Tag: South Asian diaspora identity
Marvin Gaye
On the hyphenated American…
First things first, my mother was shot during the Bangladesh Liberation War. Though, as upper-middle-class Muslims who tended toward being in technical professions (medicine, engineering, etc.) honestly I don’t think we bore the brunt of the violence (I qualify technical, because an uncle-in-law who comes from an artistic family had several relatives shot by the Pakistani army due to their possible propaganda creating skills).
I was born in Bangladesh. That being said, my parents spent more time as Pakistani citizens than Bangladeshi citizens. And they’ve spent the most time as American citizens. I grew up nearly my whole life in the United States of America.
When I was a kid people would often assume I was Arab, Iranian, or, most often, Indian. Sometimes I would correct them, and explain my family was from Bangladesh..but then I would have to explain what and where Bangladesh was. So often I would just let it stand, as “Indian” is good enough for government work.
That being said, some people have objected to my relaxed attitude on this. Mostly, these are Indians and Bangladeshis. People born and raised in India and Bangladesh. Though a few people I know from Nepal or Pakistan or Sri Lanka also are perplexed at my relaxed attitude toward national identity. I think the major issue is that as an American, there is clearly brown provenance to my origins, but the crystallizing national identities in the subcontinent are detached from my own family’s historical experience, which hasn’t experienced much of the last 40 years.
Of course religion and such matters. People of Muslim origin from the subcontinent who are irreligious are very different in their attitude toward being brown from people who are religious, and these are very different in their attitude toward those who are very very religious (in some ways, the irreligious and the very very religious are more similar than to the group in the middle).
Two leaders of Western European countries of Indian background?
Browncast: Dr Woodson
Another Browncast 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 don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to 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. This website isn’t about shaking the cup, but I have noticed that the number of patrons plateaued a long time ago.
Woodson Shownotes:
In this episode, Razib and Mukunda speak to Robert Woodson, the founder and President of the Woodson Center along with one of the leading members of the 1776 Project. We discuss the current social and racial dialogue in the United States, the problems with the mainstream understanding of racial history and relations in the US, the great strides made during the Civil Rights, the difference between the Civil Rights movement and current movements specifically Black Lives Matter and possible solutions.
The Woodson Center focuses its energies and efforts on addressing the economic and social needs and concerns of low-income African American communities using entrepreneurship and community empowerment strategies and initiatives. The 1776 project is a “is an assembly of Scholars, Educators, and Activists who uphold our country’s authentic founding virtues and values, challenging those who assert that America is forever defined by its past failures—namely, slavery. It challenges the prevailing narrative that promotes class warfare and racial division with the constant message that all problems of low-income neighborhoods are rooted in systemic racism, which determines and limits the prospects of the poor.” Mr. Woodson is the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and sits on the Board of the Rhodes Scholarship.
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“1776” is an assembly of independent voices who uphold our country’s authentic founding virtues and values and challenge those who assert America is forever defined by its past failures, such as slavery.
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Recently, Woodson Center launched an innovative new project, a Campaign “1776” which is an assembly of independent voices who uphold our country’s authentic founding virtues and values and challenge those who assert America is forever defined by its past failures, such as slavery.
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Of Indian Americans and American Indians
Of all ethnic groups in the United States, second generation Indian Americans are the only ones who experience a decline in income relative to the first generation. The art and media produced by Indian Americans tends to angsty, brooding and dispiriting.
📊 Estimated Audience Size & Profile
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WordPress dashboard data noted roughly 20,000 monthly readers circa mid-2020 .
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Updated trends confirm continued modest growth, with India-based IPs making up a rising share .Monthly Unique Users
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Comment Engagement
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Recent posts regularly attract 100+ comments, indicating strong reader engagement and active discourse.
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An average reading time on site is 4+ minutes, suggesting high dwell and thoughtful consumption .
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Reader Geography (2018 Data)
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Estimated by mid-2018:
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United States: ~35%
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India: ~29%
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Followed by UK, Canada, Pakistan, and others .
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Likely similar or more skewed toward India today, given recent commentary.
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🔎 Summary Table
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Metric |
Estimate / Insight |
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Monthly Readers |
~20,000 (unique visitors) |
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Engagement per Post |
~100+ comments; high dwell time (~4 min+) |
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Geographic Spread |
USA ~35%, India ~29%, UK ~6%, Pakistan ~5% |
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Engagement Quality |
Active discussions, reflections, back-and-forth |
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Growth Trend |
Steady rise; India traffic accelerating |
✅ Takeaway
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Readership is modest in scale (~20K/month), but engagement is high, with active comments and deep platform dwell.
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Most traction likely comes from Indian-origin and South Asia-adjacent readers, especially online communities aligned with diaspora and intellectual South Asian discourse.
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This audience profile aligns with Brown Pundits’ ethos — curated intellectual conversation, not mass media reach.
Indians assimilate a bit too well?
Fascinating for me how two very different Indian-Americans are battling it out. There seems to be far less Indian asabiyyah?
The Ilhan Omar of Brown Pundits
Every movement has its lightning rods. In American politics, Ilhan Omar is one: progressive, unyielding, often correct in substance but polarizing in style. She calls out genuine injustices, but her timing and tone can sometimes drown out the very points she is trying to make.
I’ve begun to realize that Kabir plays a similar role on Brown Pundits. Like Ilhan, he often raises necessary truths (for instance Israel has just killed an American family in Lebanon). Like Ilhan, he brings traffic, visibility, and energy. But also like Ilhan, he has a way of inflaming rather than persuading.
Charlie Kirk’s remarks illustrate why Ilhan Omar’s critiques resonate, even if her tone divides. When Kirk sneers that there are “no tall buildings left in Gaza,” or jokes that Palestinians are “stupid Muslims” for resisting, he is not just making political commentary. He is engaging in dog-whistling — racialized, sexist, Islamophobic rhetoric that devalues human life. Combined with his earlier comments about the supposed lack of “brain processing power” among prominent Black women, the pattern is unmistakable. One does not have to be a progressive to see that such speech corrodes the civic space. At the same time, none of this justifies violence: the murders of Charlie Kirk and Irina Zarutska are deplorable and must be condemned without qualification.
The Progressive Dilemma Continue reading The Ilhan Omar of Brown Pundits