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.

Across India and the world, there is more love for basketball than ever. You see it in the public hoops being set up (though they remain few and far between). In the kids’ fashions. The commercials.

And soon, those of you in New Delhi will see some basketball firsthand, as the NBA is coming to India for Basketball Without Borders.

Aside from discovering our own 7-foot Punjabi Yao Ming wandering the countryside (Dalip Singh Rana aka The Great Khali just wasn’t built for bball), this is one way to better our chances of having someone in the NBA someday.

But of greater concern for David Stern and the Association: will this initiative even work?

Somehow, a degree of Westernization my feeble mind never grasped was the concept of cheerleaders in India. Not even the idea that it probably wouldn’t work. This was so far from the realm of possibility that it never occurred to me, period.

Well, it’s happening, and the Washington Redskins appear quite proud of it. While there are plenty of Indians in DC, the ‘Skins would prefer to take their ‘world vision’ to the subcontinent. I guess they decided to cover both sets of Indians, one with their team name and the other on this goodwill trip that most likely will become a disaster, international incident, or both (just look at the faces of the men in the crowd, and thanks to the Washington Post for the pic).

We were also invaded by a couple different groups throughout history, and on the whole, we’ve been stepped on because of our race, deemed to be inferior to the invading stock. I believe we’ve proven otherwise. But if we’re so stupid that we then turn around and do the same to another race in our very position, I feel we’re only proving that we may indeed lack mentally. At the very least, we’re not learning from history.

In retrospect, I don’t know what I was hoping would (or wouldn’t) happen. Did I really expect them to avoid the lame Indian accent? Shame on me. But, even in this moment of defeat, more good may have come from it than bad.

Consistently, however, South Asians are the underrepresented ethnicity on the local courts. We can ruminate on the reasons, but per my experience, we’re rarely there. So when I see another mud person, I have a mixed reaction. 1) “Good, another darkie. Maybe he has game, we can be on the same squad and play without too much prejudice.” Then, immediately, 2) “Wait, he’s a darkie. This could be the first time he’s stepped on a court. Oh, he missed a layup. While practicing. It’s over. And he’ll want to be on my team just because we’re both brown.”