Desi Manifesto Blog: The Forum for South Asian American Men

[Blogger: S.I.] Be proud. A day we never thought would come has in fact arrived. A South Asian on the front page of ESPN.com…

* For spelling (at least it’s something). Young Samir Patel and his life after the bee, courtesy of ESPN.com. Good to see a smart kid who’s not afraid of being smart (not that the desis ever had such problems. We probably could use more humility. But not this kid).

And realistically, I don’t know the next time we’ll see another brown person on ESPN.com like this again. Enjoy it.

Personally, I’ve always felt (and gotten the vibe from East Asians and East Asian Americans) that Indians and Asians are indeed two separate groups. The concept of Asia is just what white people drew on a map as “East of Where White People Live”-land, and I don’t feel like abiding by their construct. Beyond our basic looks, our cultures, while vaguely similar, are still quite different, as are the religions and lifestyles.

And by “we,” I mean Indians, and that includes the Scrabulous brothers, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla. We finally got caught ripping off other people’s ideas and using them as our own. And I can say that it’s about time, and I’m not all that sorry to hear it.

Though it was hilarious and side-splitting, the court reporter and judge simply assigned a race to Bala224, then assumed they knew his opinions and thoughts… Worse, they didn’t give him a chance to establish his background or views. They just took it upon themselves, as the benevolent power, to put people in their proper places. I know it technically helped my boy’s case, but imagine if Bala224 has been either the plaintiff or defendant? These kinds of assumptions could screw him out of justice.

Various cultures have tried isolating those who are “different.” They’ve all claimed it was for benign purposes, some going so far as to say it was to benefit the minority group. In recent history, the Nazis made the Jews wear “pieces of flair” (thanks, Office Space). The Americans sent anyone of Japanese origin into camps during WW2. The Taliban made the Afghani Hindus wear patches. The Americans made blacks live in separate areas of the country when they tried the “separate but equal” debacle. Rather than protecting the smaller group’s members, these plans simply divide them from the majority, destroy the bonds that have integrated them into society, and make it easier for the majority to view the smaller group as a foreign entity, a “them” vs. “us” scenario.