racist remarks
February 5th, 2008 - by Nazia VasiOf late racism seems to be dominating a lot of space on Indian Tv channels and in newspapers. While Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood actress was ridiculed out of the Big Brother show early last year, famed Indian cricketer Harbhajan was recently accused to calling Austrailian cricketer Andrew Symonds a monkey on the field. Racism it seems is built into the Indian way of speaking.
Though, not isolated to India only, China too faces its fair share of racism, with the population often being termed ‘Chinki’. Within China too several of my friends from Xinjiang who live in Shanghai feel like they are looked at differently. Even I, as an Indian teacher in Shanghai have faced racism when I was asked to feign British nationality in order not to perturb parents of students who only wanted their little emperors to learn English from a UK or US citizen.
So when is racism ok? when Indian’s call eachother names, or when friends say chinki in jest its ok, but used in a broader perspective, in a globalised world, in malice its definately not. Where do we draw the line? and how do we make sure we don’t hurt national, regional, caste, class or gender sentiments especially at a time when the world is shrinking?
Email This Post
Print This Post
February 6th, 2008 at 11:49 am
No it is not racism if you are asked to pretend to be British. Because acting this way does not change your race. It is not like you painted your skin white to get a job. This is simply ‘crying wolf!’
February 7th, 2008 at 5:13 am
i don’t like the word chinki anyway
February 7th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Chinki is not a racist word just like ‘monkey’ was not in Harbhajan’s case. I would put Chinki as something similar to a Desi - and that definitely is not a racist word, for then you would argue that even being called Indians & Chinese & British is racist.
I think you draw the line when it gets derogatory. Posing yourself as British towards parents of a school is falsification and if the school name is voiced lets not get our children into this particular school!
February 8th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I agree the line is drawn when its either meant to hurt someone or be derogatory, but then I have also been stopped by close friends who feel that calling a chinese person Chinki is derogatory.
As for the school, I was too proud an Indian and didn’t hestate to tell my students my true idenity. Its not like they had a problem with it - it was their parents!
February 11th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Chinki is deffenitely derogratory when used against Nagas,Mizos, and all those northeast indians studying in delhi university as the word harry when used against biharies and also desi when used in US. When sardarji jokes are traded in front of sardarjies and ask them to laugh to show thier magnanimity, it is racism