The racial abuse of Shilpa Shetty has been in news for a while. And with Jade Goody admitting that she made racist comments on the Indian actress, it is very clear now that Shilpa was indeed a victim of racial discrimination. Jade says "Sorry". But the question is, how much sorry is she of her thoughts on the whole issue of racism? She may be sorry for her behavior, coz that threw her out of the show. She may be sorry for having said all that, coz that made her infamous. But when are we humans going to attain the maturity befitting our claims of being the most intelligent living species on this planet?
I haven't seen people being discriminated based on color in India. Though physical affinities tend to be pretty biased to a very large extent due to natural instincts; but other than that, we normally treat everyone alike as far as our color differences are concerned. That's one breather because with the kind of diversity we have in terms of religion, caste, financial-status and geography, discriminations based on color would have added fuel to an already strong fire of various other kinds of racial and social discriminations prevalent in India. However, one very strange thing, and I don't know the reason for this, is that something makes us treat whites(the western whites) with more respect than we treat other foreigners. May be there is something genetic that reminds us that they ruled us for centuries and so are above us. Most white nations had the Industrial Revolution, which we sadly didn't. They are rich and powerful. They made colonies out of black and brown peoples' nations. Some white nations ruled on some other white nations as well. Is that the reason why we revere them?
Interestingly the Japanese were categorized as "Honorary Whites" in the ages of colonialism and were never treated like other non-whites, because Japan was a very rich and powerful country. That made even the Japanese claim to bear the White Man's Burden and start trying to set up colonies elsewhere. It's hard to imagine what the world-order would have been if Africa had been a rich continent with all the money and power. It might happen some day...
I think there is a serious problem with the basic human nature. I fear if all brown-skinned are treated as "Honorary Whites", they will only join the white gang and will start trying to rule the blacks. That's shameful.
Human thinking is quite screwed. No matter how much the human knowledge grows and how much we prosper technologically, the common man is never going to be so intelligent as to understand the bull-shit behind the dividing factors viz. race, religion, color, sex, etc etc. And it's the common man who really drives the world and its order. When I say common-man, it includes our leaders and rulers as well. They are experts at assuming and excercising power. But they come from among us, and lack the intellectual wisdom which the learned and the thinking people possess. The irony is that the latter, being exceptionally high in their thinking, knowledge and values consider power and everything else that's material as futile and worthless. And the common man, inspite of all his deficiencies, is the one who shapes the world.
The current world-scenario is a proof of this human weakness. These problems and dividing factors have been there for centuries now and are not really going away. Some of them have become more grave and ugly with time. As our knowledge and technological advancement are making us more and more powerful, we are increasingly becoming a danger to ourselves and our kind. Sometimes, it feels like we are on the brink of disaster...
I don't know if there is a solution. I even don't know if solution is possible in the first place. It's like a matrix. Rather, there are many matrices. Some of us who've come out of some matrices need to pull each other out of all of them and then start thinking...May be, we can change ourselves and change the world, thereby.
I haven't seen people being discriminated based on color in India. Though physical affinities tend to be pretty biased to a very large extent due to natural instincts; but other than that, we normally treat everyone alike as far as our color differences are concerned. That's one breather because with the kind of diversity we have in terms of religion, caste, financial-status and geography, discriminations based on color would have added fuel to an already strong fire of various other kinds of racial and social discriminations prevalent in India. However, one very strange thing, and I don't know the reason for this, is that something makes us treat whites(the western whites) with more respect than we treat other foreigners. May be there is something genetic that reminds us that they ruled us for centuries and so are above us. Most white nations had the Industrial Revolution, which we sadly didn't. They are rich and powerful. They made colonies out of black and brown peoples' nations. Some white nations ruled on some other white nations as well. Is that the reason why we revere them?
Interestingly the Japanese were categorized as "Honorary Whites" in the ages of colonialism and were never treated like other non-whites, because Japan was a very rich and powerful country. That made even the Japanese claim to bear the White Man's Burden and start trying to set up colonies elsewhere. It's hard to imagine what the world-order would have been if Africa had been a rich continent with all the money and power. It might happen some day...
I think there is a serious problem with the basic human nature. I fear if all brown-skinned are treated as "Honorary Whites", they will only join the white gang and will start trying to rule the blacks. That's shameful.
Human thinking is quite screwed. No matter how much the human knowledge grows and how much we prosper technologically, the common man is never going to be so intelligent as to understand the bull-shit behind the dividing factors viz. race, religion, color, sex, etc etc. And it's the common man who really drives the world and its order. When I say common-man, it includes our leaders and rulers as well. They are experts at assuming and excercising power. But they come from among us, and lack the intellectual wisdom which the learned and the thinking people possess. The irony is that the latter, being exceptionally high in their thinking, knowledge and values consider power and everything else that's material as futile and worthless. And the common man, inspite of all his deficiencies, is the one who shapes the world.
The current world-scenario is a proof of this human weakness. These problems and dividing factors have been there for centuries now and are not really going away. Some of them have become more grave and ugly with time. As our knowledge and technological advancement are making us more and more powerful, we are increasingly becoming a danger to ourselves and our kind. Sometimes, it feels like we are on the brink of disaster...
I don't know if there is a solution. I even don't know if solution is possible in the first place. It's like a matrix. Rather, there are many matrices. Some of us who've come out of some matrices need to pull each other out of all of them and then start thinking...May be, we can change ourselves and change the world, thereby.
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