Sorry, but if an Indian residing in the US who speaks “for the other side” is a “House Nigger”, what does that make the other Indians who reside in the US?
;Calling someone who criticises us a traitor to our cause is such an obvious “Either-you-are-with-us-or-you-are-against-us” tactic that I am surprised that Jivha has picked up the bad habit.
Not every Indian who criticises India however harshly, even when he does so in a foreign land, even if the criticism is wrong, misplaced, unfair or overblown, is doing it because he hates India.
I will reserve my contempt for traitors only for those who take the other side in an actual war, not a trade dispute and certainly not in a business decision for God’s sake.
This kind of over the top criticism can easily boomerang on anyone. What about an Indian residing in India, but working for an American company, who happens to find that his interests coincide with that of the US in a particular case? What about the incessant criticism from the “real” secularists that we English educated middle-class Indians are Indians in name only?
Criticise people like John Laxmi and Arun Shastry on factual grounds, without questioning their motives. Make statements like “They hate India” only if you can prove that by looking at their general record, not at their individual statements or positions.
Ravikiran, I called Arun Shastry a “house nigger” because he used an extremely broad brush to paint India with. If you read his answers it will be apparent that his aim is to only show India down and not present a balanced picture.
My grouse(and Blame India Watch and many other people’s) is that India is being increasingly subjected to a purely negative campaign by people in the war against offshoring.
And tell me Shashtry doesn’t invite the label by himself connecting his origin to his negative opinion of India,
“Being an Indian by origin myself, I am ashamed of the current software scenario in India and I want this to be a lesson to my fellow entrepreneurs.”
Shashtry generalizes copiosly on ALL Indian IT firms and workers. A fact I know to be false.
*That* is my grouse.
I share your contempt for that guy. But calling someone a “House Nigger”, you are saying the following things.
1) Because of his origins he should have been on our side in the outsourcing debate.
2) He is a traitor to our cause by not doing so.
3) He is turning on his fellow Indians to ingratiate himself with “The Man” (among slaves, it meant the white man)
I don’t agree with 1) and 2).
By making claim 3), you are making a statement as to his motives rather than argue on facts. You could be right, but I personally would wait for long before condemning a person for being unpatriotic.
I agree with Ravi here, since this is actually a very traditional mentality like the black people here in that if you don’t conform to the rest of the group then you are an Uncle Tom – you are not allowed to go beyond group-think.
Another way to look at Shastry’s comment as Gautam pointed out on Jihva’s blog is that maybe he really is sad at the state of affairs and wants the situation to change for the better.
1) I didn’t want Shashtry on “our side”. I just expected a balanced opinion. Shashtry’s opinion is that all IT companies and all IT professionals in India are bad. Period.
2) I don’t blindly support outsourcing or offshoring.
3) I never said that any person arguing for/against a business decision needs to wear his/her patriotism on his/her sleeve. That is an extrapolation you’re making here.
To cut a long story short, the two things that prompted me to use the “house nigger” phrase were:
a. Shashtry’s attempts to bring nationalism into his experience…as displayed by his initial statement.
b. His seeking to make out ALL Indian IT firms and workers as either cluless and/or arrogant.
Ravikiran, when a guy like John Laxmi or Shastri brings his Indian-ness into the argument……something which is quite irrelevant…. he is exposing himself to such charges.
Plus using extremely flawed logic, like Laxmi did, does make one wonder what his intentions are.
Laxmi in his article said –
First, we should demand that India must send a meaningful contingent of troops to help the coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan, meaningful in size and commensurate with the global power Indians think India is becoming.
Now what on earth does outsourcing have to do with Iraq?
Maybe calling Shastry a house nigger would be too harsh, since he is basing his views on experience he had. But John Laxmi is a dfintie candidate for the term, based on his absolutely ridiculous article at rediff.
Jivha,
I am agree with everything that you are saying. I am only saying that “House Nigger” carries all the connotations that you don’t want to convey.
Another way of saying it is, I don’t know who is right – Shanti or Gaurav. Shanti says that *maybe* he is using his Indianness to say “I am an Indian. I know that there are problems in India.”
Gaurav is saying that he is using his Indianness to lend undue weight to his words. I am inclined to agree with Gaurav, but I don’t know and till I know more about him, I will not call him a traitor just for this issue.
Program on the emergence of civilization.
“14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.”
Favor.
And disfavor.
They point out Africans’ attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it’s applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.
The roots of racism are not of this earth.
Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals, so this nulified diversity of life claims on sub-continental Africa.
god is a computer
And we’re all on auto-pilot.
Organizational Heirarchy
Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:
1. MUCK – perhaps have experienced multiple universal contractions (have seen multiple big bangs), creator of the artificial intelligence humans ignorantly refer to as “god”
2. Perhaps some mid-level alien management –
3. Mafia aliens – runs day-to-day operations here and perhaps elsewhere (“On planets where they approved evil.”)
Then we come to terrestrial management:
4. Chinese/egyptians – this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
5. Romans – they answer to the egyptians
6. Mafia – the real-world interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
7. Jews, corporation, women, politician – Enough evidence was present to suggest mafia management over all these groups.
Double standard with “the n-wordâ€
It is two-faced of civil rights leaders to make a mountain out of mole hill with the comedian/actor Michael Richards’s affair where he used the word “nigger” multiple times. Black comedians on the Black Entertainment Channel can scream “nigger” and the audience will scream with laughter with some almost falling out of their chairs. Pardon my French, but if a Nigger says “nigger” he is not engaged in a racist tirade and he can get paid top dollar for doing it.
Sillier yet, the word “nigger” is so taboo that some people are expected to make reference to it by saying “the n-word”. We do not have a “g-word” for “gringo”, nor an “r-word” for “rag head”, “c-word” for “camel jockey”, “d-word” for “dago”, “s-word” for “slant eyes”, “j-word” for “jew boy”, “p-word” for “pale face”, “h-word” for “honkey”, or other nicknames for “peckerwoods”, “white boys”, “chink”, “greaser”, “chili stomper”, “redneck”, “yellow monkeys”, “gooks”, “beaners”, “mojados”, “pollocks”, “ruszkis”, “dinks”, or other ethnic slurs.
The man was mouthing off at a night club where folks expect some insults anyway. Black folks, especially the civil rights leaders, ought to be able to roll with the punches like everyone else.