Razib Khan talks to Kushal Mehra
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The white acting mother of a white presenting daughter
My Daughter Passes for White: She belongs in a way I never could. I’m comforted — and worried:
I stand in the aisle of the school bus while the other seventh graders snicker and block me from sitting next to them, as they have for the entire school year. Taking my seat next to the bus driver, I look out to the road with resignation. My great-aunt, adorned in a colorful sari, waves goodbye to me while the entire school bus looks on. I want to disappear into the dingy brown vinyl bus seats. With the newfound cruelty of adolescence, I scoff and loudly tell my classmates, “That crazy lady is just my maid.”
…
I now find myself in a mixed marriage, mother to a 3-year-old mixed-race girl who easily passes for white. Her fair skin, auburn hair and light brown eyes do not even hint at her Pakistani background. When I tell people at gatherings that I speak Urdu at home, some are very concerned about whether my daughter will be confused. Yet some are the same families clamoring for their children to get accepted into French-immersion kindergartens. Strangers have asked me whether I am her real mother or have assumed that I’m her nanny. It’s not their belief about my profession that’s disturbing — it’s their certainty that my daughter and I can’t be related because of the colors of our skin.
The author is Seema Jilani. She is a pediatrician. The surname is a form of Gilani:
Gillani is the sub-caste of the Syed/Sayyid family who are descents of the Prophet Muhammad and trace their lineage back to Imam Ali, who was first cousin and close companion of Prophet Muhammad. The family lineage of the Gilanis refers to Sheykh Abdul Qadir Gilani, a famous 12th century Sufi Scholar from Gilan-e-Gharb, Iran, hence the surname…
I don’t know if the author’s father claims to be a Syed…but it seems likely that they did not come from the bottom half of Pakistani society. The author’s husband is a journalist at an elite publication (it is easy to find who she is married to). As a brown person with children who also “pass” as white, I have had some uncomfortable experiences. Since I am a male I am not usually confused for a nanny, but rather someone who kidnapped sweet little white children. But by and large, life goes on. It’s not that bad or oppressive. I assume white people also experience rudeness. They bleed. They are human. They have feelings.
Pieces such as the above fulfill a particular role in modern cultural ecology. Affluent white liberals who have experienced the “Great Awokening” on race present a demand for authentic experiences of racism from “people of color.” Many of these affluent white liberals don’t know “people of color” personally, so they “educate themselves” through the media which they consume. Unsurprisingly, the people who produce the sort of media which fulfills the demand are themselves socio-demographically exactly like affluent white liberals (to give credit to Ta-Nehisi Coates, he is the exception). Ask yourself, when was the last time you read an op-ed or think-piece from an Indian convenience store clerk or a Bangladeshi cab driver? Almost always the op-eds and think-pieces come from professionals who likely experience the least “macro” aggression and the most “micro” aggression, and, who can speak the language of affluent white liberals and know exactly how to say the correct things (very educated people in low-wage service sectors jobs who do ‘freelance’ writing are never immigrants, and almost always graduates of liberal arts colleges).
No working-class person says “white presenting.” No immigrant says “white presenting.” I have had friends in academia tell me that my children “present as white.” Their race is a “performance”, masking their essential non-whiteness which is passed down by blood from me. There’s a lot of “interrogate” here. But that’s not the point. Normal people, who don’t have a college degree, don’t talk or think like this.
The point of this post is to point to the reality that a particular type of assimilated upper-middle-class privileged brown American speaks for the brown experience, but their own experience is very curated, the most “comfortable” for affluent white liberals to process. The frankly racist (against black people) immigrant Bangladeshi cab driver who is spending all his disposable income on sending his children to test-prep academies to get them into Stuy is less relatable. Alien. You won’t hear his voice, and since many affluent white liberals don’t many nonwhites personally he’ll be invisible to them. “Erased” as they say.
These op-eds are basically white affluent white liberals in “brown face.”
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Why did so many BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) voted Tory? (a)
This is a follow up to:
Why did so many BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) voted Tory?
It appears that Jews, Indian and African Britons abandoned Labour in droves and voted for other political parties. Would be curious to learn who they voted for. Suspect many voted for the Liberal Democrats.
As described by Veedu Vidz in the above previous Brown Pundit post, moderate muslims also appear to have abandoned Labour en mass. Who did moderate muslims vote for?
Are there any English exit polls? [Updated with this exit poll hat trip Ali Choudhury.] Do we know how Pakistani Britons, Bangladeshi Britons, Indian musiim Britons, muslim Britons in general voted?
In the above conversation it was implied that minorities and people of color in USA vote Democrat. My response is that in America Asian Americans and Latino Americans are “swing voters” not wedded to either party. Black African Americans vote overwhelmingly Democrat. However, I think President Trump will likely do a lot better with the Black African American vote in 2020 than he did in 2016.
From page 26 of the exit poll provided by Ali Choudhury, we can see the following:
- Labour lost only nine percentage points of the BAME vote
- Conservative Tories gained only one percentage point in additional BAME voters
- Liberal Democrats gained only six percentage point in additional BAME voters
- Other political parties gained two percentage points of additional BAME voters
Labour–if these exit polls are not contradicted by other exit polls–did FAR better in 2019 among BAME voters than I thought (and that many political commentators thought). To my surprise the Liberal Democrats only gained six percentage points of BAME voters (for 12% total) and the Conservative Tories only gained one percentage point in additional BAME voters.
My new question is why did the overwhelming vast majority of BAME Britons vote for Jeremy Corbyn? Why did so few BAME Britons vote Liberal Democrat?
Did the moderate muslim Britons almost universally vote for Jeremy Corbyn? If so, why? Would love to hear from Veedu Vidz and Rakib Ehsan.
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National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA)
Rwandan miracle–Asian Tiger of Africa
The world breaks down into three major factions:
——post modernists (psychotic in need of urgent medical services)
——Islamists
——“non post modernists and non Islamists”
Can Rwanda, the Asian Tiger of Africa, inspire and lead the global “non post modernists and non Islamists”? Can Rwanda inspire and lead the globalists?
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American Caste (b)
America has a national crisis in math capacity, competence and merit. American students sharply underperform students in many countries all over the world. Including Vietnam, which is a poorer country than India per capita. We will heavily refer to the 2018 OECD PISA report in below paragraphs, but the below chart graphic is from the 2015 OECD PISA scores report because math scores are reported for more countries in the 2015 report. Perhaps the 2018 report will be revised to add more countries in the future:
- United States: 8% of students scored at Level 5 or higher in mathematics
- OECD average: 11%
- Six Asian countries and economies had the largest shares of students who did so:
- Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang (China): 44%
- Singapore: 37%
- Hong Kong (China): 29%
- Macao (China): 28%
- Chinese Taipei: 23%
- Korea: 21%
Note that these six countries were among the poorest countries in the world in the 1950s, far poorer than poor Americans or poor Europeans or poor Chileans can even imagine. In 1979 China was unbelievably poor. Much of the population of China–perhaps as many as 100 million–had starved to death because of extreme poverty in the 1970s. Poor children around the world are outperforming American children in mathematics despite extremely low education spending per student and very low socio-economic level of their legal guardians, where socio-economic level is defined as:
- income
- wealth
- formal education of parents
Do any American high school student subgroups perform well in Mathematics? Yes, “people of color” or “minority” Americans perform well in Mathematics. America’s “people of color” or “minority” students are orders of magnitude more likely to get an 800 on the mathematics SAT than European Americans. If we assume this is an extreme tail end distribution issue related to European Americans having a lower standard deviation and non standard distribution in mathematics performance relative to “people of color” or “minority” Americans, we can explore the breakdown of Americans who score between 750 and 800 on the Mathematics SAT. Here European Americans perform far better relative to “people of color” or “minority” Americans. In 2015 16,000 European Americans scored 750 or higher. 33,000 “people of color” and “minority” Americans scored 750 or higher. We further know that 51% of SAT test takers were European Americans and 49% were “people of color” or “minority” Americans. “People of color” or “minority” Americans are [33,000/16,000]*[51%/49%] or 2.15 times as likely to score 750 or higher on the mathematics SAT compared to European Americans. If we examine the 107,900 test takers who got SAT math scores of 700 or higher; 59,900 are “people of color” or “minority” Americans, versus 48,000 European Americans. “People of color” or “minority” Americans are [59,900/48,000]*[51%/49%] or 1.30 times as likely to score 700 or higher on the mathematics SAT compared to European Americans. For data junkie geeks like me there is a lot more data on SAT math score distributions here and here. The Greta Anderson article’s comment section in particular has some very intelligent commentators who have studied the American SAT score distribution. This is likely to be the subject of many future blog posts and Brown Pundits Podcasts.
What about this is worrying?:
- European Americans in particular are sharply under-performing both very poor children around the world and “people of color” and “minority” Americans in mathematics.
- American mathematics SAT scores have fallen between 1972 and 2016. 1972 is the earliest year for which I could find comparable SAT mathematics scores. In 2017, 2018 and 2019 the SAT mathematics exam was completely restructured to make scores no longer comparable to SAT mathematics scores between 1972 and 2016.
- 90% or more of current jobs and businesses are likely to be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI), brain electro-therapy (meditation . . . practiced by civilizations around the world for over 5,000 years), brain sound therapy (naad or mantra yoga and their equivalents in Native American, Egyptian, Sumerian, Taoist and other civilizations around the world for over 5,000 years), bio-engineering tissue, genetic editing, and fused AI-brain interface synthesis intelligence. Almost all of these future disciplines are complementary to mathematics.
Future articles and podcasts are planned all six of these future disciplines. If you are curious about fused AI-brain interface synthesis intelligence, please watch my main man Elon Musk:
Some say that the tension and relationship challenges between America’s four big castes–European Americans, European “Latino” Americans, Black Americans and Asian American–are driving low math scores for European Americans “AND” other Americans. One example is where thought leader Mark J Perry explores the possibility that tension between the European American caste and the Asian American caste are lowering American mathematics performance. Excerpts of his article are reproduced below:
Continue reading “American Caste (b)”
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Why did so many BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) voted Tory?
Another amazing podcast from Veedu Vidz–heartthrob of England. {Sisters, he is already owned by Mimzy and unavailable. Sorry.}
Start watching from 25 minutes in. Some take-aways:
- Chinese earn the most per hour of any group in Britain.
- Indians earn the second most of any group in Britain. {Chinese continue to economically outperform Indians globally and in Britain.}
- Do Chinese and Indians really earn more per hour than English Jews? I am skeptical. What is beyond all doubt is that British caucasians are massively academically and socio-economically under performing Jews, Chinese and Indians.
- The sample sizes for Chinese and Indian Britons is too small to know how they voted for certain. But it is possible that Chinese, Indian, Sikh Buddhist Hindu and moderate muslim Indians voted against Jeremy Corbyn in part because of Corbyn’s close alliance with conservative Sunni and Islamist groups.
- Before 2019, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Britons use to heavily vote for Jeremy Corbyn and Labour.
- Brown Pundit favorite Sajid Javid has received a lot of abuse for being a muslim Tory.
- Tory Priti Patel (who I just heard about for the first time) has also received a lot of abuse.
- (Is part of the English anger at Priti Patel jealousy over the socio-economic success of Indians? Given how many Indian Britons vote Tory, how can it be because of that?)
- Priti Patel wants a point based (merit based) immigration system. (Why is this controversial among caucasian English people?)
- There is a great deal of diversity among the British muslim population
- Veedu Vidz says that Boris Johnson is anti everyone who is not Boris Johnson.
- 38 minutes in discusses deep anti Jewish bigotry on the part of English caucasians, the Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn.
- comes from the far left
- comes from the far right
- need to focus a lot more on muslim anti Jewish bigotry
- 43 minutes in, many working class caucasian and BAME voters probably are voting Tory in part because they are so scared of being accused of racism by their representatives for asking questions.
- 46 minutes in, Labour has lost its moral legitimacy on racism, bigotry and sectarianism. Labour and the BMP are the only two parties in English history to be investigated by the Equality and Human Rights commission for misconduct.
- 58 minutes in, many poor and working class caucasian britons have suffered from globalization and have no privilege at all. Labour should stop accusing them of having non-existent privilege.
- 60 minutes, many Labour try to blame the world’s social ills on Britain. (I am stunned that this still happens. England has been falling apart for generations and is in many ways more backwards than many of her former colonies. Talk about delusions of grandeur.)
- 63 minutes in Veedu asks if Hindus have an advantage over muslims in Britain.
My questions:
- I get why many Britons felt they could not vote for Corbyn and Labour. Why didn’t more vote Liberal Democrat?
- Can anyone send me an exit poll with granular detail on 2019 UK voting patterns?
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Update 1:
Maajid Nawaz Gob-smacks Corbyn and says Corbyn beat Corbyn.
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Update 2:
Katie Hopkins is a Member of the Tory party and is trying hard to create an alliance between the UK and India (and presumably the Dharmic world more generally). The alliance would focus on resisting:
- Globalism (which she mostly defines as post modernist wokeness, perhaps combined with pro business free markets to a lesser degree)
- Islamism
- Feminism (by which I think she means third wave woke post modernist intersectional femnism)
To simplify, I think she mostly means post modernism and Islamism. She appears to think the Europe will divide into Islamist hamlets and non Islamist hamlets. And that Europe and the world as a whole needs India’s and America’s help to survive.
Could the UK government pursue an alliance with India focused on post modernism and Islamism? Could this end any remaining Indian sensitivity about being colonized by the UK? Is this being facilitated by Indian Britons and perhaps muslim Indian Britons leaving the Labour party?
Sham Sharma has speculated that Indian Americans could wholesale flip to the Republican Party similar to the flip of Indian Britons between 2017 and 2019? Could this really happen?
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Update 3:
It is possible that British Asian, African, ethnic minority, poor and lower middle class European ancestry voters were scared about anti Jewish bigotry:
As a side note, the UK has very different issues than the USA. For example UK students perform far better in math than Americans. 13% scored 5 or higher in the 2018 OECD PISA test, compared to 8% of Americans. Immigrants appear to slightly academically underperform non-immigrant Brits across reading, science and math, although mathematical performance was not provided. The definition of “disadvantaged students” in the report was unclear. Between 2009 and 2018 the number of immigrant students has risen from 11% to 20%. One third of immigrant students are “disadvantaged students.” Math results for England have been rising over time and girls sharply outscored boys in mathematics, science and reading.
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Update 4:
According to Nimco Ali (patriotic Briton who happens to have Somali muslim ancestry) most African Britons vote Tory. She is a leading campaigner against female genetic mutilation and says that Tory leaders, Tory moderate muslims and Tory Indians (Priti Patel ) are backing her. Nimco also fights for muslim woman to have the right not to wear the hijab, and again says that she gets support from many Tory leaders, Tory moderate muslims and Tory Indians (Priti Patel ). She is very aspirational. She says that in Britain the aspirational BAME are African Britons and Indian Britons. Both back the Tories. The less aspirational Britons are Pakistanis and they tend to support Labour and Jeremy Corbyn. I am guessing that Bangladeshis are in the middle.
I wonder why more African Britons don’t vote Liberal Democrat. My main man Maajid Nawaz is Liberal Democrat. I get why African Britons don’t like Jeremy Corbyn.
Nimco Ali says that Briton has recently prosecuted several muslim Britons for female genetic mutilation of children. Until recently no Briton was prosecuted for female genetic mutilation. About a tenth of mothers giving birth to children in many British hospitals have had FGM. Kudos to Boris Johnson, Brown Pundit favorite Sajid Javid, Priti Patel and other Britons for trying to end FGM!
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Aryan Toponyms in South Asia – I
Afghanistan’s History (a)
Special thanks to Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar for sending this. I would start watching this excellent Dari Farsi documentary 1 minute 19 seconds in. There are many excellent ancient maps of central and south Asia.
I just want to watch this again and again, just to listen to the narrator’s voice. Majestic, wise, soft and sweet. For those so sure Afghanistan will fall; any nation with voices like this is perchance stronger than she appears. This may be where the homo sapien sapien modern civilization was born.
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Is it time for Asian Americans and Latino Americans to ask to be considered “white”? (d)
This is the next article in the series “Is it time for Asian Americans and Latino Americans to ask to be considered “white”, “Is it time for Asian Americans and Latino Americans to ask to be considered “white” (a)”, Razib’s “Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act on Affirmative Action“, “Is it time for Asian Americans and Latino Americans to ask to be considered “white” (b)” and “Is it time for Asian Americans and Latino Americans to ask to be considered “white” (c)”.
A middle eastern student shares how deeply offensive a condescending pretentious patronizing xenophobic post modernist baizuo caucasian is towards them. The baizuo caucasian tells the middle eastern student that he is a genie for solving a math problem and then apologizes for it afterwards, since after all the word “genie” comes from the middle east. Two phenomenons might be at play. One is baizuo. The other is anti muslim islamaphobia.
If this is coming from baizuo, this is a very old problem. It comes out of European imperialism in the 1700s and 1800s. The European intelligentsia tried to colonize the minds of their imperial colonial subjects with inferiority complex to damage their self confidence. Europeans also tried to deconstruct colonized peoples, causing them to be embarrassed by, hate and reject their ancient history, technology, science, product development, process innovation, civilization, culture, religion, spirituality, art, literature, institutions, ancestors and elders. Post modernism divided colonized peoples into many categories of oppressed and oppressors (mostly manufactured irrational concepts) to turn different groups of people against each other; implying that power oppression rather than meritocratic competence defined local hierarchies. This European colonization of the mind sharply lowered total factor productivity and material living standards in the developing world ceteris paribus. The Latinos, Africans and Asians got sick of it, and kicked the Europeans and their baizuo European intelligentsia out. You can read more about this in a Nuanced understanding of British Colonialism.
Sadly the baizuo caucasian intellegentsia did not seem to learn from this. In the 1960s they tried to undermine America’s heroes Muhammed Ali and Malcolm X. Please watch Muhammed Ali’s and Malcolm X’s videos speaking about the baizuo in American Caste (a). And the baizuo seem to continue to get worse year after year. I don’t understand how this is happening. Perhaps could this be a xenophobic jealous backlash against the accelerating socio-economic rise of the rest–especially darkies?
What can we darkies do about this? Should we ask to be considered white?
To the middle eastern student who wrote Prof Saad, maybe the caucasian overlords should learn that the vast majority of Aryans are Asians. Asians (Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Tibet, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, SAARC, South East Asia) are very proud to be Aryan or Arya, thank you very much. Arya or Aryan is a cultural rather than genetic marker. Arya means nobility. Maybe ignore the baizuo and become extremely successful in everything you do despite their efforts to sabotage you. Fewer and fewer foreigners are fooled by the hard bigotry of low expectations, by the lie that we cannot manifest our own miracles. Their time is almost up.
I would like to thank Prof Saad for being a glowing light of wisdom and inspiration for our world. Love you Saad!
In the comments, please mention if anyone would like to invite Prof Saad to be a guest for the Brown Caste podcast.
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