Racism / Discrimination

Discussion in 'General Discussions' started by kcb, Dec 5, 2018.

  1. kcb

    kcb IL Hall of Fame

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    Have you ever faced any kind of racism, racial comments or discrimination while you are in abroad? This discrimination can be from foreigners or our own Indians from other regions (who doesn’t belong to your region in India).

    First - I experienced this few months back when I went to the doctor’s surgery. We waited in the queue and went to the reception when our turn came, we were having a conversation with the receptionist, and suddenly the receptionist cut the conversation with us and started attending a white lady who was standing behind us in the queue. We ignored, after finishing with that lady she re started the conversation with us asking about our need of appointment, we were explaining the need but after few seconds same scene repeated attending another white person by cutting the conversation with us. It was so awkward and humiliating but this time I didn’t kept quiet. I straight away asked her for an explanation in a firm polite tone that what made her to attend the other people by ignoring us. She doesn’t have an answer except taking the turn facing the embarrassment. BTW that receptionist is also a white person.

    Also, I knew some desi people who make fun of fellow Indians who belong to different region, commenting about their skin color, dressing sense and food habits.

    Second - this was my friend’s experience, but it was by a fellow desi colleague who is from a different region of India. They have a habit of having food together during lunch time and share food with each other. But one of her colleague who is from a different state in India refuses to accept the food offered by my friend but takes food from other colleagues who belongs to her region….this really made me surprised. BTW my friend is a pure vegetarian, so there is no excuse of offering non-veg food. Also there are no issues at all between them.

    Please share your (your friends/family) experiences…..it gives an opportunity to others to be aware of these kind of experiences and to tackle with the situation.
     
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  2. Urmila

    Urmila Silver IL'ite

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    It is present in India and abroad. Maybe the degree varies for everyone and places. From the moment a child is born in India or elsewhere we all focus on the colour or features of the babies. We tend to discriminate based on skin colours first, later rest comes into play especially the socio economic hierarchy. In addition language, religion, caste and creed make a deep division. Moving on to universities we cannot deny the fact of reservation. Still there are many levels of discrimination everywhere in India. Some take these overseas. Abroad also there is racism based on skin colours. If you have not watched this movie watch it. It’s a very good movie and will help understand the deep rooted problems of slavery in US. Quite a gripping true story. Also liked this recent article. Yes, the world has people who are biased based on many aspects of life and show discriminatory behaviour towards them.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2018
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  3. kcb

    kcb IL Hall of Fame

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    I totally agree with you Urmila, very well said, yes I have seen people focussing about color of unborn baby and drink milk mixed with saffron so that baby will born with fair complexion :).....is saffron going to fight with melanin :)
     
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  4. Amulet

    Amulet IL Hall of Fame

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    Yes. There is racism, communalism, etc. in the world. In America, dark people who live in states with liberal gun laws, must act defensively.

    Here is Trevor Noah going back to Soweto to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's birth. People have survived much tougher situations.

     
  5. Nylaa

    Nylaa Silver IL'ite

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    I've never experienced racism per se. I have had issues over dietary restrictions with other Indians. I'm vegetarian and my husband is not (he's from a different region and different religion). Vegetarian people aren't common in the region of India his family is from, so it was really odd to them at first. On one occasion when we were still dating and I attended a family function of theirs, one of his aunt's told him (privately) that she thinks I'm anorexic as I "don't eat anything" and that he's dumb for enabling, what she believes, is essentially an eating disorder. She still feels that way now but the rest of his family understands for the most part.


    I didn't realise that this was still an issue until fairly recently. I was born and raised in Canada and thought that color wasn't an issue anymore and that it was mostly an older or elderly person thing. My siblings and I are on the lighter end of the spectrum and have colored eyes and the only people who make a thing of it are older relatives (like in their 70s and above), so I thought that people from my parent's generation and younger didn't care about things like that anymore. I was surprised to learn that it is still a thing. I have some not-so-old aunties who were over the moon about my husband's appearance/color when they first met him. I was really surprised because I didn't think that people cared about that in this day and age and I didn't think that they were the type to care about color as I'd never heard them talk about anyone's color prior to that.
     
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  6. Urmila

    Urmila Silver IL'ite

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    Above quotes are from here. Liked it and so shared.
     
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