Desi Manifesto Blog: The Forum for South Asian American Men

A coolie, courtesy of Koshur.org.

[Blogger: S.I.] Welcome to our second installment of The Coolie Files. While this isn’t your typical “Indian gets tooled” story, it does involve racial assumptions and the cultural ignorance of people in power, made palatable by heavy doses of comedy to subdue you.

My primed-to-fight lawyer friend, Bala224, registered a resounding victory in the courts the other day. In a deposition, he defended a large company being sued by a large woman who claimed she ‘tripped over wires’ that the firm used while putting on a show. The woman alleged that she broke various parts of her body and could not work, and she wanted a large sum of money to cure what ailed her.

Bala224, still a hungry neophyte in the legal arena, leaped at “Ms. Garcia’s” specious claims like my dad at the clearance section of Wal-Mart. And the last bit of “evidence” Bala224 presented sealed his case, as far as the judge was concerned…

The story itself is funny. And don’t worry, there’s a brown moment here, and it’s even funnier:

Bala224: we represent a big company

she was at a fashion show that this company put on

she claims she tripped on some wiring

and basically broke her hip

bunch of other injuries

basically she’s some fat ass

who just wants to cash in

so she’s suing for lost wages right

yet she has no record of employment

whatsoever

just off the street

so the highlight was

“are you bringing claims to recover lost wages”

“yes”

“so you are claiming that because of your alleged injuries due to this accident, you were unable to work”

“yes”

“how long were you out of work?”

“4 months”

“i see… for what time period?”

“May 2004 through September 2004″

“ok. so i have a document here, marked Exhibit 255, that says…well first do you recognize this?”

“um, no…i no”

“well it has your name and signature on it, along with a date”

“ok yeah i vaguely…i think i recall”

“ok good. this document is an application for state welfare benefits, with an attached benefits history form, with an attached affidavit from you, signed and notarized and dated March of 2006. You stated unequivocally that you had not been employed in any capacity whatsoever for the four prior years and that you were participating in state welfare and unemployment compensation program. so my question to you ms. garcia is, are you lying now?or were you lying then? and may i remind you that lying in a sworn affidavit is subject to the penalty of perjury and improperly receiving government benefits is a class A misdemeanor. so which one will it be today?”

the bitch breaks down

hahahahaha

starts tearing up

she was sitting on her fat ass getting a check from the state

the extent of her work history involves waddling her fat ass to the mailbox the 1st and 15th of every month

that was some good stuff

then i revealed she’s had two hip surgeries in the exact same spot in which she claims she was injured

and the medical report after her last surgery specifically warned she’d suffer symptoms that she’s currently claiming she is suffering due to the fall

which means her whole case is BS

me: what about her lawyer?

a fucking ambulance chaser

except there wasn’t even an ambulance involved

Bala224: actually there was

hahahha

she claimed she needed one to take her from the hotel to the hospital

her attorney was just looking to get his

thought he could intimidate me into a quick settlement

unfortunately more often than not he probably would be able to

lot of lazy/too busy attorneys out there

man this bitch was shooting daggers at me

with her eyes

it was great

me: so when you said “What will it be today”

what did she say?

Bala224: she started speaking in spanish

the reporter and the judge yelled at her

to only speak english

me: haha

then?

Bala224: well she wouldn’t stop yammering

in spanish

and then she started sobbing

saying that i was trying to twist the issue

that i was accusing her of lying, etc

she also called me a racist

said i hated mexicans

to which the court reporter, after looking at my first name, replied

“well his name sounds spanish to me”

to which the judge responded

“hmm…good point”

“please continue”

hahhahhahaa

i would’ve cleared up the misunderstanding

but it helped me out

me: HAHAHAHAHA

Bala224: it was great

so she had to leave the room

because she was so emotional

so the judge is like

“hmm maybe you said smthg racially insensitive”

and i was about to respond when the reporter was like

“well, his name, that sounds spanish, so it can’t be”

so the judge looks at me

i’m about to say smthg

and he’s like

“oh..well i uh…are you spanish?”

“well your honor i uh”

reporter: “yeah that’s definitely hispanic”

judge: “yeah you’re right.”

“move on”

So many issues here, I don’t know where to start. No, I can’t tell you my friend’s first name. But it’s a clear-as-day Hindu name. He’s not Goan or Portuguese or anything. And, as you may have guessed, the court reporter was a white woman, while the judge was an older Jewish man. Among the pertinent questions and points:

* Did Ms. Garcia really think that no one would find out she’s been getting unemployment for years?

* Since when did court reporters wield so much power?

* When did foiling someone’s sketchy lawsuit make you racist?

* Since when did having a certain name save you from being bigoted? There’s more than one country and race that speaks Spanish.

* How does a typical South Indian man look like he could be anything else? He looks nothing like a Latino or Hispanic person.

* When looking for someone’s ethnicity, I thought last names mattered. I guess I was wrong.

So why was this part of the Coolie Files? Because the court reporter and judge simply assigned a race to Bala224, then assumed they knew his opinions and thoughts. In this case, they said he was Latino/Hispanic/Spanish because of his name (and “clearly implied” by his appearance, I’d wager), and they assumed he could not have been biased against a Mexican because of that. 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.

So, should Bala224 have said something? It’s not like he tried to mislead anyone. They foisted a convenient racial identity on him, and he never got the chance to clarify. Besides, he had the case won from the opening tip.

Therefore, I think it’s better to focus on Ms. Garcia and the lessons learned: her case was dismissed with prejudice, and she was ordered to pay over $5,000 to the court and the defendant for attorney’s fees.

Not a bad day’s work for Bala224, Ethnically Ambiguous, Esq. But not necessarily a great one, either.