Oz ‘racism’ knows a class divide
The chromatic caricature of Indians as a dark-skinned people occurs fairly commonly around the world, although it’s seldom explicitly mentioned in civil circles.
On the train from Melbourne to Sydney, the ticket examiner was in a chatty mood. “Vembu, Vembu,” he enunciated, reading my surname from the chart. “So, where would you be from?” I told him I was Indian - and waited for his jaw to drop. It did, right on cue!
“You don’t look Indian,” he blurted out. And perhaps realising how politically (and chromatically) incorrect that might sound, he laughingly said, “I’m just teasin’ you,” and moved on.
That fleeting interaction reminded me of a similar experience I had had with an African-American man in a New York subway station some years ago. I’d helped him out with some directions, and he lingered to chat.
When I told him, in response to his query, that I was Indian, his eyes opened wide - and he did something entirely uncharacteristic. He reached out, pinched my ruddy forearm - I’d been out walking in the New York summer sun - and drawled with comical incredulousness, “You Indian? Getouttahere!”
The chromatic caricature of Indians as a dark-skinned people occurs fairly commonly around the world, although it’s seldom explicitly mentioned in civil circles. (In any case, us Indians go to greater lengths than most others in our reverence of gori-ness!)
In the genteel and professional circles in which most Indian-Australians move and work, it’s fair to say they experience no racism at all. They live in middle-class or upmarket neighbourhoods, speak with an Australian drawl, go drinking with their Aussie ‘mates’, and drive around in cars (and don’t take the public transport); their cultural assimilation with “Australian Values” is complete.
That is why their first response, when the Indian students marched on the streets of Australian cities protesting the “racist” attacks, was to say that these were “opportunistic crimes”, not manifestations of “racism”.
Yet, the world in which the newly-arrived Indian ‘students’ (many of whom are, in fact, here not to get an education but to gain permanent residence by hook or by crook) live and work is very different from this.
Many of them come from small-town India, and have an inadequate appreciation of civilities to be observed in public spaces; in Australian cities, they live in low-income suburbia where racial bigotry runs deep; they work late nights to support themselves, and rely on the crime-infested public transport systems to get around. And in this world, they encounter fare more often the ‘other half’ of civil society - the drunken youth gangs, the drug addicts, the petty thieves who pilfer from the 7/11 stores manned by Indians clerks…
Even “opportunistic” mugging incidents - where Indian students are victims - often ends with a racist allusion to the colour of their skin. Which is why the ‘students’ feel they are victims of ‘racism’, whereas even Indian-Australians, who move in more refined circles, speak up in defence of the multicultural Australia they know better.
“You don’t look Indian,” he blurted out. And perhaps realising how politically (and chromatically) incorrect that might sound, he laughingly said, “I’m just teasin’ you,” and moved on.
That fleeting interaction reminded me of a similar experience I had had with an African-American man in a New York subway station some years ago. I’d helped him out with some directions, and he lingered to chat.
When I told him, in response to his query, that I was Indian, his eyes opened wide - and he did something entirely uncharacteristic. He reached out, pinched my ruddy forearm - I’d been out walking in the New York summer sun - and drawled with comical incredulousness, “You Indian? Getouttahere!”
The chromatic caricature of Indians as a dark-skinned people occurs fairly commonly around the world, although it’s seldom explicitly mentioned in civil circles. (In any case, us Indians go to greater lengths than most others in our reverence of gori-ness!)
In the genteel and professional circles in which most Indian-Australians move and work, it’s fair to say they experience no racism at all. They live in middle-class or upmarket neighbourhoods, speak with an Australian drawl, go drinking with their Aussie ‘mates’, and drive around in cars (and don’t take the public transport); their cultural assimilation with “Australian Values” is complete.
That is why their first response, when the Indian students marched on the streets of Australian cities protesting the “racist” attacks, was to say that these were “opportunistic crimes”, not manifestations of “racism”.
Yet, the world in which the newly-arrived Indian ‘students’ (many of whom are, in fact, here not to get an education but to gain permanent residence by hook or by crook) live and work is very different from this.
Many of them come from small-town India, and have an inadequate appreciation of civilities to be observed in public spaces; in Australian cities, they live in low-income suburbia where racial bigotry runs deep; they work late nights to support themselves, and rely on the crime-infested public transport systems to get around. And in this world, they encounter fare more often the ‘other half’ of civil society - the drunken youth gangs, the drug addicts, the petty thieves who pilfer from the 7/11 stores manned by Indians clerks…
Even “opportunistic” mugging incidents - where Indian students are victims - often ends with a racist allusion to the colour of their skin. Which is why the ‘students’ feel they are victims of ‘racism’, whereas even Indian-Australians, who move in more refined circles, speak up in defence of the multicultural Australia they know better.