[Reader-list] ..and these newspapers say Australians are racist

[subhrodip sengupta]

Agreed,
even I do not se Racism, however with Sudeep, I do agree that these are the lines of thinking based on racism, disowning a person on basis of Culture, Lineage or even physical traits. I add to clarify why this mentality is bad, we all know people of ancestral lineage based in  Manipur and further east are of a different mix than those in rest of the country, their culture is also a bit varied, wearing colourful doesnt make Indian.  What do many of us call them? Why? Isn't that Racism? We single out their women for wearing shorts, isn't that racism, we attach with them all kind of malpractices, like getting drunk, and we devote any attrocity commited on them to their carefree attitude. IN short we think all SC's and ST's lack brains. Well that is class based discrimination than race based discrimination. But that is discrimination, singling out a persons reputation or property, I do not equate goodwill with property, for some body else's
 pleasure..............    As a result, all stay in their own community and hate all other communities.
And every one in their right senses shall sense more than a healthy competition in all this.....
Discrimination in providing natural rights is bad, unqualified this stand, to call somebody ugly and make fun of their looks attacks dignity the way they'd like to be treated and enfiorces an unfair deal on them, is bad too.
After all Our father of the nation did not look all that pretty too. The list is slightly longer....


But kshmendra's note as I see it is more nuanced and stands on it's own top, the Farmers, looking like Dalits, are themselves developing a distaste for their leader's looks, ( Why that many do not like Maya's looks, wht is wrong in that?)so many of her statues are implanted, so much watage of resources. Tired, they call her UGLY! And they can not distinguish a real and a statue replica, so many replicas they have seen! The including of Words, Slap are also ironic. Since such a subtle irony is ill placed in a broad based media, this amounts to like discusing Sex life of Gandhi after calling students singly for a different topic, or portraying heavy errotica before children. Again Surely as the dseigner must have Subtle ideas he should brave this out, and stand against odds. Then his ideas shall reach the dalits, instead of a totally different class having nothing to do with her looks.






 
Dear Sudeep
 
Your explanations and references notwithstanding, I still do not see anything RACIST in the cartoon strip.
 
Kshmendra

--- On Wed, 9/16/09, Sudeep K S <sudeep.ks at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Sudeep K S <sudeep.ks at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] ..and these newspapers say Australians are racist
To: "Kshmendra Kaul" <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
Cc: reader-list at sarai.net
Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 2:23 PM


Dear Kshemendra,

'Racism' is a broad term, and in this context, it refers to the cartoonists' definition of 'ugli'ness.

Someone who does not look like 'our women' (the fair, and with whatever features that consitute 'beauty' in our people) gets classified as 'ugly'. This is not far from the discrimination and disrespect that Asians/Africans face for being 'dark-skinned' by fair-skinned people, or the deregatory 'South Indian / Madrasi' tag that some of us have to live with in Delhi.

If you want more help on this, there is a cool 'racism primer' avilable on the net. Incidentally, this one is also a cartoon strip, and guess what, this was pubished by the European nations in their effort to raise awareness about racism. 

See the complete strip here:

"What? Me? A Racist?"
http://www.unc.edu/depts/europe/conferences/Veil2000/multicult_france99/cartoon_raciste_en.pdf

Regards
Sudeep


On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 2:01 PM, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:






The cartoon could be considered to be in bad taste wherein indirectly the objectifying of women as "pretty things" is being promoted by mentioning Mayawati as "ugly".
 
But, what is racist about the cartoon?
 
Kshmendra

--- On Wed, 9/16/09, Sudeep K S <sudeep.ks at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Sudeep K S <sudeep.ks at gmail.com>
Subject: [Reader-list] ..and these newspapers say Australians are racist
To: reader-list at sarai.net
Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 10:21 AM



http://blog.insightyv.com/?p=738




      
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From: Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
To: Sudeep K S <sudeep.ks at gmail.com>
Cc: reader-list at sarai.net
Sent: Wednesday, 16 September, 2009 6:37:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] ..and these newspapers say Australians are racist



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