you respect intellectually, makes you laugh, appreciates you … I bet there are plenty of these men in the older, overweight, and bald category (which they all eventually become anyway). [Link]

Marriage isn’t a passion-fest …It’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business. [Link]

Dear ING Direct,

I blog this with a heavy heart.

Earlier today, mastervk submitted a link to a news story which caught my attention; it dealt with gender inequality and speaking out against a regressive advertising campaign in India. Duly noted, I thought, rather sure I was going to blog about it later. I saw the excerpt for this story a few more times throughout the day, but apparently I was not really understanding it, for if I had, the disappointment I suddenly feel would have flattened me earlier.

I didn’t realize they were talking about you.

You, ING, you are the one behind this?

In the commercial, the birth of a girl is followed by what the Delhi government considers as a derogatory statement: Hai To Pyaari Lekin Bojh Hai Bhari (Though loveable, she’s still a burden). “It sends out wrong message,” said education secretary Rina Ray. She has written to National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Delhi Commission for Women(DCW) asking them to ensure the advertisement is withdrawn and also a public apology is issued by the insurance firm on all channels.

Ray is unhappy with the overall gender bias in the ad, particularly the scene which depicts fathers being weighed down by the financial costs involved in bringing up their daughters and funding their studies so much so that the ground beneath their feet caves in. Ray quotes a hospital scene from the commercial in her letter which depicts girls as a burden.

Ray said: “This is unfair. Parents spend money for a boy’s education too. Then why single out girls, especially when the country is positively debating women empowerment.”

The DCW has written to the insurance company asking them to stop airing the advertisement. “Promoting such biased views on the girl child may have a demoralising impact on women,” said Barkha Singh, DCW chairperson.

The TOIlet paper concludes with this paragraph:

A British politician has caused quite a stir with his statements regarding the defective results of the arrangements Asians accede to…

A minister who warned about birth defects among children of first cousin marriages in Britain’s Asian community has sparked anger among critics.

Phil Woolas said health workers were aware such marriages were creating increased risk of genetic problems.

The claims infuriated the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) which called on the prime minister to “sack him”. [BBC]

As far as Woolas is concerned, he’s bravely confronting a worrisome issue which is politically incorrect; he has been quoted as saying he has an obligation to bring this up. He isn’t attacking the marriages as illegal or even a religious problem, his point is that this is a cultural practice which should be examined. Children of such unions are 13x more likely to suffer from recessive disorders.

“The issue we need to debate is first cousin marriages, whereby a lot of arranged marriages are with first cousins, and that produces lots of genetic problems in terms of disability [in children]. If you talk to any primary care worker they will tell you that levels of disability among the… Pakistani population are higher than the general population. And everybody knows it’s caused by first cousin marriage….Awareness does need to be raised but we are very aware of the sensitivities,” [BBC]

Critics wonder about his motives, since his political position deals with the environment instead of health. The timing for this hullabaloo in the empire’s orchard is awesome:

His comments follow the storm sparked by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who suggested some aspects of Islamic Sharia law could be allowed in Britain. [mirror]

Anti-green team, please note, both Woolas and the the cabinet minister who has his six, Geoff Hoon, are taking pains to point out that this conniption about cousin-coupling doesn’t involve the “wider Muslim community”; oh no, this backwardness is alll Asian.

The junior Minister has other vocal supporters besides Hoon:

Flying all over the intarwebs is an NYT article about Facebook— and how it is apparently the equivalent of a social networking roach motel; once you check in you can’t check out.

Are you a member of Facebook.com? You may have a lifetime contract. Some users have discovered that it is nearly impossible to remove themselves entirely from Facebook, setting off a fresh round of concern over the popular social network’s use of personal data. While the Web site offers users the option to deactivate their accounts, Facebook servers keep copies of the information in those accounts indefinitely.

The first flummoxed Facebooker quoted by la grey lady is brown!

“It’s like the Hotel California,” said Nipon Das, 34, a director at a biotechnology consulting firm in Manhattan, who tried unsuccessfully to delete his account this fall. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

It took Mr. Das about two months and several e-mail exchanges with Facebook’s customer service representatives to erase most of his information from the site, which finally occurred after he sent an e-mail threatening legal action. But even after that, a reporter was able to find Mr. Das’s empty profile on Facebook and successfully sent him an e-mail message through the network.

I understand that Facebook is ostensibly attempting to keep the reactivation process zimble, should one change one’s mind about one’s participation in this timesuck, but one might still find this policy douchey. (Now who has U2 stuck in their head? Just me? Meh. You kids and your tatti taste in music.)

Facebook’s Web site does not inform departing users that they must delete information from their account in order to close it fully — meaning that they may unwittingly leave anything from e-mail addresses to credit card numbers sitting on Facebook servers. Only people who contact Facebook’s customer service department are informed that they must painstakingly delete, line by line, all of the profile information, “wall” messages and group memberships they may have created within Facebook.

First, a quick background. For those of you who aren’t already familiar with the subjects of this post, Anand Jon is the 30-something Indian-born fashion designer who is currently awaiting trial in the U.S. on multiple counts of rape, including the rape of minors. Most of these alleged rapes took place through “casting couch” situations and involved young models. You can get a quick re-cap on the specifics here and here and here.

As far as Narendra Modi, most people don’t need a recap of his sordid history. He is the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, and many both there and abroad feel he was complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Muslims (see our archives or here and here). Others however, including many American Gujaratis (especially hotel owners) admire him for his economic policies and his “tough stance” against Muslims. They support him vociferously from the U.S.

So what is the admitedly loose connection between these two individuals that motivated me to write this post? Both of these men, in there own way, have become symbols of Indian Nationalism and are being used as vehicles to enflame Nationalistic sentiments (with varying success) both in India and the U.S.

I started to think about this at a party over the weekend when my friend Ankur asked me if I had seen an interview in the print edition of India Abroad, a weekly NRI newspaper owned by Rediff.com. He said the interview was of Sanjana Jon defending her brother. I have not seen the India Abroad issue of which he speaks, but I am quite familiar with the campaign to use the media to recast Jon as a martyr of some sort.

Jacob Joseph (an ex-SM commenter), the lead blogger over at The Great Indian Mutiny blog captures the essence of this campaign quite well in a recent “interview” he conducted with Sanjana Jon. [Disclaimer: Sepia Mutiny readers should be made aware that The Great Indian Mutiny was named after this blog. They even call themselves…mutineers. Except their Mutiny is purer. Indian only (no People of Indian Origin fakers who give a bad name to Indians everywhere)]. Here is the “interview” (and I use the term loosely) of Anand Jon’s sister as posted on Joseph’s blog:

Following my earlier post on Anand Jon, someone named GWB left a link to a Dallas Observer article about him. Although GWB claimed it gives you ‘both sides’ of the story, I found it too one sided. I decided to get in touch with Sanjana Jon, his sister, to get some questions answered.

Here is the chat transcript:

Mutiny: Sanajana, let me start by asking you how your mother is doing? It must be pretty tough for a mother to have her son in prison and acussed of these crimes.
Sanjana Jon: I dont want to describe how she feels but not just as a mother and sister but as people who worked with him and lived with him-knowing that none of this ever happened it is traumatizing and kills us seeing this injustice. [Link]

Quick. I’m not a journalist but don’t you learn (on the first day of Journalism school) to make fun of someone who begins an interview with “…let me start by asking you how your mother is doing?” I don’t blame Sanjana for saying whatever she has to in order to help keep bro out of jail, but come on!

It seems rather obtuse for someone to resign from a foundation which bears their name, but in some circumstances it seems entirely justified. This is the tack taken by University of Rochester president Joel Seligman in a terse statement, describing his reaction to the recent resignation of Arun Gandhi from the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence (which is now situated at the University of Rochester):

I was surprised and deeply disappointed by Arun Gandhi’s recent opinion piece in the Washington Post blog, “On Faith.” I believe that his subsequent apology inadequately explains his stated views, which seem fundamentally inconsistent with the core values of the University of Rochester. In particular I vehemently disagree with his singling out of Israel and the Jewish people as to blame for the “Culture of Violence” that he believes is eventually going to destroy humanity. This kind of stereotyping is inconsistent with our core values and would be inappropriate when applied to any race, any religion, any nationality, or either gender.

University presidents are a curious breed, in large part tasked with finding big donors and implementing ‘big picture’ programs across entire educational institutions. As a result, they are sometimes easy targets for backlash—I remember the former President of my own alma mater, declaring at a commencement speech that all previous graduating classes amounted to “mush in, mush out” and was hounded from that post (directly into a cushy job in the Business School). It seems unlikely, however, that Mr. Seligman will face any sort of flak for his official statement on Arun Gandhi’s resignation.

It seems rather obtuse for someone to resign from a foundation which bears their name, but in some circumstances it seems entirely justified. This is the tack taken by University of Rochester president Joel Seligman in a terse statement, describing his reaction to the recent resignation of Arun Gandhi from the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence (which is now situated at the University of Rochester):

I was surprised and deeply disappointed by Arun Gandhi’s recent opinion piece in the Washington Post blog, “On Faith.” I believe that his subsequent apology inadequately explains his stated views, which seem fundamentally inconsistent with the core values of the University of Rochester. In particular I vehemently disagree with his singling out of Israel and the Jewish people as to blame for the “Culture of Violence” that he believes is eventually going to destroy humanity. This kind of stereotyping is inconsistent with our core values and would be inappropriate when applied to any race, any religion, any nationality, or either gender.

University presidents are a curious breed, in large part tasked with finding big donors and implementing ‘big picture’ programs across entire educational institutions. As a result, they are sometimes easy targets for backlash—I remember the former President of my own alma mater, declaring at a commencement speech that all previous graduating classes amounted to “mush in, mush out” and was hounded from that post (directly into a cushy job in the Business School). It seems unlikely, however, that Mr. Seligman will face any sort of flak for his official statement on Arun Gandhi’s resignation.

For those who are aware of it, this past week (specifically January 14th and 15th) was generally a time for celebration—Thai Pongal Usually, in my own family, this just means pongal rice, a “Happy Thai Pongal, darling!” from various overseas relatives and thus it remains one of those ever-dwindling, absolutely pure links to my childhood. Or so I thought. Another part of the festivities in India, aside from thanking Bhumi Devi for the year’s bounty, involves the snatching of treats and trinkets from the body of a bewildered bull by people one could only describe as foolhardy.

Soon after New Year’s Eve, we began receiving tips about a dreadful incident in Bombay involving two young couples who were on vacation (Thanks, Rahul and many others):

A mob of 70-80 men groped and molested two young women for some 15 minutes on a busy main street in Mumbai’s glamour district Juhu early on New Year’s Day.

An identical incident had shamed India’s safest city exactly a year ago — a girl was molested by New Year’s eve revellers at the Gateway of India. That incident was captured on film by a popular Mumbai tabloid; Tuesday morning’s horror was shot by two Hindustan Times lensmen who happened to be on the spot.

The women — one in a black dress, the other in a jeans and top — emerged from the JW Marriott with two male friends around 1.45 am, and began walking towards Juhu beach close by.

A mob of about 40 got after them and began teasing the women. One of the women swore loudly at the hooligans.

But the mob, now 70-80 strong, wouldn’t let go. They trapped the women near a vehicle and a tree, and pounced on them. A man in a white shirt tore off the black dress. Another, in a blue shirt, led the assault. As the women fell on the ground, dozens of men jumped on them. [HT]

The story and the wide-spread, collective anger it inspired grew considerably when the Police Inspector tasked with the case expressed himself in a regrettably insensitive way:

The comments of the Mumbai police commissioner, DN Jadhav further enraged the people: “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. Keep your wives at home if you want them safe. This kind of small things can happen anywhere”. [meri]

Excellent. Two women who were brutalized deserved it because they were out and about, instead of in the kitchen. While a few Mumbaikars agreed with that unfortunate view, others certainly did not:

Arjun Ghai, executive with an MNC says, “The act was shameful but the attitude of the police in this regard is even worse. If MF Hussain puts up his paintings or a Hollywood star kisses a Bollywood actress, the Shiv Sainiks come to life, but what about such cases? It is the people of our great nation who need to be blamed. I am sure those who were involved in this gruesome act had sisters and wives sitting at home. Did they think about them even for an instance? No wonder we are living among vultures ready to pounce on the flesh of vulnerable women at the drop of a hat.”

Mira Sud, boutique owner opines, “I heard someone say that the girls might have been drunk or led the guys on. This is absolutely crazy. In a nation like ours where we worship Sita and Laxmi, people tend to lose their moral sense at times. Claiming that a woman might have been drunk is no reason or excuse. What about those instances where the men get drunk and pounce on women? Nobody blames them. In this male-dominated society of ours, we tend to blame the female gender without even considering the situation.”[meri]

Gloria Steinem had a compelling op-ed in the New York Times this morning that reminded me a lot of one of Ennis’ previous posts about women leaders in rural India. First, some excerpts from “Women Are Never Frontrunners:”

THE woman in question became a lawyer after some years as a community organizer, married a corporate lawyer and is the mother of two little girls, ages 9 and 6. Herself the daughter of a white American mother and a black African father — in this race-conscious country, she is considered black — she served as a state legislator for eight years, and became an inspirational voice for national unity.

Be honest: Do you think this is the biography of someone who could be elected to the United States Senate? After less than one term there, do you believe she could be a viable candidate to head the most powerful nation on earth?

If you answered no to either question, you’re not alone. Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy. [Link]

Of course, there is another equally compelling argument for why the media “gives Clinton a hard time” and why the voters are so quick to discount her considerable experience, to the point of bringing her to tears. Many voters (like the majority in Iowa) may just want a clean break from the past. They don’t care whether Clinton is more capable than Obama or not. They don’t care if she’d be “a better President on day one.” They just want to rid themselves of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton monarchy and the baggage that comes with it. Perhaps, as Obama says, offering people hope and possibility and having the ability to bring new blood into the broken political process will make up for the experience and insider-Washington-knowledge needed to survive and be an effective President in Washington. There is a lot of credibility behind that argument. Then again, Steinem might also be right:

If the lawyer described above had been just as charismatic but named, say, Achola Obama instead of Barack Obama, her goose would have been cooked long ago. Indeed, neither she nor Hillary Clinton could have used Mr. Obama’s public style — or Bill Clinton’s either — without being considered too emotional by Washington pundits. [Link]

Via SAJAForum, an…interesting political cartoon by Ted Rall which experiments with a provocative question: what if Republican threat to everything presidential candidate Mike Huckabee were a different sort of fundamentalist?

Here are the cartoonist’s own words regarding this work, from his blog:

Today’s cartoon responds to the generally respectful tone accorded Mike Huckabee, who does not believe in evolution and is therefore, by definition, a lunatic. [vague link]

I do appreciate Rall’s overarching point— Huckabee is allowed to be as batshit crazy as he wants to be because he’s on the fundamentalist fringe of my religion instead of any other one— since I’m no fan of the preacher man. It’s a very valid concern.

I recently ran across an article talking about new “behavioral targetting” techniques being tried out by the TSA at different airports across the country and figured mutineers would be quite interested in the story.

A moment of truth for many a brown man…

This is a pretty meaty discussion so I’ve decided to break this up into 2 parts… In this part, let’s take a look at what behavioral targetting entails and some discussion of the Israeli experience with it… in a later post, I’ll go into some of the statistics on how to “prove” Flying While Brown.

First, how does it work? -

Who hearts the News tab? I totally do and since I had a few moments, I managed to do what I always intend but never get around to— I checked which story was currently “most interesting” as measured by the “top in 24 hr” link. Eleven of us thought the following tip, which was submitted by Condekedar a few days ago, was important:

Indian children boycott school lunches cooked by ‘Untouchable’

Condekedar wrote this rather attention-getting summary…

A sad reminder of the continued existence of caste-discrimination. This story is even worse, because it’s children who are showing their bigotry, not just prejudiced older people.

Via The Independent:

By her own admission, the lunches cooked by Phool Kumari Rawat may not always be the tastiest food the pupils at her school have ever eaten. And with more than 300 students to cook for, getting the proportions right can be a struggle.

But the children of Bibipur Primary and Junior High School near Lucknow have not launched a boycott of Mrs Rawat’s food because of its taste, but because Mrs Rawat is a Dalit, a so-called Untouchable. As a result, they say, the food is unclean.

A whole new generation, India’s best generation yet with regards to opportunity, learning the worst about others. Condekedar is right; it is extra-disheartening to read about such sentiments from little kids.

Such incidents are not uncommon in India, where caste remains a debilitating and divisive phenomenon, especially for those 75 per cent of people who live in rural communities. But the boycott at Bibipur is especially noteworthy because it is taking place in Uttar Pradesh (UP), the state which this year elected a Dalit woman, Mayawati Kumari, as its chief minister. Campaigners say that despite Mayawati’s poll victory, Dalits still suffer widespread discrimination.

First, they did right by the woman:

When the boycott of the meals began last week, local officials stood by Mrs Rawat, a widow with three children, and tried to persuade the students that there was nothing unhygienic about her food. Officials who inspected her cooking said there were no problems and one even ate the lunch – vegetables and rice – in front of the students to persuade them to end their boycott.

…but they didn’t stay strong:

But The Indian Express newspaper reports that with the children not backing down from the boycott, the authorities are now poised to sack Mrs Rawat.

Two issues are being conflated; the quality of the lunches and the hands which cook them. If it were merely about the former, I don’t think anyone would fault the kids. The revolt might even be framed as a cute rebellion by pigtailed and cow-licked children, standing up for their right to yumminess. But…

Tellingly, children who live in Mrs Rawat’s neighbourhood are still eating the lunches, while those involved in the boycott have reportedly made little effort to hide their reason for refusing to eat. “I will not eat anything cooked by that lady. I have heard my family members say that she is from some low caste. So I bring my own lunch box,” said one pupil, Shivani Singh Chauhan.

Meera Nanda has a detailed summary and analysis of the most recent Pew Global Attitudes report from the Indian point of view:

The Pew poll asked people in 47 countries if they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: “our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others.” Indians topped the list, with a whopping 93 per cent agreeing that our culture was superior to others, with 64 per cent agreeing completely, without any reservations.

Now all people have a soft spot for their own culture. But to see how off-the-charts our vanity is, let us compare ourselves with the other “ancient civilisations” in our neighbourhood. Compared to our 64 per cent, only 18 per cent of the Japanese and only 20 per cent Chinese had no doubt at all that their culture was the best. Indeed, close to one quarter of Japanese and Chinese — as compared to our meagre 5 per cent — disagreed that their ways were the best.

The U.S. — a country universally condemned for its cultural imperialism — comes across as suffering from a severe case of inferiority complex when compared with us. Only 18 per cent Americans had no doubts about the superiority of their culture, compared with our 64 per cent. Nearly a quarter of Americans expressed self-doubts, and 16 per cent completely denied their own superiority. The corresponding numbers from India are five and one per cent. (link)

The obvious question to speculate on (and please, speculate away) is where this discrepancy comes from. I personally don’t know though I’ve definitely seen some evidence of it in the hyper-patriotic way many Indians cheer for the national cricket team.

A bit more:

The strange thing is that for a people who think so highly of our own culture, we are terribly insecure. A startling 92 per cent of Indians — almost exactly the same proportion who think we are the best — think that “our way of life needs to be protected against foreign influences.” Here, too, we beat the Japanese, the Chinese, and the Americans by about 25-30 percentage points. When it comes to feeling embattled and needing protection, we are closer to our Islamic neighbours, Pakistan (82 per cent) and Bangladesh (81 per cent). Indeed, we feel so embattled that 84 per cent of us want to restrict entry of people into the country, compared with only 75 per cent of those asked in the U.S., a country where legal and illegal immigration is of a magnitude higher than anywhere in the world.

So, paradoxically, our vanity is matched only by our persecution complex. (link)

It is kind of surprising that more Indians want immigration controls than Americans, especially considering how hot the immigration issue is in the U.S. right now. (Perhaps India is like Iowa; the fewer immigrants you actually have, the more you worry bout immigration?)

Nanda also summarizes the report’s findings on Indians’ attitudes to the role of government on helping the poor, and the proper role of religion in government (Indians are personally religious, but they also strongly support separation of church and state). The entire report can be found here (PDF) and the Pew Center’s brief summary is here.

From my Facebook inbox:

Hi,

So… I have no idea why I’m sending you a message. Yes, I do. I’m freaking out right now. I’m freaking out because I failed my Accounting exam (meaning I’m one step away from being dropped from my Business program), and I’m going to make what seems like a radical move in my academic move in my career.

I remember a post you did a few weeks (maybe months) back where this girl had such a similar situation. She was basically doing a major for her parents, and I have for the past year and a half been doing Business. I know I hate it. My friends know I hate it. But somehow I rationalized it in my head to make it work so that I was making a sacrifice. But the truth is probably that I’m scared shitless at my parent’s reaction if they knew I was even CONSIDERING switching to become an English major. They will freak out, and consequently, I’m freaking out right now.

I’m sorry if I’m rambling. I just got done with an hour long convo with my best friend who kept trying to reassure me that being an English major is not so bad and my parents will just have to deal. I don’t feel any better. I have no idea how to determine if this is the right decision. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore with people close to me, hence, I’m leaving you this incredibly long message, partially in an attempt to get it out, and partially because for some reason, you’re like my Indian Dear Abby.

You really don’t have to reply… I know I must sound strangely pathetic right now. But again, I’m freaking out. I don’t know if I should tell them or if I should just graduate and have it be a surprise (joke… kind of). They might pull me out… I’m not sure what will happen if they find out. Right now, I’m thinking I don’t tell them. Do you think this is a good idea?

I don’t really have that many Indian friends, and I find it hard to find people who relate to my freaking out. It’s always been the same old “do what you love and fuck the rest” little miss sunshine philosophy with them… which is fine when you don’t have two extremely strict and not-so-forgiving parents. (My parents) mean well, and that’s why I didn’t mind doing business, because I feel they’ve given me a lot and I should give back. But now, I’m at the point where it’s impossible for me to do that. I don’t know…I’ll end it here.

For folks who study immigration flows, one of the interesting phenomena has been the tremendous success of the Overseas Chinese. In just about any country with a significant Chinese population, we find substantial overrrepresentation of Chinese folks at or near the top of the income distribution. Interestingly, this is the case even in countries where the Chinese were subject to both historical and on-going discrimination. Nevertheless, their ability to swim these currents results in interesting theoretical debates about “why”, what it means for other minorities and poses significant real world problems. Amy Chua’s groundbreaking book World on Fire does a great job of diving into these issues and extending Thomas Sowell’s scholarship in understanding the ebb and flow of different minorities in the economy.

In contrast to the Chinese diaspora, the Desi diaspora has a far wider distribution of socio-economic outcomes. While Sepia Mutiny regularly catalogs success stories in the US and occasionally across the pond in the UK, the Desi diaspora is unique relative to many in the world in that we can find different countries where “Desi” invokes different stereotypes at every rung of the ladder. At one extreme, in Fiji and parts of Africa for example, Desis are/were practically viewed as nouveau colonial overlords who unfairly “control” a disproportionate share of the national economy much like the ethnic Chinese in the Phillipines.

There has recently been a number of articles in the press about the growing influence of the Indian-American lobby among Washington politicians. With the U.S.-India Nuclear deal taking center stage, the press began to focus more on the dynamics of this relationship. A number of parallels were drawn to the increasing similarity some of these groups share (or would like to share) with some Jewish lobby groups. A month old article in the NYTimes featured the Hindu American Foundation:

When the Hindu American Foundation began, it looked to groups like the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center for guidance with its advocacy and lobbying efforts.

Indian-Americans, who now number 2.4 million in this country, are turning to American Jews as role models and partners in areas like establishing community centers, advocating on civil rights issues and lobbying Congress.

Indians often say they see a version of themselves and what they hope to be in the experience of Jews in American politics: a small minority that has succeeded in combating prejudice and building political clout. [Link]

As long time readers know, I have often (1,2,3) railed against some of the lobbying groups that purport to represent “Indian Americans” (USINPAC chief among those that receive my disdain). I do not feel that USINPAC represents my interests whatsoever and I wish the press would stop assuming they speak for all Indian Americans. Indolink points us to a new paper in the South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ) which examines a number of “Indian-American” lobby groups and how closely they really represent “Indian-American” interests (as opposed to “Hindustani” interests):

The article addresses the issue of the growing influence of the Indian-American lobbies and even more importantly their internal divisions, giving way to the constant formation of new groups. In the face of these divisions, the author shows how Islamophobia has provided a unifying force, whose roots can be found in the articulation between local and transnational factors: especially in the context of the (American) war against terrorism and the furthering of the India-Israel-US strategic partnership. No wonder a spokesperson for USINPAC was reported as saying: “The terrorism directed against India is the same as that directed against the United States and Israel.”

Therwath reveals that fieldwork conducted in New York and in Washington “revealed virulent streaks of Islamophobia and hostility towards Pakistan amongst professional Indian American lobbyists.” The author adds: “While not absolutely systematic, this anti-Muslim sentiment has been prominent in most of the interviews that I conducted…” [Link]

A column (thanks, Fuerza Dulce) from the women’s magazine Marie-Claire on Anjali Mansukhani’s enthusiasm for arranged marriages (including her own), didn’t really start in what seemed like the best possible way:

By age 26, after attending more than 150 weddings, I was fast approaching my “expiration date.” (link)

“Expiration date” at age 26? That’s pretty young; personally, I think women get “expired” these days at around 27 or 28…

But it gets so much better. Anjali, a Bombayite, meets a guy who seems like Mr. Right — a New York based banker — and moves to his 40th story Manhattan apartment after three dates (and a marriage). Life there is blissfully happy:

While I craved privacy in India, the lack of neighbors and family dropping in left a shocking void every day as I ate breakfast and lunch alone. My husband worked late most evenings, and I sat in front of the TV, unable to call home because it would be 2 a.m. there.

After a few weeks, I learned that I’d married a “jetrosexual.” He had an exhausting travel schedule (four cities in four days). I joined the ranks of corporate wives who saw every show, opera, and ballet in town, just to fill the hours.

To make friends, I joined a gym, went to the library, and took Italian classes. I discovered that having an arranged marriage was a great icebreaker, and my social circle mushroomed each time I retold my story.

Marriage, I soon learned, wasn’t easy — especially to a modern man. My husband had acquired a mistress, and her name was BlackBerry. She had the power to stop discussions midsentence, her red signal lighting up his face in the way I only dreamed of doing. (link)

Such happiness. It really brightens your day.

Off to a great start, no doubt. But Anjali’s new life really takes off when she learns to name-drop consumer goods and lifestyle choices like a professional New Yorker:

As peers in India opted for motherhood and worked on post-baby waistlines, I took Spinning and pole dancing at the gym to work off exotic dinners of sweetbreads, foie gras, chocolate mousse. After reading about America’s obsession with Venti decaf skim mochas, I went to try one — but came back instead with a spiced chai latte. Amazingly, Starbucks was providing my childhood drink on every corner.

I found a job as a financial consultant. The New York Times in one hand, coffee in the other, I realized that my saris of bright pink, violet, and salmon were not exactly subway wear. Quickly, I succumbed to Levi’s and Ralph Lauren.

I started to realize that I just might have the best of both worlds. I marinated my Indian marriage in the flavors of Manhattan. I kept the sari and bought the Jimmy Choos. I made fabulous curries, seasoned with spices from Dean & Deluca. And after months of enjoying decidedly non-Indian experiences of seders, Saks, and sake, I felt confident enough to direct Indian guests to a hotel, occasionally throwing in a MetroCard.

I’m not hating, really I’m not. In fact, I’m thrilled she’s so happy — with those Jimmy Choos that she got from Bloomie’s, drinking Chai Tea Latte at Starbucks (which is just like the Chai in India, isn’t it?), before her pole-dancing class, where she’ll burn off the foie gras from the night before. Arranged marriage can be great that way.

Thoughtful readers NKN and Daniel sent in this delightful wideo and we are all smilier for it. It’s catchy! Err…wait, I think it’s supposed to prevent that…

Achtung, babies: it is NSFW, especially if you work with Telugu people. ;) Otherwise, it seems so innocent, the stars of the clip reminded me of Boobah or the Teletubbies…well, until they get to the graphically illustrated part about gay sex. But we won’t go there! I mean, hasn’t Tinky Winky endured enough?

Now sing it with me one time, “I am sealed with lubricant!” Ah, this song is going to be in my head, all day. Happy Monday to all and to all, check the manufacturing date.

P.S. The next time you’re blue (heh), make like our dancing friend Nirodh and tell yourself, “Turn a deaf ear to others, I am very good.” I know I will!

Indolink.com carries a good article highlighting a study by Samir Patel, Nausheen Rokerya and Maneka Singh at Cornell University titled, Switchovers: Indian American Drinking Culture at Cornell. The study claims to be the “first academic survey of ‘Indian American drinking culture’ in a college campus [setting].” The study sought to lock in on incoming desi undergrads who saw a particularly significant shift in their attitudes about alcohol (from something viewed as strictly taboo to something very normal and even necessary to have a good time).

Who were the subjects of this study? They were 12 Indian-American Cornell undergraduates - five male, seven female - who began drinking only after their freshman year of college. Demographically, nine were from the northeast, one was from the Midwest, one was from the west, and one was from the south. When questioned about their religious affiliation, three students identified themselves as being Jain, and nine as Hindus. [Link]

Since most of the people that read this site have graduated from college, the rest of this will be a bit nostalgic (and may even make some of you nauseous). If you find yourself getting angry or thinking, “kids these days…” it means you are getting wiser (AND possibly that kids are getting dumber).

First of all the study reveals that all of the freshman students were shocked upon arriving at Cornell and witnessing the heavy drinking atmosphere among their senior Indian counterparts. All interviewees also indicated a struggle between a desire to maintain roots and yet still get the full experience of American college life.

The authors argue that the “switchovers” adopted mainstream American culture and that the “adoption of this culture and consequent ideological shift was caused by a combination of socialization needs, avoidance of fears, and academic pressures,” including the desire to be popular among the opposite sex.

The study begins by claiming that the abstinent culture of the average Desi student can be attributed to the strong Hindu background and their parents’ primarily educational immigration motive.

However, upon entering college, the same Desi students realize that the culture found at Cornell is radically different from that which they were used to at home. They were particularly surprised that this culture, which so heavily promoted drinking and partying, was so willingly embraced by the college Indian community. One student did not “expect that this many Indian kids would drink” and was stunned as to how much Desi students did drink. They found that this new culture assigned significant value to “having fun” and recreation, as well as doing well in school: the “work-hard, party-hard” mentality that many of their non-Indian high school friends embodied, was also a value for many Desis at Cornell. [Link]

Most of the ideas of Neela Banerjee’s recent New York Times article on Indian-American lobbying were actually covered in a blog post by KXB here a couple of weeks ago.

But what caught my eye was the bit about an India Community Center in Milpitas, California:

The India Community Center in Milpitas, Calif., represents the nonsectarian approach many Indian-Americans take to replicating the experience of American Jews. When Anil Godhwani began talking to other Indians in Silicon Valley about opening a center, “more than one person talked to us about making this a Hindu community center — sometimes in very strong terms,” he said. That was never his intention, though he was raised Hindu.

A Silicon Valley millionaire who sold his company to Netscape in the late 1990s, Mr. Godhwani said he and his brother envisioned a place that promoted the variety of Indian culture to Indian-Americans and non-Indians alike. The Godhwanis canvassed other ethnic centers and the Y.M.C.A. But the Jewish Community Center model resonated with them. It celebrated Jewish culture while avoiding the divisiveness of politics and religion. And it welcomed outsiders. The India Community Center occupies a 40,000-square-foot building that offers, among other things, free medical care for the uninsured, Indian language classes and Bollywood-style aerobics but keeps out religious activities. (link)

I would have loved to have something like this growing up — too bad there isn’t anything similar on the east coast.

More generally, I’m not surprised by the opposition Godhwani encountered as he was trying to put this thing together, though I am disappointed. Most people tend to presume that a South Asian community organized around entirely religion is an inevitable fact of nature, but does it have to be that way?

I’m not saying that Mandirs, Gurdwaras, Masjids, and indeed, Churches don’t have their place; they do. There are things our Gurdwara did well when I was growing up in Maryland, but it was pretty poor when it came to producing a sense of community oriented to aspects of life other than religion, which is what a community center like this is trying to do. They were also quite poor (back then) in language instruction — I learned very little Punjabi even after years of Sunday school. And very few non-Sikhs ever came in, even though Gurdwaras are technically supposed to be open to anyone.

There’s also strength in numbers, especially in parts of the country where the South Asian community might be smaller than it is in the Bay Area or New York/New Jersey. An India-, or perhaps even a “Desi” Community Center, could be a place with more critical mass.

I know, I know — I’m being idealistic again.

I think someone owes Sikh people an apology [via India West].

When Los Angeles right-wing talk radio host Al Rantel referred to a turbaned Sikh as wearing a “diaper” on his head last week, one local Indian American man decided that he’d had enough.

“If he does not correct himself, on the air, we’re going to put pressure on him,” Navraj Singh told India-West by phone Sept. 17. “I’m getting calls from around the country, and Sikh temples are collecting signatures,” said Singh, adding that he was ready to lead a protest outside the radio station

Rantel is a conservative host whose show airs on KABC 790AM every weekday in Los Angeles. During his Sept. 10 show, Rantel was discussing airport security, and said that if his own 80-year-old mother had to take off her shoes during a security screening, “… then why shouldn’t a Sikh be required to take off the hat that looks like a diaper they wear on their heads?” recalled Singh. [IndiaVest]

When contacted, Rantel’s accomplice producer eloquently stated that this @$$#o!#’$ words were “taken out of context”. Awww. Of course they were! Because there obviously exists a context wherein diapers and turbans nestle innocently in the same sentence. Maybe Rantel was saying, “I saw a nice Sikh man changing his baby’s diaper…it’s great to see Fathers taking such an active role!” Yeah, no…as my little cousin would say.

See? They DO exist:

Singh describes himself as a semi-regular listener to the show, and says he himself is a conservative Republican.

In a strongly worded letter he sent to KABC Sept. 12, Singh challenged Rantel to an on-air debate. Rantel’s team has not yet responded to him. [IndiaVest]

coughCHICKENcough. Gosh, I really need some Ricola. Must be the weather. Seasons change, feelings change, (and now I have Expose in my head, as I fume over this latest example of disrespect).

This Uncle has weathered b.s. in the past:

After a successful career as a decorated officer in the Indian Army, Singh immigrated to New York in 1974, and says he has faced discrimination as a turbaned Sikh in the United States. He says he was laughed at when he started a job as a door-to-door vacuum salesman that year (he later became the company’s top seller, he said), and maintains that he was forced out of another successful sales job in 1979 because his boss was afraid of anti-Iran sentiment during the Iranian hostage crisis.

For those of you in the L.A. area, Singh is the man behind India’s Oven/Tantra. One of his restaurants (the original “oven”) was destroyed during the ‘92 riots. But I digress.

So…despite what some might allege, I do NOT keep dosa pr0n up on the main page for an extra long, torturous time, not on purpose, at least. To prove this, I wanted to publish something newer for you mutineers. Off to the News Tab I went…and then I saw this:

Karunanidhi calls Lord Ram a ‘drunkard’, Advani fumes

WOW. Look, I don’t pretend to know about either the Ram Setu controversy OR politics in India, but like any idiot with half-a-functioning brain, I do know (Mandink-aaaa) that it would be disrespectful and hurtful to call a revered religious figure a “drunkard”, especially in uber-devout India. Some of you may be asking, what is going ON over there? Well, for those of you at home who haven’t been following this controversy (coughguiltycough), here’s a brief explanation:

The Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project proposes linking the Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar between India and Sri Lanka by creating a shipping canal through the shallow sea sometimes called Setu Samudram, and through the island chain of Rama’s Bridge, also known as Adam’s Bridge. This would provide a continuous navigable sea route around the Indian Peninsula. The project involves digging a 44.9 nautical mile (83 km) long deepwater channel linking the shallow water of the Palk Strait with the Gulf of Mannar. Conceived as early as 1860 by Alfred Dundas Taylor, it recently received approval of the Indian government. [wiki]

According to the Hindu scripture Ramayana and beliefs, Sri Rama and His Vaanar Sena built a bridge from Rameshwaram to Sri Lanka thousands of years ago. Some Hindu organizations and religious figures, including the Shankaracharya of Puri, have opposed the project, pointing out that it would destroy the “Ram Setu”.

Others have opposed the project on environmental grounds, and fears of the effect it will have on the livelihood of some 20 million fisherfolk in the coastal districts.

The Union government admitted in late 2007 that there was no historical evidence to establish the existence of Ram or the other idols in Ramayana. In an affidavit filed before the apex court, the Archaeological Survey of India too rejected the claim of the existence of the Ram Sethu bridge in the area where the project was under construction. A day later, the affidavit was withdrawn under pressure from Hindu fundamentalist parties. However, the State government of Tamil Nadu continue to maintain its official stance and refused to review the project. [wiki]

Got all that? Good.

The Chief Minister of Lemuria, Karunanidhi, is an atheist. That is why he is extra vexed about any religious-based objections to this shipping canal. A Senior Leader of the BJP, Lal Krishna Advani, thinks Karunanidhi has got some nerve on him.

Ah, Padma.

Padma, Padma, Padma.

Potentially Mallu (I thought you were TamBrahm!) beauty, accomplished author and Television ish-tar, you speak so uniquely and that takes some talent. What sort of talent, I haven’t a clue, but I’ll credit you anyway, because I’m fond of you like that.

A few years ago, you made every Desi man’s heart beat a little bit faster, from the joy of the improbable occurring; if a supermodel would marry an award-winning, uber-protective, “distinguished”-looking author, then everyone had hope (as long as they did something extraordinary. Or had a looooot of paisa). It was the ultimate Revenge fantasy and that’s exactly what it was, because the dream, it died. You and the man who defended your intellect, who insisted that you were being shortchanged by the focus on your outsides, you are…kaput.

So, what to do, except to follow the well-established mores of our culture. You don’t recall? I am happy to remind. Now comes the time when you cast your eyes downwards, marinate in the somber reality of failure and wait an appropriate time before you are back on the scene, the ultimate “Innocent Divorcee, no issue”. It is imperative that you be seen alone, that you not be photographed with strange men touching you, because if a potential groom from Madras or Bangalore sees that, chee, vat he vill think?

So it is paining me, Padma-akka (chechi?!) to see you emulate the controversial example of that Sarita Denzel Masala of Mississippi, especially since you chose to do that in the front row of the Marc Jacobs show, where everyone could see you! Aiyo! What’s the one thing your Amma told you, edi?

Mmmm, snark:

Leger poll shows Sikhs are the least liked religion in Canada (liked by only 53% of Canadians). Jews are the most liked minority religion (78%), Muslims at 61%. No data on Christians, or on people who commission really stupid polls. [Ikram]

But what about Jewish Sikhs? Feh. Fresh from the News Tab, some meshugge story in the Montreal Gazette which deserves Ikram’s (and perhaps your) scorn; Canadians apparently respect Sikhs less than members of other religions, and the amount of contact a Canadian has with a person influences their perception of them. Shocking, but true.

Asked whether they had a favourable opinion of each group, the 1,500 people surveyed by Léger Marketing across Canada said they hold Jews in the highest esteem (78 per cent), Muslims considerably lower (61 per cent) and Sikhs least of all (53 per cent).

And in each case, how much a person approves of one of the minority religions depends on how much contact he or she has had with them. The more contact, the higher the esteem, the poll found.

Forty-five per cent of Canadians are in contact with Jews often or occasionally, according to the poll. Only 37 per cent are in touch with Muslims, and only 21 per cent with Sikhs.

One thing to keep in mind— there are fewer Jewish people than Muslims, in Canada (pronounced Kuh-NAH-da, natch).

According to the 2001 federal census (religion data from the 2006 census are not yet available), there are 330,000 Jews in Canada and 580,000 Muslims. Sikhs number 278,000.

Y’all need to hold some Bhangra Blowout-esque event in Quebec. ;)

Abhi posted a link on our news tab to a story about…well, stupidity. Way to focus on the fine print, while actual, credible threats go unchecked.

For seven-year-old Javaid Iqbal, the holiday to Florida was a dream trip to reward him for doing well at school.

But he was left in tears after he was stopped repeatedly at airports on suspicion of being a terrorist.

The security alerts were triggered because Javaid shares his name with a Pakistani man deported from the US, prompting staff at three airports to question his family about his identity.

The family even missed their flight home from the U.S. after officials cancelled their tickets in the confusion. And Javaid’s passport now contains a sticker saying he has undergone highlevel security checks.

Little Javaid is a British citizen of Pakistani origin, which makes his “dream” of going to Florida-land as a reward for his good grades even more poignant, to me. The other Javaid is a 39-year old Pakistani who was arrested in connection with 9/11; while they convicted that Javaid of fraud and deported him, he was never charged with anything related to terrorism. His name, obviously, is a red flag for the exquisitely useful database/process which Homeland Security created…you know, the one which apparently doesn’t bother cross-checking birthdays in order to discern the difference between two or more people who share a name.

Because of this cluster, Javaid’s parents are debating a name-change for their unfortunately-nomenclated* offspring, and I don’t blame them, though I can only imagine how frustrated and resentful they might be. September 12, 2001…the day common sense commenced its slow and horrific death.

I found the reactions from people who had read the article interesting. Illuminating, even.

Said Craig from London:

Poor kid, my passport was mistakenly stamped with the incorrect stamp when transiting though Australia a few years back, the immigration bloke realised it and crossed out the initial stamp and re-stamped it correctly but I still often get asked “why were you refused entry to Australia” when going through immigration. Still if simply changing your name is enough to bypass the system it shows how utterly pointless the US no-fly list is.

Most folks have probably heard by now that former morning radio show host/shock jock Don Imus, fired for his racially charged invective against 19-year-old girls, recently settled a lawsuit with CBS that could pave the way for him to return to the airways:

Imus was fired in April after referring to a mostly black university women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos,” a racial slur that generated a storm of controversy and led CBS Radio to cancel his “Imus in the Morning” show.

CBS and MSNBC first suspended Imus’ show for two weeks, but as calls to fire him grew, notably from New York civil rights leader Al Sharpton, MSNBC dropped the show and CBS followed suit the next day.

“Don Imus and CBS Radio have mutually agreed to settle claims that each had against the other regarding the Imus radio program on CBS. The terms of the settlement are confidential and will not be disclosed,” CBS and Imus’ lawyer said in a joint statement. [Link]

Leaks indicate that Imus will probably get 20 million in the settlement. What might be of most interest in all of this however, especially to our readers, is who has been tapped by CBS to replace Imus. It is obvious that CBS is looking to make up for its former host’s racial biases. NOT:

He was verbal about the Indian-American community whenever he got the chance, critics say, and now Craig Carton has a national platform.

That makes many Asian Indians unhappy.

Members of the Asian community are saying that CBS is making a mistake by hiring the New Jersey 101.5 FM radio shock jock who has maligned the Asian-Indian community repeatedly in recent years on his “Jersey Guys” radio show.

It was announced by WFAN-AM, New York, Tuesday that Carton will co-host the morning radio show that used to be the turf of Don Imus, fired in April for making racial and sexist slurs about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team. Carton takes over the morning show with Boomer Esiason beginning Sept. 4.

Carton has hosted 101.5’s “The Jersey Guys” broadcast during the afternoon drive-time slot for five years. [Link]

You know what our community needs?? An Al Sharpton-type figure. I remind me of a young Al Sharpton sometimes. I’m just sayin’, if the community wants me to step up then I might [crickets chirp loudly in the background]. For those of you who have forgotten as to why we think the Jersey Guys are morons and why Carton’s mouth doesn’t deserve a wider audience, may I direct you here, here, here, and here. So in summary, racism is good for radio as it brings in listeners who then buy the products advertised during the show. Don’t complain to the radio show when Carton inevitably starts spewing garbage. Complain to the advertisers. Or better yet, listen to NPR instead.

This print advertisement by Intel has been causing quite a stir of late [via Huffington Post]. It seems to convey the idea that owning an Intel chip will help you tackle the same amount of work as you could with a ship of slaves (while making you feel powerful):

I almost fell out of my seat when I saw Intel’s new advertising campaign. It shows six bowing African American athletes before a chino-clad, oxford-shirted white manager with the slug: “Maximize the power of your employees.” This ad reminds me of a slave-ship, and it’s hard to imagine the same imagery did not come to mind for the savvy ad exec that created it…

Intel is not just promoting insensitive images, it’s also leading a signature drive for a California ballot measure that would eliminate class action lawsuits over civil rights issues. Intel’s board of directors have been sent 25,000 faxes calling upon the company to withdraw that pending ballot measure. [Link]

While on the subject of pop culture as a force for Good, I thought it would be interesting to point mutineers at a current chart topping song in Pakistan. “Yeh Hum Naheen” (“This is Not Us”) has been making waves and the title is apparently becoming a catch phrase of sorts.

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, we present it here with English subtitles -

Personally, the tune doesn’t move me too much but the message kicks ass….

It’s been an adjustment, to experience this website’s growth and witness our readership change. People leave, others join, many lurk. While I miss some of our now-absent personalities who were prolific with their pondering (Punjabi Boy, Jai Singh, DesiDancer and Espressa come to mind), I’m thrilled about our new commenters, who are expanding our discussion and bringing their unique points of view to our cacophonous, rowdy, online adda. I’m especially looking at our first-gen contributors, like Runa and Malathi, because for stories like the one I’m trying to blog, I think their perspective is invaluable, for helping us find nuance and context. What I’m trying to say is, HELP.

Al Mujahid for Debauchery left this on our news tab:

Unbelievable. Pakistani actor Moin Akhtar (a muhajir/Indian origin himself) plays Hyderabadis from India in blackface in this ‘comedy’ show.

Wait, WHAT? And here is where the DBDs come in, because I don’t understand the clip below or know who these actors are, and as I’ve stated before, I like to get as much information as possible before I get my outrage on— and believe me, I could rage about actors in blackface.

What on earth is going on? And would someone who watches desi tv please tell me that this an uncommon practice? I fast forwarded through the clip, but I don’t get the greasy, huge-black-glasses-equipped, buck-toothed character, and by “don’t get”, I mean my spider sense is tingling. What, if anything, do all of you know?

Via Ruchira Paul and 3QD, an article in the Boston Globe about the work of Robert Putnam, a Harvard University political scientist. The Globe summarizes the gist of the article as follows:

It has become increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger.

But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam — famous for “Bowling Alone,” his 2000 book on declining civic engagement — has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.

“The extent of the effect is shocking,” says Scott Page, a University of Michigan political scientist.

The study comes at a time when the future of the American melting pot is the focus of intense political debate, from immigration to race-based admissions to schools, and it poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the issues. The study is already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm large-scale immigration causes to the nation’s social fabric. But with demographic trends already pushing the nation inexorably toward greater diversity, the real question may yet lie ahead: how to handle the unsettling social changes that Putnam’s research predicts. (link)

What makes this all more interesting is the fact that Robert Putnam is not himself a conservative, but a progressive-minded scholar who supports diversity. He didn’t expect these findings when he started this project, and has worked hard to make sure they are understood correctly — though anti-immigrant conservatives have definitely been eating this up.

I was half-listening to NPR’s Day to Day today, when I heard the words, “because of his skin color” repeated a few times; predictably, that got my attention. It turned out that the man being discussed, Pedro Guzman, was developmentally disabled and had been mistakenly deported to Mexico. Because of his skin color.

A wrongly deported U.S. citizen who was missing for nearly three months in Mexico ate out of garbage cans, bathed in rivers and was repeatedly turned away by U.S. border agents when he tried to return to California, his family said Tuesday.

Pedro Guzman, 29, was picked up at the Calexico border crossing over the weekend. He was released to his family on Tuesday.[WaPo]

…yes, but according to Frank Stoltze at NPR, he was set free only after a court ordered it.

Guzman was shaking and stuttering and appeared traumatized, his family said at a news conference. Family members said they plan to seek medical attention for Guzman, who was not at the news conference.

“They took him whole but only returned half of him to me,” his mother, Maria Carbajal, said in Spanish while crying. “The government is responsible for this.” [WaPo]

To hear his Mother weep on the radio was painful. On NPR, she said that “he may be back home, but he is not the same.” His brother mentioned that Guzman is now afraid of people.

“What a nightmare,” I thought, and I was reminded immediately of some of us, and how black humor has permeated our banter with each other, with friends who aren’t citizens. “Be careful, you’ll get deported!” and the like are now uttered frequently and followed with uneasy laughter.

Guzman’s ordeal commenced in May, after he completed jail time for trespassing.

Mr. Guzman had served about 20 days of a jail sentence for misdemeanor trespassing and vandalism until May 11, when, in a screening of inmates’ status, he apparently indicated he was from Mexico and was turned over to the immigration agency, which deported him to Tijuana. [NYT]

The Los Angeles county jail authorities summarily deported him without bothering to check his birth records, which would’ve proven that he was born in Los Angeles. Of course, these same authorities are insisting that he showed “no signs of illness”.

Guzman has issues even remembering his family’s phone number, which left him lost to forage through trash in Tijuana, while his relatives desperately searched for him, for almost three months.

Said Guzman’s attorney from the ACLU:

This government deported Pedro Guzman because of his skin color. Did not believe him when he said he was a U.S. citizen, born in California, because of his skin color. [NPR]

On July 25th, Pratibha Patil became India’s first female President. Because the Presidency is largely a ceremonial position, this is less significant than Indira’s ascension to the PM’s throne over 40 years ago.

Patil may be far from an exemplary figure, dogged by a long list of controversies including her advocacy of eugenic sterilization, allegations that she protected her brother from a murder charge, and her habit of speaking to dead people without being Haley Joel Osment, but at least she can do little harm as President.

What interests me more is the general question of whether the gender of a politician matters. Certainly, it’s hard to argue that there was anything about Indira’s reign that would reveal her gender.

However, at least at the village level, there is some compelling evidence that gender does indeed matter, but that female performance is unappreciated. Economists examined the effects of a 1993 constitutional change that reserved one third of village council leader positions (randomly allocated) in Bengal and Rajasthan for women. This is what they found:

• Female pradhans spent more on public goods preferred by women. [Link]
• Female pradhans are objectively better - they provide more public goods, the quality of these goods is at least as good as elsewhere, and villagers are less likely to pay bribes. [Link]
• Despite that, “voters are less satisfied with the performance of female pradhans than with that of male pradhans in providing all services, including drinking water, for which quantity and quality is objectively better … Surprisingly, those unhappy with women leaders include both men and women, and they blame women even for the service levels of those goods that the GP doesn’t provide.” [Link]

That’s right - women’s performance on the job is objectively better, they are less corrupt, but even so male and female voters are less happy with their performance and blame them for things entirely outside their control. While President Patil may have come to disfavor based on her own actions, in general it’s the story of Fred and Ginger for women politicians - they have to do everything that men do, but backwards and in heels.

Today’s New York Times carries an article about DBDs who live in Iselin, NJ (which is near Edison), who are being affected by the same anti-boarding house ordinances which Virginia is using against Hispanic day-laborers. Complaints from neighbors, usually about things like litter, imperfect lawns and the like are being investigated vigorously— but are they being pursued a little too vigorously? How much of this is icky bias and how much is ignorance regarding brown proclivities to live in extended family arrangements? And really, what is it that four DBDs living in a four-bedroom home could be doing, which is so suspect?

With the workweek behind him, Deepu Dass focused on a pesky bald spot in his front lawn here. As he sprayed the patch with water, urging the grass toward the perfection achieved by several neighbors, he said confidently: “I planted seeds.”

Two of his three roommates chatted behind Mr. Dass on the porch…The men — all Indian immigrants here on worker visas without their families — rent rooms month to month in this white, four-bedroom Cape Cod, where the kitchen shelves are stocked with food in bulk and the walls are decorated with reminders of home. “That’s Kerala,” said Mr. Dass, pointing to a silkscreen of a village fishing scene from his home state. “They call it God’s own country because it’s so beautiful.”

Absolutely. But that snide pride in the state from whence my parents came is for another post. Or five.

There have been up to six men sharing the house, whose owners include Suresh Kumar, president of NexAge Technologies USA, a nearby software company where the tenants work. But the unusual arrangement — and the unsightly lawn — caught the attention of local housing inspectors, and in May Woodbridge Township cited Mr. Kumar for several violations, including an unauthorized boarding house and an illegal multifamily dwelling. He has until Aug. 16 to resolve the situation, which may mean kicking his workers out.

I don’t get it. Everyone I know owns a rental property. Many of us rent such properties. A good number of us do so with roommates…where is this arbitrary line which divides the bad from the good? On the flawed lawn, which is apparently what got poor Deepu et al in trouble?

Mr. Kumar’s were among more than 300 notices of violation that the authorities handed out from January through May to homeowners in the 10 communities that make up Woodbridge Township, part of a stepped-up inspection effort the mayor announced last year…But in a twist to the familiar tales of suburban authorities breaking up illegally subdivided homes crowded with Hispanic day laborers, the mayor’s crackdown here has hit another group of immigrants: middle-class Indians who rent rooms or parts of rooms to Indian students, technology workers and others seeking a first foothold in this country.

Desi homeowners have been gifted with almost a quarter of the notices.

As brown blog folks, we know a thing or two about nerdiness. I was surprised therefore to see this NYT article about the research of Mary Bucholtz, a linguist at UCSB who has been studying nerds for the past dozen years. According to the article, Bucholtz argues that nerdiness is essentially exaggerated whiteness:

Nerds - not just white people any more

Nerdiness, she has concluded, is largely a matter of racially tinged behavior. People who are considered nerds tend to act in ways that are, as she puts it, “hyperwhite.”

As a linguist, Bucholtz understands nerdiness first and foremost as a way of using language… Bucholtz notes that the “hegemonic” “cool white” kids use a limited amount of African-American vernacular English … But the nerds she has interviewed, mostly white kids, punctiliously adhere to Standard English… By cultivating an identity perceived as white to the point of excess, nerds deny themselves the aura of normality that is usually one of the perks of being white. [Link]

I’m willing to concede part of her point - that “cool” culture in America has to do with black culture, and that nerds define themselves self-consciously against it. That’s why (as she points out) black nerd figures, like Urkel, are so amusing. It’s worth reading her whole argument, but I’m not going to quote it at greater length here because I’m more interested in what she leaves out, namely immigrant nerds or FOB nerds.

Growing up in New York City, we had nerds of all colors, sizes, shapes and flavors, but the median nerd was probably an immigrant kid of some sort. It didn’t matter where your parents came from, just that they weren’t born here and that you yourself may have emigrated as a kid.

Since I went to a geek high school, I grew up with Eastern European nerds, tons and tons of east Asian nerds, and yes, brown nerds. And it wasn’t about people defining themselves against blackness — African nerds with their white short-sleeve shirts, slacks and ramrod straight posture were just as nerdy as an IITian or MITian around. [Which is precisely why “blackness” gets tricky when talking about immigrants - are you going to call African immigrants Oreos just because they don’t fit stereotypes of “black Americans”?]

As a matter of fact, I would go as far as to argue that brown nerds aren’t hyperwhite but ultrabrown. They weren’t trying to emulate the squarer parts of American culture, in fact they were uberdesi . They wore polyester short-sleeve shirts, coke bottle glasses, were very earnest and spoke grammatical english. And yes, before somebody brings up the distinction, they were not just geeks but pukka nerds.

…because according to some commenters, apparently, it isn’t. Suddenly there are commentS about hot Desi girls choosing white guys over their own— and I emphasize the plural aspect of “comment”, because that’s what caught my attention— this wasn’t some one-off virtual rant. Frankly, Mr. Shankly, I’m shocked. While some of the people who are leaving the eyebrow-raising statements seem to be new, I’m fully aware that the normal pattern of Sepia engagement is:

Random Googling —> Sepia? What the-? —> Hmmm, interesting —> Lurking —> and then finally, posting.

If these anti-miscegenation fans have followed that tried-and-true process, then they’d be aware that there are more than a few members of the Mutiny community who are the products of interracial unions; I can’t imagine that they’d be so tactless as to disparage such pairings when they reflect someone like Siddhartha, Desidancer or SemiDesiMasala’s ancestry.

So, maybe these are just mischief-instigating trolls, having some wicked fun via drive-by hate-spewing.

Or are they?

I think there’s more to this— and that’s why I’m publishing this post. Let’s have it out, then. Some of you seem to be in the mood to REALLY tell us what you think, so here’s your deluxe chance. Almost everyone here is anonymous. :) It’s safe to be honest.

The following comments were left on my post about a woman named Aarti being chosen as one of the cuter people on the Hill:

hillside: Also I’ve never dated an Indian girl either, probably partly because so many of the hot ones like the two on this list are into white dudes. [sm]

Sheetal: (referring to comment above)
I’ve noticed this too. What is up with that? [sm]

Sheetal followed that comment by excerpting the following portion of the Hill article, making sure to highlight certain significant words by “bolding” them.

Skipper is a native of Chicago but both parents are from India — something that had worried her when it came to the issue of marriage. The handsome man in church soon became her boyfriend, but he was American and Caucasian, far from what she thought her parents would ever accept.

Okay, loud and clear. Jamie Skipper is Desi and she married a Caucasian (never mind that Desis are Caucasian, too). Yet another commenter seemed to agree with hillside and Sheetal:

…in a land not-at-all far away, there was a divisive issue that was almost as annoying as Paris Hilton— and just as ubiquitous, too.

According to the SAJAforum blog, yesterday, there was another cartoon on outsourcing (shocking! original! unexpected!).

This time, it’s Mother Goose & Grimm who are having their say. Well, more like Grimmy and Attila, but you know what I meant.

Do you think it’s funny?

Better yet, does anyone feel like getting creative the way our beloved DJ Drrrty Poonjabi did with the last cartoon I blogged about on this “hot topic”?

::

w00t Nina! Thanks for the prompt “revision”. :D

…that’s much better. Anyone else?

A heart-breaking update to my previous post, “On Respect for our Elders”:

A SICK 75-year-old grandmother who was thrown in the garbage by her relatives in India last week has died, officials say.

Chinnammal Palaniappan, died on Sunday in a home for elderly people where she was taken after being rescued from the garbage dump in Erode town, 400km from Chennai, capital of southern Tamil Nadu state.

Palaniappan had told her rescuers that on July 19 she was taken from her home by her grandsons and on waking up found herself among a heap of rotting garbage.

“She was improving after she was fed and given necessary medicines in the facility but on Sunday evening she developed breathing problems and died,” an official said.

Thanks for posting this to the news tab, Anonymous. At least she’s finally at peace.

If anyone hears news regarding the worthless family who did this despicable deed, please let us know. I can’t be the only one who is interested in their fate, and how the TN government proceeds with this tragic case.

Please. Spare us your liberal Western Judeo-Christian BS. Hinduism is far superior when it comes to questions of individual growth and development. For example, we don’t consider death a chance to go to happy land up in the sky, so that article about the baby is total BS. Life and death are part of the same cycle for us. A wife is subservient to her husband because Sita was subservient to Ram. Yeah, a Westerner may not understand that, but at least in India we don’t need to place condom machines in every university bathroom. We don’t have a whole porn industry devoted to the exploitation of vulnerable women. We don’t put our elders in nursing homes because of an obsession with career promotion. We value our families, and just as importantly, the larger community. And Hindu women have done just fine for 5000+++ years, thank you very much. So cut this feminist BS. Next you’ll be promoting gay rights in India. Liberalism is NOT going to destroy the fabric of our society. [sm]

I volunteered at a nursing home while attending college in the US. Many of the elderly women told me that their children visit only during holidays. Most of the day, these elderly people would be playing cards, or watching television or some such activity. But even though these children had neglected their parents, parents being parents, the parents (even with all the amnesia and what not) would remember their kids and often reminisce, out of the blue.

When I see young Indian kids walking around with their grandparents, I can appreciate the harmony of Indian culture. I know that that venerable revered being will not have to extinguish his/her days, sitting around a table playing cards or wait for the next holiday to see a family member. There is something more important trying to outwit your husband in every aspect (feminism), and I would have to say that this is the image of you that you project onto your children. After all, a parents are a child’s first role models. [sm]

When the desi nursing homes actually materialize, then we can debate it…Have you been in a nursing home? Have you seen the size of one of the cramped rooms they have for occupants? Its disgusting. Desi’s will never go down that path, thankfully. [sm]

::

Via an Anonymous Tipster:

Indian granny thrown on garbage dump

An Indian couple found an unwell 75-year-old woman lying on a garbage dump, apparently thrown out of her home by her daughter and grandsons who did not want to take care of her, the Hindustan Times reported.

“She never complained about her family’s behaviour, only rued the fact that she couldn’t move without help,” Mohanasundari, one of the rescuers, said.

In latex, India’s women should trust (thanks, Jeet). So much for treating one’s husband as if they were a deity, hmmm? Via TimesNow.TV:

Women’s welfare minister, Renuka Chowdhury, has asked women to trust condoms more than their husbands.

Chowdhury commented on Monday (July 16) that Indian men can’t be trusted in their sexual behaviour. According to Chowdhury, men also play a pivotal role in fuelling the country’s HIV epidemic – so women, she said, should protect themselves by keeping condoms as straying husbands might bring the virus home.

I’m sure that will go over VERY well.”Honey, I don’t trust you and these business trip-ships you are always having. Please be covering up, thank you, come again”. (Oh, like you could have resisted that last bit…it’s Rahul’s influence, I tell you.)

“Half our problems stem from hypocrisy. We women are too shy to ask our husbands to use a condom. At one time it was considered immoral to even use the word. People still feel reluctant to say it. And this shyness costs women dearly,” she said.

Whenever I read the word “shyness”, I think…

Shyness is nice, and Shyness can stop you From doing all the things in life You’d like to So, if there’s something you’d like to try If there’s something you’d like to try ASK ME - I WON’T SAY “NO” - HOW COULD I ?

Ah, that was lovely. If women in India take Renuka’s advice, here’s hoping that last sentence is what they are met with, in response.

“Men can’t be trusted and everyone knows this,” she said adding “with due apologies and exemptions to the current company - most husbands can’t be trusted at different levels. They stay away from home for work purposes for long periods, often falling prey to temptation and then making their wives also victims. The onus lies on women to stop the deadly disease (AIDS).”

The onus lies on WOMEN? What, like we don’t already have enough to do? Chey! OUR TO-DO LISTS NEVER END!

…a move to introduce sex education at the school level has been net with stiff resistance from many politicians, with several state governments opposing it saying it will go against Indian culture - and this has also been a big headache for Chowdhury.

Wait, what kind of resistance was sex ed met with? ;)

Renuka Chowdhury’s refreshing candour is perhaps more indicative of the emerging Indian woman - and stands at odds with some of the more conservative, regressive views that have been voiced by some of our mass leaders who seem to be out of touch with reality…

Out of touch with reality, indeed. Read on, for what inspired the title, picture and my general silliness…

Madhya Pradesh School Education Minister Narottam Mishra even suggested “Instead of imparting sex education to school students, they will be taught yoga.”

Fantastic. Then everyone will be flexible, in great shape AND in the mood to knock Batas. Perrrfect.

…on behalf of three misguided hecklers (thanks, Anonymous). I guess I wasn’t the only Christian who was saddened by the actions of a few fringe-dwellers. See? Team Jesus isn’t totally teh suck. :)

Via Rediff:

Zed told rediff.com from his home in Reno, Nevada, “I’ve received nearly 100 e-mails — and most of them from total strangers and I don’t know how they got my e-mail address — apologising for the disruption of my prayer by some of these Christian fundamentalists.”

He said many of these e-mails had said, “I am also a Christian but I don’t appreciate what happened with those people protesting, and I apologise for their misguided actions.”

“They also congratulated me for my prayer and for being the first Hindu chaplain to open a US Senate session,” he said.

He said that he had also received some e-mails from some Congressional aides who had also apologised for the disruption by these persons purporting to be from a group calling themselves Operation Save America, a Christian right-wing organisation.

What’s more wicked: intolerance or humbly offering a prayer?

The protestors shouted from the gallery, among other things, ‘Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight.’

They should ask for forgiveness for being obnoxious.

Zed said he had not received a single hate mail “or any kind of nasty mail at all. I have not got any negative mail or correspondence.”

So, goodness prevailed. More goodness? Recognizing that Hindus are just as American as anyone else and deserve to be treated as such. As long as prayers do open the Senate, they should be inclusive, to accurately reflect the various faiths that a Senator’s constituents practice. It’s only polite. And right:

Meanwhile, the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, DC, wrote letters to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, who facilitated Zed’s prayer in the Senate, and to the Senate Chaplain Barry C Black congratulating them for facilitating the first Hindu prayer in the Senate and bemoaning the unfortunate incident of the protest by the members of the Christian right-wing outfit…

“We are writing to express how much we deeply appreciate your efforts to insure that the tradition of opening Senate sessions with prayer remains a process that not only accurately reflects the diversity of our great country, but which celebrates that religious diversity as one of our greatest strengths.”

I eagerly await irrational and inapposite comments which ask, “But…where are the apologetic emails to Graham Staines’ loved ones from Hindus, who should be collectively responsible for his brutal murder? Huh??” Oh, wait…I don’t. Such comments are not germane (or logical for that matter).

Similarly, Christians aren’t collectively to blame for the rude, disrespectful outburst which interrupted Zed, but that doesn’t mean we can’t express our sorrow and disagreement with such behavior. All that is necessary for the triumph of fundamentalism is that good people do nothing. Whatsoever we sow, we shall also reap. If we sow intolerance and disrespect, what else are we going to be shown by others? And would we deserve anything else?

For years now the Bush Administration has been drubbing it into our impressionable little minds that Iraq is the “Central front in the War on Terror.” Today, the newly released key findings of the latest National Intelligence Estimate disabuses us of any such false impression:

We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership. Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al-Qa’ida senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al-Qa’ida will intensify its efforts to put operatives here.

Got that? Everyone clear? The Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are now the agreed upon (at least by our intelligence community) central front in this “War on Terror.” That is the reason we are starting to pour money into there. Well, I thought it was clear but there was still some confusion at today’s White House Press briefing:

Q Fran, is it a fair reading of the key judgments that you released today that the federally administered tribal areas you discussed is, in fact, the central front in the war on terrorism, to use the President’s phrase? And, if so, tell us how, if at all, you have renegotiated your own operational arrangements with General Musharraf, President Musharraf, so that we would have greater access in there.

MS. TOWNSEND: Okay. Well, to use the President’s phrase, Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. And —

Q Is that supported by the key judgments, then?

MS. TOWNSEND: There is no question, based on the statements of bin Laden, himself, not to mention others and al-Qa’ida , that they regard Iraq as the central front in the war on terror. [Link]

Well sure, if you conflate the group “al-Qa’ida in Iraq” (a newly formed group that didn’t even exist until recently and only looks for inspiration from the original) with the original al-Qa’ida. It’s not like most of the American public cares about the very important difference (which is what the administration counts on). NPR had a great wrap up on all of this.

And here is a rather pleasant thought from the briefing:

Q Is it shorthanding it too much to say that General Musharraf, through his efforts in the tribal areas there against al Qaeda, is the key person, the point man in protecting the United States, and whether he has success there or not is the whole ball game?… [Link]

Pilgrims is the name commonly applied to early settlers of the Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts. Their leadership came from a religious congregation who had fled a volatile political environment in the East Midlands of England for the relative calm of Holland in the Netherlands. Concerned with losing their cultural identity, the group later arranged with English investors to establish a new colony in North America…Their story has become a central theme in United States cultural identity. [wiki]

This country was born because people desired the freedom to worship their God in their own way. To me, that is so American.

To have the freedom to be yourself, to be entitled to respect, to experience tolerance instead of persecution…these are the central themes with which I define my American identity.

What else is American? E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. One cultural identity, comprised of hundreds of influences, origins and traditions. If you take a step back and ponder it, America seems like a miraculous idea; you start to respect the safeguards put in place to protect people. One of the most significant? The separation between church and state. This is where things get complicated, but that’s not a bad thing. Everyone is complicated, why should we expect our nations not to be? Yes, there are religious words on money and everyone knows that there is a Judeo-Christian foundation to a lot of what is considered American…but there is also respect for other ideas. Or at least, there should be. At the very least, there should be the freedom for others to worship their God, in their own way, no matter what you or I think about it. There should be mutual respect. There should be.

A Hindu clergyman made history Thursday by offering the Senate’s morning prayer, but only after police officers removed three shouting protesters from the visitors’ gallery.

Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., gave the brief prayer that opens each day’s Senate session. As he stood at the chamber’s podium in a bright orange and burgundy robe, two women and a man began shouting ”this is an abomination” and other complaints from the gallery.

Police officers quickly arrested them and charged them disrupting Congress, a misdemeanor. The male protester told an AP reporter, ”we are Christians and patriots” before police handcuffed them and led them away. [NYT]

No, you are Christians and fools. Way to make Team Jesus look awful, as you misrepresent everything that the man stood for and preached.

For several days, the Mississippi-based American Family Association has urged its members to object to the prayer because Zed would be ”seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god.” [NYT]

Yes, because the prayer he offered was SO offensive to actual Christians, agnostics or those who have been touched by a noodly appendage:

Zed, the first Hindu to offer the Senate prayer, began: ”We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven. May He stimulate and illuminate our minds.”

As the Senate prepared for another day of debate over the Iraq war, Zed closed with, ”Peace, peace, peace be unto all.” [NYT]

Let me tell you something about what that Uncle said— it was far kinder and more welcoming than a lot of what I heard in Catholic school, especially if the Pope was involved. For shame. Perhaps the most offensive aspect of his spiritual offering was its emphasis on peace?

Zed, who was born in India, was invited by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Speaking in the chamber shortly after the prayer, Reid defended the choice and linked it to the war debate.

”If people have any misunderstanding about Indians and Hindus,” Reid said, ”all they have to do is think of Gandhi,” a man ”who gave his life for peace.”

”I think it speaks well of our country that someone representing the faith of about a billion people comes here and can speak in communication with our heavenly Father regarding peace,” said Reid, a Mormon and sharp critic of President Bush’s Iraq policies. [NYT]

As several of you pointed out via email, news tab and flaming arrow, THIS is the money quote:

Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the protest ”shows the intolerance of many religious right activists. They say they want more religion in the public square, but it’s clear they mean only their religion.” [NYT]

What these Jesus-freaks are forgetting is that Christ was a man of peace. He didn’t surround himself with the pious and faux-righteous; he called those people out, as he deliberately and controversially chose to befriend the lowest of the low, tax collectors, prostitutes and the like. Was there ever a better example of tolerance in the Christian faith?

As I bitterly read the articles about this troubling, hurtful incident, I am reminded of those who persecuted Jesus, for what they perceived as his “blasphemy”. Two thousand years later, some of his so-called followers have become so drunk off of hate and fundamentalism, they cannot see straight, they cannot grasp that if this were two millenia ago, Jesus would be the man in the orange robe and they, they would be the hypocrites who attacked him and then cheered at his suffering.

Rollin’ down Venice with Squishee in hand

I haven’t done any hard-nosed-journalism-type posts on SM in a while. Saturday night, when I found myself driving down Venice Blvd. in Los Angeles, I knew it was time to change all that. Out of the corner of my eye, on the errrr…corner, I spotted a Kwik-E-Mart with a huge line running around the building. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to film an undercover exposé with such a large crowd present so I determined that I would come back at a later time. On Monday I did just that. I casually walked past the bouncer who was shorter than me. What I found inside was shocking. Absolutely shocking! Indians were running the store and making a ton of money selling Squishees, hot dogs, and donuts. There were three brown dudes working the register and a really tall guy of uncertain ethnic origin pouring Squishees. I am happy to bring this exclusive hidden camera footage to our valued readers:

A few days ago, I wrote a surprisingly controversial post about a baby girl who had been buried alive, in Andhra Pradesh. Stupid me, I thought everyone would find such news abhorrent. But, in a shocking and to some, sickening twist, it would seem that condemning infanticide is wrong because it is more important to engage in the worst sort of cultural relativism.

Disagreeing with a man’s choice to bury his newborn granddaughter alive would be Western and especially Feminist stupidity. Are you perplexed? Wondering what I am going on about? Ah, then enjoy the following amuse bouche of comments from a few lurkers and readers, which that post inspired:

Dont get carried away by sensationalism

Everyone has it bad in India. you’re the only one who choose to single out the plight of women and measure it by YOUR western standards. It MUST be measured by Indian standards, i.e. the plight of Indian men, children, grandpas, grandmas, the whole society. Everyone has it bad in India, not just little girls.

just don’t forget, we live in the West, lets not judge everything by Western standards…If they want to kill their girl babies because girls mean one less hand to till the soil (by hand, of course), that is their buisness.

Poor people will do anything to survive. As long as its their family, and not anyone else’s, no one has a right to interfere.

you, possessing such a craving for attention, would rather start a thread focused on a single baby, a TOTALLY isolated incident, just so you can feel better!

Yes, I felt much better after that depressing thread, especially after I naively attempted to offer a counterpoint to it while proving that feminism can be a desi concept, too. As one of you said via email, after wading through comment-sewage, “I can’t believe there is so much misogyny and so little outrage here.”

::

Isolated. I thought of all those apologist quotes when I read the story which MasterVK was alert enough to submit to our news tab earlier today, about another newborn baby girl, who was also found and rescued:

AHMEDABAD: Her feeble cries help almost drowned in the din of the heavy downpour near Kankaria lake on Monday. Until a fireman found the newborn baby shivering in the rain, abandoned mercilessly without a piece of clothing on her body!

The child’s cries had gone unheard for hours and she had turned pale, lying in the incessant rains, near Kankaria lake. The baby was found by a team of firemen led by Rajesh Goswami who heard the faint cries early in the morning when they embarked on duty to check the oxygen levels in the lake.

Instead of the fish, the firemen found the freshly delivered girl who was dumped from the womb straight into the lake to die. “The girl did not have any clothing on her and had turned completely white. We had become sceptical about her survival,” said Goswami.

An anonymous tipster alerted us via the News tab to a possible racist/scandalous/nebulous slip of Michael Moore’s tongue. I sat through the entire, excruciating 10+ minute video at Breitbart.tv, only to discover that the controversial part is at the end; the video I posted below features the last eleven seconds of the entire segment and contains the relevant moment.

Link: sevenload.com

Well? What do you think? Racist or immature? Mispronounced or intentionally mangled? Or is this much ado about nothing? Comments on Breitbart were hot, heated and divided about whether or not Michael Moore started to channel Apu. What say you?

The FBI is apparently being proactive in doing its job by laying out specific scenarios on its website that employers can learn from in order to prevent spying and generally help keep our nation safe (via Wired). Here is one fearful scenario:

You hire a foreign-born engineer who has been educated in this country. Over a 10-15 year period, she rises to mid-level management. Then, she returns to her home country—where she gets paid by that government to set up a business that competes with yours.

The key there is “foreign-born.” It doesn’t matter if you have been educated in this country from an early age or even if you are a Greencard holder. If you are foreign-born then employers should watch out for you because you may sell good Americans out to your Motherland. That’s scary. If I was an employer I might instead hire someone that looks American…just to be safe. Here is another one:

A series of university students and professors from overseas take jobs in research labs on campus and get involved in related military projects. Individually, they learn only bits and pieces. But collectively, when they pass that information back to their home country, it paints a telling picture of our country’s defense initiatives.

Good advice. The next time I see a group of “FOBs” eating lunch together I am going to consider them a “collective.” But wait, what if someone thinks that I’m foreign born when they see me sitting with a group of other desis at school! Qué Malo!

The FBI is willing to help by offering a training program (or something) to spot these collectives, or sleeper cells, or whatever…

Specifically: Join our Counterintelligence Domain Program or our Research and Technology Protection program.

Amazing what helpful advice you find on websites paid for by your tax dollars. I hope no foreign born readers visit Sepia Mutiny. Individually they can’t do us any harm but collectively they could use the knowledge they gain here to paint a telling picture of how we operate and then make the blogs of their own countries better.

I was getting ready to post a friendly, pushy reminder about a fantastic event which is taking place tomorrow, in DC at Tony and Joe’s (read: Sequoia ;)— but when I went to Vinay’s excellent website, something else caught my attention.

Something wrong.

All of us have at some point or another, met self righteous folk, very often rich entrepreneurs, who act like they’re God’s gift to the rest of us. Here’s where they become even more obnoxious if you can imagine what that might look like. TiE Seattle approached me last year to do a story on them for a prominent CA Indian paper which I promptly did. I didn’t play any games with them, didn’t dangle them for weeks. They asked, said their story had not been told before, I promptly, gladly did a story on them. Period.

Afterward, at every single TiE event I went to, their president (who shares his name with a Bollywood superstar) would drop as I’d be right in the middle of dinner, and demand right away, “So when are you doing another story on us?” At first I thought he was making small talk, then I thought he was just some overeager zealot but then I heard from many people that his malaise was something else. He just suffered from a bad case of pushy Swagger, EGO and a of lack of good manners. So I did what every journalist does. Ignored his prattle and stopped going to TiE Seattle…

I approached TiE asking them if they’d be kind enough to circulate an email to their member base telling them about Vinay and the bone marrow drive for him in Seattle. Just an email. I didn’t ask them for money or anything else. Just an email. 15 days out and what do I get? Zilch. Not even the courtesy of a, “Right now we’re too busy counting our dollars and won’t be able to email our members. Thank you for asking.”

Is it too much to ask to help a dying man? [SeattlePI]

Can I buy a round of WTFs, straight up? I’ve been called some…interesting things on SM these past few days, but maybe one of the trolls should have hurled “naive” my way. How could anyone say no to this cause? I can understand why the blogger, Priyanka Joshi, whom I quoted above, said this:

Corp-Social Responsibility? Hahaha![SeattlePI]

Would it have been THAT difficult to forward Priyanka’s email to their members? Maybe there are good souls in the Seattle chapter who would’ve wanted to help Vinay. It’s a shame that certain people are too…I don’t know what to put here…to help another human being.

Disclaimer for those who need it:

I am not denigrating TiE, its chapters or even its Seattle members. I’m just echoing another bloggers shock and disappointment in whomever decided that a wee email wasn’t important enough to pass on…okay?

I mean, it’s not like I sent the following words heavenwards…

So, in spirit of human dignity, as I pray for Vinay tonight, I’m also saying a prayer for TiE Seattle. “May TiE’s swagger and a lack of concern for other people be replaced by genuine compassion for the rich and the middle class alike.” Amen. [SeattlePI]

…but that’s only because I didn’t think of them, first. Amen.

Exactly 32.5 years ago, a short man with a fearsome moustache stood at a nursery window, tears in his eyes, pride bordering on arrogance spilling forth via his words.

“See her? The one with the huge eyes? That’s my daughter.”

The strangers standing near him congratulated him and politely made remarks about his newborn’s full head of hair and yes, her eyes, which were peering around suspiciously as if she were casing her bassinet, planning a possible escape.

“She was alert, when she was born. She didn’t cry. She…uh…she takes after me. Strong.”

He cleared his throat and complained about the dust, using his ever-present handkerchief to wipe his eyes swiftly.

“Look at the other babies…they are oblivious. They’re nothing compared to her.” He had never been so smug.

My “Grandma”, who is a Russian Orthodox woman who married an Italian, who still sends me a check every January, who told me this story, stood by him, smiling.

“Oh, cut the bullshit George! Every parent thinks their kid is a damned miracle.”

She was teasing him, she didn’t mean it. She always admitted as much when telling this tale, because the next part of it involves her elbowing the woman next to her, and asking, “Have you ever seen a baby with so much hair and such big eyes? Most kids are bald. And squinty.”

My Mom was down the hall, passed out. There was still a tiny smudge of flour on her arm; she had been making chapati when I made my abrupt entrance on a Saturday night, after less than two hours of labor.

::

Much like the adorable protagonist of “Knocked Up”, my father had purchased baby books to study.

Ever the engineer, he charted out milestones and other information. He laid awake at night, unable to sleep; his brain, which already over thought everything, was now whirring even faster. He was the precursor to today’s “helicopter” parent, though he’d scoff at such dilettantes for being OCD-freaks-come-lately.

“That’s what happens when you wait until you are 38 to have a child. You really parent”, he’d explain to me and anyone else who would listen, later.

::

“You will be a book baby,” he allegedly announced to me, the day he strapped me in to the back of one massive Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, on the way home from the hospital. “You will do everything exactly when the books say…”

…or else. Or else, what? Who knows, I’m just lucky I did it. All that amazing early achievement would buy me some leeway when I turned out to be spectacularly mediocre, later on in life.

I’m swamped at work, but I’m also outraged, because of Fuerza Dulce’s latest submission to our news tab— I can’t let this go. CNN may be a bunch of assholes with sensationalism on their minds, but their story and this one are essentially about the same thing; we do not value the lives of women. Via the BBC:

A two-day-old baby girl in India has survived after being buried alive in a field by her maternal grandfather in the south of the country. The baby, who had apparently never been fed, was discovered by a farmer near a village some 150km south of Hyderabad.

He said he only spotted her because her tiny hand was sticking out of the soil.

Police say they have arrested the baby’s grandfather, 52-year-old Abdul Rahman, after he confessed to trying to kill the newborn by burying her alive.

“I am yet to marry off four daughters and cannot take responsibility for a fifth one, even when she is only a granddaughter,” Mr Rahman was quoted as telling police.

The article went on to state that he may have taken his grandchild without his dauther’s consent. His unnamed grandchild. Whom he buried. Alive.

I am so livid, I can barely type. Because of this immutable fact, I will warn you that I will shut this thread down if:

• If “Maximum City” gets mentioned. I beg you, this is not the place.
• I get asked, “why didn’t you post about immigration/terrorism/the story I sent in four times, instead of this predictable infanticide story?”
• If one of you says this makes us look bad.

I really don’t care if all of the above makes me a pain in your ass or if it proves that the trolls are right and I am a bitch, after all. This doesn’t make us look bad, this IS bad.

A baby. Buried alive. Yes, it’s happened for centuries, but that doesn’t mean that reading such a story five minutes ago didn’t send a searing dagger in to my heart. We each blog about whatever moves us; there are no assignments in the bunker, no requirements or expectations. This moved me to despair. There will never be a point when we bless someone by saying, “May you be the mother of a hundred daughters”, and we are lesser for it.

Meanwhile, that Sunkrish Bala is a slice of adorable, isn’t he? I wouldn’t kick him…off the couch…where we would be demurely seated on opposite sides. And not touching. With vada on the coffee table as our witness. And our parents there, too. Ah, I digress.

But while I’m digressing, you should know that “Notes from the Underbelly”, which SB starred on, was one of my favorite shows of the past season. :) Go on with your bad self, Sunkrish, whose name leaves me puzzled. And let me just say that I heart you more, for trying to help Vinay and others like him. “I’m registered…are you?” should become our new pickup line at the clubs, because I would’ve hurled my digits at THAT, for sure.

I was proud to see several of you get swabbed at the last Subcontinental Drift event. Drives are still happening all over the country.

There is still time— one of you could be the one.

A little over a month ago, I wrote a post about a Muslim youth who had cut the hair of a Sikh peer, during a fight in their high school bathroom. You may recall it— I asked you if this was a hate crime and many of you responded, some by saying “yes”, others “no”. The utility of hate crimes legislation was also debated; weren’t all violations worthy of condemnation? What if penalizing hate crimes really meant prosecuting thought crimes?

I thought of all of this, today. I was moderating a link on our news tab by clicking it, to make sure it worked. This takes less than a second, but sometimes, I linger for an extra moment on whatever news site you’ve submitted, especially if there’s another story which captures my attention (I’m powerless against the “most emailed” list).

“Survivor of Hate Crime Takes Own Life”, it said. Or something similar. I realized that David Ritcheson, 18, was dead, a year after he probably should have been. A comment from the post I referenced above came back to me:

I wouldn’t classify this as a crime… a little hair cut doesn’t hurt. He wasn’t sodomized for crying out loud. Plus, these were kids. Kids can be more sadistic than adults at times. Its actually somewhat normal for a pre-teen to be sadistic… part of the maturation process. This was peer pressure, not a hate crime. Whoever cut the Sikh fellow’s hair did to retain his status among the peer group. [Link]

Well, David was sodomized, for crying out loud. He wasn’t just sexually assaulted, he was brutalized. Stomped. Burned. Kicked. And as he lay on the ground, naked and dying, his attackers poured bleach on him. Why? He tried to kiss a 12-year old white girl, who was not related to either of his murderers.

Who was David?

David Ritcheson had been a running back on the Klein Collins High School football team. He was homecoming prince as a freshman and had a girlfriend. He “hung out with the good crowd,” he says, and had every reason to look forward to returning last fall.

But once classes resumed, Ritcheson was overwhelmed by the looks he got everywhere he went — in the halls, in the cafeteria, in classrooms.

The looks all said the same thing: You’re a victim, how do you deal with it? Everybody knew what had happened to him, and the attack, he says, “was just so degrading.”

In a case that drew national attention, Ritcheson, a Mexican-American, was severely assaulted last April 23 by two youths while partying in Spring. One of the attackers, a skinhead named David Tuck, yelled ethnic slurs and kicked a pipe up his rectum, severely damaging his internal organs and leaving Ritcheson in the hospital for three months and eight days — almost all of it in critical care. [Houston Chronicle]

Here are his own words, which were uttered at a hearing on H.R. 1592, The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007; he testified, in an effort to wrest some good from his pain.

I appear before you as a survivor of one of the most despicable, shocking, and heinous acts of hate violence this country has seen in decades. Nearly one year ago on April 22, 2006, I was viciously attacked by two individuals because of my heritage as a Mexican-American…a minor disagreement between me and the attackers turned into the pretext for what I believe was a premeditated hate crime. This was a moment that would change my life forever. After I was surprisingly sucker punched and knocked out, I was dragged into the back yard for an attack that would last for over an hour. Two individuals, one an admitted racist skinhead, attempted to carve a swastika on my chest. Today I still bear that scar on my chest like a scarlet letter. After they stripped me naked, I was burned with cigarettes and savagely kicked by this skinhead’s steel toed army boots. After burning me in the center of the forehead, the skinhead attacker was heard saying that now I looked like an Indian with the red dot on my forehead.

Meenu Bedi is saving a life she’s never met…

Bedi said she was “honored and ecstatic” when she found out her stem cells were a match.

“It was a privilege to do it for someone,” she said. “I would hope that they would do the same for me, if I was in their shoes.”

…”I know she’s 54 years old and that she has leukemia,” Bedi said. “They won’t release her ethnicity, but, yeah, she’s East Indian.”

Meenu was registered via a Team-in-Training program sponsored by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

As rare as matches are, what’s even more sad is the occasional response to a match (a problem which, sadly, Vinay appears to have run into) -

“We often get a lot of people to sign up,” [Program Director] Vlume said, “but the unique problem is getting people to say ‘yes’ after we’ve made a match.”

She said that sometimes, as many as 70 percent of people deemed matches decline to go through with the process.

“They want to look like they’re doing a good thing, they want to show they support the community, but in the end they never really wanted to do it in the first place,” Vlume said.

Sometimes, attitudes are a far worse problem than numbers. Good luck Vinay & Sameer.

Unfortunately, Vinay isn’t alone in needing your / our help. Sameer Bhatia has also recently been diagnosed with AML, needs a bone marrow transplant, and is joining forces with Vinay to get South Asians registered. Mutineer Anna’s been fantastic about getting the word out for NYC and DC marrow registration drives, but West Coasters should know about an upcoming drive & fundraiser in SF — TONIGHT.

When: Thursday, June 28, 7pm to 10pm

Where: Dolce in San Francisco

www.dolcesf.com

Contact: Deepa Prasad and Harini Madhavan; deepaprasad@hotmail.com or hvmadhavan@hotmail.com

At the second event, we will be holding a donor drive as well as raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. We would love to see you there as well. Please spread the word and bring as many people as you can to both events. It should be a great time as well as an important and meaningful cause.

Remember Vinay? I blogged about him because he direly needs a bone marrow transplant and his best chance at finding a match lies with us. Unsurprisingly, several of you said you would step up and get swabbed, if only you had the opportunity to do so. Well, after throwing more meetups than any other mutineer, I know for a fact that DC has a TON of SM readers— now make good on your word to help.

You can even do so TODAY— look:

* * *

THURSDAY, JUNE 14 - DOWNTOWN D.C.

4:30p to 7:30p
Asian American Justice Center
1140 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 1200
Washington, DC

Contact: DCdonorDrive@aol.com or Rachna at (202) 256-4326

Can’t make it? Live in the burbs? Try these:

* * *

SATURDAY, JUNE 16 - LANHAM, MD

10:30a to 3:30p
Sri Shiva Vishnu Temple
6905 Cipriano Rd.
Lanham, MD

Contact: Aditya at aditya.raghavendra@gmail.com or (617) 872-0081

* * *

SUNDAY, JUNE 17 - BALTIMORE, MD

9:30a to 5:00p
Greater Baltimore Temple
2909 Bloom Rd.
Finksburg, MD

Contact: Seema at indiaseema@hotmail.com or (949) 291-2545

5:45 PM UPDATE—

* * *

Jane says (she’s done with Sergio) that a NEW YORK Drive commences in 15 minutes;

Hey in NYC tonite as well….

Public House

141 East 41st St (between Lexington and Third Avenues), New York, NY

Thursday, June 14, 6:00pm to 10:00pm

One of our longtime readers lost a parent to this tragic disease last week. Some of you know whom I’m referring to and if you haven’t already given a little bit of yourself, maybe this message from their family will move you:

In lieu of flowers, please help save a life and register with the national bone marrow registry or get someone else to register (www.marrow.org).

How many people whom we know and love must we lose before you register?

SM Reader and Hanuman-bhakt Tiger Yogi emailed us a tip this morning, about an absurdly named product:

A company by the nam