Desi Manifesto Blog: The Forum for South Asian American Men

We’ve run it by other minorities, and they agree. We’ve run it by our white friends, and they will come up with any reason to act like it doesn’t exist. I guess they don’t want the cognitive dissonance of knowing that there are determinations made based on race and that they have an advantage in some regards, even though they don’t think of themselves as racially anything.

Read the ugly truth and see for yourself.

Sonny: btw

my friend’s fiancé

agreed with our theory 100%

every single guy in there

was like “dude you’re full of shit, stop making excuses”

so i said

“ok fine, let’s get the girls’ opinions”

[Blogger: S.I.] The last couple months, I’ve been making a concerted effort to get out of the house and away from work, meet people, and socialize. Getting to know some of the people of LA. On the whole, it’s gone quite well, I’ve made some new friends, contacts, etc.

But one part of the social milieu that’s often overlooked by most Westerners can in fact be a make-or-break point for people like us: the introduction.

Our hero, S.I., and Random Girl have been speaking for a few minutes. Amiable conversation.

S.I.: “Hey, what’s your name, by the way?”

Random Girl: “It’s Random Girl.”

S.I.: “Nice to meet you Random Girl. I’m (insert my easy-to-say Indian name here. Not the easiest ever, but definitely on the easy side).

Random Girl: “Uh…”

He watches in horror as her expression contorts into the “Foreign Face.” Her eyes crinkle, her upper lip sneers, her teeth show, her brows furrow, and her tongue is at the ready, should it need to roll, flip, or click.

[Blogger: S.I.] We’ve been delinquent. It’s a very busy time in the lives of the Desi Manifesto crew. Of course, if we had more people to blog, there wouldn’t be lag like this, would there? I put the blame squarely on you.

In the last few weeks, I’ve encountered snippets of race-related situations, and even I had a lot of trouble deciding whether I considered them racist or not. So I throw them out to you for some feedback.

LASIK AND EYE OPENING COMMENTS

I recently got LASIK performed at a prominent clinic in LA. Highly ranked doctors, technicians, etc. A few days before the procedure, I underwent an extremely detailed eye exam, including dilating of the pupils.

As the tech tilted my head back to instill the drops, she noticed how easy it was. She said: “Oh, you have such big eyes, it’s so easy to put in the drops. You’re not going to have a problem at all. Not like our Asian patients with those tiny eyes.”

[PART 2 OF 2] TO ALTER the course of my thinking, Former-DM Gal inquired how our parents ever would have found a place if everyone thought like me.

I reflected. Our parents needed a start somewhere too. They also were clean and considerate and not morons, therefore they would have responded to the initial inquiries in the posting properly.

But this wasn’t enough to get me off the hook, was it? I condemned the LA redneck, yet I saw an international student, then a fellow brown man, and I did the same thing. I felt at peace with it because I “know” the difference. I have a better feeling for who would be dirty, flaky, and inconsiderate. But even taking my Indian knowledge into account, am I being fair from one person to another?

Former-DM Gal said maybe I should give the guy a chance. I didn’t know him personally. Checking my email later, as I wondered if perhaps she were right:

Hay please contact me on 310-806-2649

Nitin Tabu

But I knew enough. I’m sharing my living space, and if he flakes, I’m paying double rent.

Fair ends at my emaciated wallet.

[PART 1 OF 2] I LIKENED THE JOURNEY of finding a new roommate to being a female inmate in a maximum security prison, locked in a death match with a hefty con named Big Sally, beating one another senseless with food-specked lunch trays until one of us no longer can stand.

This is what it was like when I looked for a roommate on Craigslist.org and encountered, and even generated, racism.

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.

* Adhir Kalyan, whom we blogged about in our review of the CW’s “Aliens in America,” bagged a role as an up-and-coming wunderkind doctor on FX’s “Nip/Tuck.” Amazingly, the writers of the show displayed their all-world creativity when they named the character “Raj.” On a happier note, that boy is going to get LAID, both on the program and in real life, because of his role on that show. It’s LA, you know. And I 100% support the sexual objectification of the Indian male by women as well as the resulting residual play from the trickle-down effect. [Thanks Angry Asian Man]

The other day, my buddy Bala224 (whom you all know by now) sent me an interesting advice column called ‘Dear Prudence’ on Slate.com. In it, Prudie did not live up to her namesake, advising the conflicted young Indian male ‘Curry and French Fries’ to stand up to his parents, who had been ice cold towards the idea of his white girlfriend.Despite her picture frightening me (she looks like a woman who stared at me in horror in West Virginia when I stopped for gas on my way through), I applaud her response. The title of our post, which actually was the title of her post, was a good sign that her advice might be worthwhile. You’ll see she advocates that ‘Curry’ stand up to his parents to support the woman he loves, whether they like it or not.

Bala224 and I dished out our advice on the matter as well, in our typically offensive (but somewhat enlightening) fashion.

Spoiler alert: lots of references to people being genitals, needing genitals, etc.