"I feel just as Indian as I feel black": The reinforcement of ignorance and casual racism

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"I feel just as Indian as I feel black": The reinforcement of ignorance and casual racism

Dr Allswell E. Eno • May 25, 2021

The two-tier system that even the supposedly educated, including certain elected officials, are happy to reinforce

No, I'm certainly not saying all elected officials are highly educated. You only have to look at some of our MPs and councillors up and down the UK and some politicians across the pond and around the world to know that you don't need to be elected to public office; in some cases you just need to be garrulous, or simply have a loud voice. But I know for a fact that Kamala Harris, the current Vice-President of the United States is very smart, and I don't just mean in the way she dresses; I mean both highly educated and intellectually and politically astute.

The same applies to so-called journalists. The BBC keeps churning out snippets like this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-56597925

A certain Nalini Sivathasan of the "BBC Asian Network" is allowed by BBC editors to quote Kamala Harris as saying that she is "proud of her black and South Asian roots" and to present a montage of women for whom the headline is "I feel just as Indian as I feel black." ?

How obtuse do you have to be not to see what is wrong with that statement?

What is it about American culture, copied around the world, that it cannot see the ignorance and racism in reducing African heritage in its entirety to "black" then juxtaposing it with heritage for other non-European populations? One of the women in this clip, to her credit, references that.

Here are some other examples you might hear in the average American school, college or university, or indeed, in any American social setting, without anyone batting an eyelid:

"I'm part-Mexican, part-black."

"I'm half black, half Native American."

This inherent and casual devaluation of the African part of someone's heritage goes unnoticed by both speaker and listener, so much so that it is almost inaudible, invisible, even to those whom you'd hope or expect to know better, some of whom go on to stand on American podiums to beat the drum for making American society better while running for high office and when elected to that office. Pulling them up on it, or, as the Americans would say, calling it out, yields bemused looks. And all the while it is at the heart of the racism that pervades American society and is exported beyond its borders to be imitated here in Britain and elsewhere.

Likewise, you'll be hard-pressed to find a journalist who notices, let alone comments on this. Instead, a large contingent of them are happy to try their hand at advancing their careers in journalism while repeating the same two-tier references to race, or unquestioningly featuring people who will, thereby broadcasting the same, blind, unthinking, ignorant racism to people of African heritage globally.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.