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Race backlash against Nina Davuluri shows OUR true colours
The global stigma of discrimination will go only when Asians and Africans have the self-confidence to be themselves, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
The global stigma of discrimination will go only when Asians and Africans have the self-confidence to be themselves, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray
Disraeli was wrong. Race isn't quite the ultimate reality.
As Nina Davuluri, the spunky new Miss America, is finding out, colour is.
This was already in the news when Nina was crowned beauty queen. Naomi Campbell, the first black model to grace the cover of Vogue magazine, had just launched a stinging attack on discrimination in the multi-trillion dollar fashion industry.
This applies to America rather than Britain. The British have made a heroic about-turn on what used to be called the colour bar. You never hear the phrase nowadays. London, in particular, is determinedly multiracial, treating blacks, browns, yellows and whites the same in every sphere, with the same deference or disregard.
Those 'No Coloureds' signs vanished long ago. Patronising old Englishwomen dont any longer go about jabbing coloured men with their bags and brollies to be able to smile sweetly and apologise! The secret pockets of resistance are not generally seen or heard.
The Bible itself doesnt claim whites are superior but perceptions and interpretations matter more than literal truth. Not only is the faith of the Bible associated with Caucasians but South Africas former apartheid regime used the legend of Ham to justify their repugnant system.
Its a truism that blacks, browns and yellows vastly outnumber the worlds whites. But numbers dont denote power. Certainly not when the majority wants to resemble the minority.
Thats where the rub lies. Discrimination persists not just because whites are supremacist but also because blacks, browns and yellows want to be white. All the self-styled whites and political reds in Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop were actually black.
Rabindranath Tagore declared bitterly after a brush with San Francisco immigration that Christ himself would be refused entry to the US because he was "Asiatic". (Author of "Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka Jaya He...)
Trinidad-born V S Naipaul, with Indian parents, presents another paradox. Waugh wrote to Nancy Mitford when Naipaul was honoured in some way long before the Nobel Prize,
"That clever little nigger Naipaul has won another literary prize. Oh for a black face!"
But its doubtful if despite sentimental journeys to the land of his fathers, Naipaul thinks of himself as other than an upper-class English gentleman.
An entry in the diary of his English first wife hinted at what Derek Walcott, another West Indian writer but of Negro descent from the island of St Lucia, who won the Nobel Prize in 1992, called "Naipauls repulsion towards Negroes".
Walcott mocked him as "V S Nightfall".
At lower, non-intellectual levels, the soaring sales of skin whiteners and hair straighteners, the popularity in the Far East of eye-straightening operations and Indian obsession with "wheat-complexioned" brides acknowledge a surreptitious admiration for Caucasians.
The Japanese used their financial clout to demand "honorary white" status in apartheid South Africa. Even the Chinese look down on pigmented skin.
The stigma will go only when Asians and Africans have the self-confidence to be themselves. It will happen one day.
Posted on Rediff.com.
The global stigma of discrimination will go only when Asians and Africans have the self-confidence to be themselves, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
The global stigma of discrimination will go only when Asians and Africans have the self-confidence to be themselves, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray
Disraeli was wrong. Race isn't quite the ultimate reality.
As Nina Davuluri, the spunky new Miss America, is finding out, colour is.
This was already in the news when Nina was crowned beauty queen. Naomi Campbell, the first black model to grace the cover of Vogue magazine, had just launched a stinging attack on discrimination in the multi-trillion dollar fashion industry.
This applies to America rather than Britain. The British have made a heroic about-turn on what used to be called the colour bar. You never hear the phrase nowadays. London, in particular, is determinedly multiracial, treating blacks, browns, yellows and whites the same in every sphere, with the same deference or disregard.
Those 'No Coloureds' signs vanished long ago. Patronising old Englishwomen dont any longer go about jabbing coloured men with their bags and brollies to be able to smile sweetly and apologise! The secret pockets of resistance are not generally seen or heard.
The Bible itself doesnt claim whites are superior but perceptions and interpretations matter more than literal truth. Not only is the faith of the Bible associated with Caucasians but South Africas former apartheid regime used the legend of Ham to justify their repugnant system.
Its a truism that blacks, browns and yellows vastly outnumber the worlds whites. But numbers dont denote power. Certainly not when the majority wants to resemble the minority.
Thats where the rub lies. Discrimination persists not just because whites are supremacist but also because blacks, browns and yellows want to be white. All the self-styled whites and political reds in Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop were actually black.
Rabindranath Tagore declared bitterly after a brush with San Francisco immigration that Christ himself would be refused entry to the US because he was "Asiatic". (Author of "Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka Jaya He...)
Trinidad-born V S Naipaul, with Indian parents, presents another paradox. Waugh wrote to Nancy Mitford when Naipaul was honoured in some way long before the Nobel Prize,
"That clever little nigger Naipaul has won another literary prize. Oh for a black face!"
But its doubtful if despite sentimental journeys to the land of his fathers, Naipaul thinks of himself as other than an upper-class English gentleman.
An entry in the diary of his English first wife hinted at what Derek Walcott, another West Indian writer but of Negro descent from the island of St Lucia, who won the Nobel Prize in 1992, called "Naipauls repulsion towards Negroes".
Walcott mocked him as "V S Nightfall".
At lower, non-intellectual levels, the soaring sales of skin whiteners and hair straighteners, the popularity in the Far East of eye-straightening operations and Indian obsession with "wheat-complexioned" brides acknowledge a surreptitious admiration for Caucasians.
The Japanese used their financial clout to demand "honorary white" status in apartheid South Africa. Even the Chinese look down on pigmented skin.
The stigma will go only when Asians and Africans have the self-confidence to be themselves. It will happen one day.
Posted on Rediff.com.
that's why you're living in Canada.
