Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we donât have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above! d
You can also support the podcast as a patron. The primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else. This website isn’t about shaking the cup, but I have noticed that the number of patrons plateaued a long time ago.
I would though appreciate more positive reviews! Alton Brownâs âBrowncastâ has 30 reviews on Stitcher alone! Help make us the biggest browncast! At least at some point.
On this episode Razib talks to his old friend David Boxenhorn. Raised in New England as an American Jew, David made aliyah to Israel in his early 20s. There he married and raised a family, and now he considers himself an Israeli of the. National Religious persuasion.
We discuss the diversity and discrimination in Israeli society, the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and how international geopolitics is impinging on Israel.
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, âThat crazy lady is just my maid.â
…
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 Iâm her nanny. Itâs not their belief about my profession thatâs disturbing â itâs their certainty that my daughter and I canât 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.”
I’ve been in this game for a long time. Back in the middle of the 2000s, I observed that people of Muslim and Indian origin had sensitive and peculiar reactions to criticisms of their religion. Muslim cases are well known. Less well known is the violence and menace associated with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre play which affected Sikh sensitivities.
Five people were killed in western India today in clashes between Hindus and Muslims that started during protests over remarks by the Rev. Jerry Falwell in which he called the prophet Muhammad a terrorist, the police said.
An American preacher says something offensive about Muslims, and Hindus and Muslims start killing each other in India! Absurd. Ridiculous. Barbaric.
I may not have said it in those words but that’s what I was thinking. In contrast, in the West religious beliefs are not sacred, and we can express content and derision without worry.
Or so I thought. Over the past few years, there has been a tendency in American culture to emphasize sensitivities, hurt feelings, and emotional reactions, over reason, when it comes to offense. Indians, and Muslims, were offended at criticisms of their religions and identities because religion and identity were sacred for them. Well, it turns out that in the West we’re going back to that state of affairs as well.
It seems that human cultural forms have the lowest energy state. And that state is a sort of identitarian honor culture.
I still think your religions are dumb. But when in glass houses…
What happened on the ground is very murky. This is more a request for information rather than describing what happened.
Question 1: Did any violence take place outside of 7 neighborhoods in North East Delhi (Seelampur, Jafrabad, Maujpur, Kardampuri, Babarpur, Gokulpuri and Shivpuri)? Did violence really take place in all these seven neighborhoods or are press reports inaccurate?
Question 2: If violence did not take place outside these 7 neighborhoods or took place in fewer neighborhoods than the press reported was this really a major riot?
Question 3: Why would the Chief minister of Delhi–Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party or Kejruddin as many affectionately refer to him–allow a riot where muslims get killed? Many of his supporters and leading aids are muslims. One of his six ministers is muslim:
Note that previously there was an inaccurate list of Delhi assembly persons and cabinet ministers that is now deleted. Hat Trip Scorpion Eater for letting me know the list was inaccurate.
Granted these muslim supporters of Arvind Kejriwal likely support CAA, NRC, the Ayodhya temple, and abrogating section 370. Don’t know this for sure but they might be Shiites, Sufis, liberal muslims or atheist muslims–a majority of whom vote against the left and conservative Sunni friendly political parties in India.
But if this is so, then why facilitate a riot in these neighborhoods? Are they conservative Sunni heavy? They strike me as full of muslims sympathetic to the non left (in India most conservative Sunnis vote for the left and most of the muslims who are not conservative sunnis politically ally with the non left). There are multiple reports of local muslims forming human chains to protect nonmuslims and nonmuslim sites–including temples. Many local muslims in press reports are insisting that the attackers were not local muslims but out of towners. If this is correct, why would the muslim leaders of the Aam Admi Party attack their own political base? {In Delhi the majority of muslims vote for the non left political parties and against the left political parties.}
The attacks that killed many Indian police officers–including police head constable Ratan Lal, that stabbed Ankit Sharma–a Security Assistant working in the Intelligence Bureau–four hundred times, the attacks against non muslim holy sites; and the attacks against non muslim people have the feel of a professionally organized military strike.
Could this have been organized by foreign militaries and global Islamist organizations to coincide with President Trump’s visit to the USA? It would match their modus of operations and thought process.
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Completely seperate from the above speculation about who caused the North Eastern Delhi riot, is critiquing the operational response by the Delhi state government, and the Indian central (federal) government. Here I have a lot of thoughts, but would like to ask the following questions first:
Did Delhi Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal call for the Indian Army to be deployed in force within hours of the attacks begining?
Why didn’t Indian PM Modi comply with this request, assuming it was made?
Was the Indian central government and her various agencies afraid of a “Black Lives Matter” style take down of the Indian Army and Indian police by the global media and by global academia?
If this is so, one lesson that should be learned from this is to mostly ignore what foreign media, foreign academia, global human rights organizations and global activists say. It is more important to do what is right (dharmic or haq (ŰÙ)) than to be respected, let alone liked.
Did the Indian police really retreat in fear after getting violently attacked?
How good of a job did the Delhi state government do in having rapid two way communication with Delhi locals and the global media?
How good of a job did the Ministry of Home Affairs (of the Indian central federal government) do in having rapid two way communication with Delhi locals and the global media?
Were the above the only two public sources of communication and information regarding the North East Delhi riots? If not, what other governmental organ was communicating with the Delhi locals and the global media?
Note that this post is likely to change as new information becomes available.
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Update 1
Tareq Fatah–one of India’s most popular and respected muslim leaders–describes some of the out of area Islamists who coordinated their attacks on North East Delhi during President Trump’s visit:
Mobbywick, thanks for sharing how probable Islamist attackers tore the school clothes of North East Delhi girls. What do you think of my speculation that out of area miscreants rather than locals orchestrated this? Is there any evidence that Islamist out of area people targetted liberal/atheist/sufi/shia muslims in North East Delhi alongside nonmuslims people, holy sites, schools, shops, police, Intelligence Bureau. (Many anti CAA NRC “protestors” in recent months have violently attacked liberal/atheist/sufi/shia muslims.)
Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we donât have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above.
You can also support the podcast as a patron. The primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else.
Would appreciate more positive reviews! Alton Brownâs âBrowncastâ has 30 reviews on Stitcher alone! Help make us the biggest browncast there is!
In this episode we talk to Jodh Singh, a young Indian-American Sikh who writes regularly on Sikh history and Sikhism. Do follow him on twitter (where he tweets as @jungnihang) and Medium (https://medium.com/@jodhsingh/ ). We discuss the origin and rise of the Sikhs, their later consolidation in colonial times and a little about current issues as well.
Pieces like this in The Guardian are somewhat funny, How did British Indians become so prominent in the Conservative party? It’s not that complicated. A lot of British Indians are professionally and economically successful. As bourgeois voters, they’re good targets for the Conservative Party, so long as that faction mutes excessive anti-minority sentiment.* The same calculus that is at work with British Jews applies to British Indians.
The numbers speak:
Fast-forward to 2010, and the Conservatives held 30% of the British Indian vote. After 30 years of Thatcherite ideology, British Indians were the most pro-Conservative ethnic minority, after the Jewish community. After decades of gradual advance, this number soared to 40% in 2017. In the 2019 election, as the Conservatives chased a realignment towards white northern voters based on racist scaremongering, support in constituencies with high Indian populations increased substantially again. At every point, this has included members of both groups of Indian migrants. Now British Indians make up 15% of the Tory cabinet.
The Tories have now managed to extend their appeal beyond the âtwo timeâ migrants by finding common cause in a project of Islamophobia. Supported by the Indian government and its far-right ruling party, the BJP, the Conservatives have exploited a sharp rise in Hindu nationalism within the British Indian community to play Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Muslim communities off against one another.
And of course, there is the fact that the Labour Party religion at prayer is Islam, at least of an ethnicized sort. For each action, there is an opposition and equal counter-reaction. British Jews and Hindus and Sikhs are suspicious of excessive Islamophilia. They will vote for the faction which is less friendly to this. It doesn’t take deep analysis.
* The racialist and Christian fixations of the Republican Party is the primary reason that most Indian Americans, who are immigrants, position themselves on the moderate Left with centrist Democrats.
The yakun natima, or devil dance ritual of Sri Lanka, is nothing if not full of drama. Not just a charade or interval designed to entertain, the yakun natima is a carefully crafted ritual with a history reaching far back into Sri Lanka’s pre-Buddhist past. It combines ancient Ayurvedic concepts of disease causation with deft psychological manipulation. Lasting up to twelve hours, it mixes raucous humour with deep-rooted fears to create a healing catharsis for both patient and community.
I just like the words in the first part. Is it about Seenigama Devol Kumaru.
Nondi Kumaru …….
Demala mau ….. (means Tamil mother)
Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we donât have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above! d
On this episode Razib talks to his old friend David Boxenhorn. Raised in New England as an American Jew, David made aliyah to Israel in his early 20s. There he married and raised a family, and now he considers himself an Israeli of the. National Religious persuasion.
In this episode we talk to Jodh Singh, a young Indian-American Sikh who writes regularly on Sikh history and Sikhism. Do follow him on twitter (where he tweets as @jungnihang) and Medium (https://medium.com/@jodhsingh/ ). We discuss the origin and rise of the Sikhs, their later consolidation in colonial times and a little about current issues as well.