The Pandemic of Our Minds

“But race is the child of racism, not the father.”

― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“So, let’s all get a little uncomfortable.”

― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race

The killing of George Floyd by police during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25 and the (US) nation-wide demonstrations and protests that followed the unfortunate event, kept me thinking about this complex issue of racism and I sought out to read some contemporary writings on the subject. Two books really stood out and came highly recommended; “So, you want to talk about race by Ijeoma Oluo” and “Between the world and me by Ta-Nehisi Coates”.

I especially liked ‘Between the world and me’, which is written in the form of a letter from the author to his 14-year-old son, Samori. The book is an intense account of what it means to grow up and be black in America today. The writing reflects the depth of the author’s fear and anger while he was growing up in West Baltimore. Since Mr. Coates is trained as a poet, the book is structured and written elegantly. At some places, it made me pause and deliberate at the depth of the issue even today, but I reserve my thoughts as I will never be able to fully comprehend the feeling of being a minority and fighting against centuries-old systemic oppression.

Conversations on race and racism can make most of us uncomfortable and it surely is an area of uncertainty for people of all races. Ms. Oluo’s book is a simple and straightforward guide for handling those complex conversations with sensitivity and clarity making this an important book for everyone. Some of the ideas in the book - like the origins of the US police force, the ‘School to prison pipeline’, Model Minority were revealing, especially for a third person to the core topic of this book. Comparatively; this book is an easier read, (but equally powerful), will truly make us uncomfortable, and question some of the interactions we take for granted.

Both the books are mostly specific to the US, but the emotions and ideas expressed are common for all of us, and in that sense, they are profound, enlightening, and searing documentaries of our times.

Reading these books had me thinking about the biases we carry here in India. It is not news that we are one of the worst offenders when it comes to our love for fair skin. The huge market for fairness creams (valued around 4000 Crores. 62% of Indians in the age group of 15-34 are users as per a survey conducted in 2016, 39 % are regular users), the bombardment of the adverts for those creams during primetime (this is despite 2015 ruling against misrepresentation and 2020), the blatant matrimonial ads asking for a fair bride (yes, they are still there, I checked!) these are just the day-to-day signs of this underlying evil.

As individuals, we would have come across casual comments, name callings, etc. During my early school days, I remember one of my friends was called ‘crow’, an obvious reference to the skin color, he never seemed to take it seriously; or so we thought, until one day when I went to his home and his mother started narrating that he was indeed hurt by this name-calling and would be so disturbed when he came back from school and while narrating this she started crying; I would never forget that hurt and anger. Recently, one of my colleagues from North India, told/asked me in a typical conversational tone “most of the South Indians are black, no?”. Looking back, when the first incident happened and I did not realize the impact caused to my friend (and his family) and did not stand by my friend, but I did give a lecture of sorts to the colleague who was intrigued by the skin tone of the south Indians (not sure what impact that had). Incidents like these prove how deep-rooted this bias is in all aspects of our life. We may use these terms/comments intentionally, unintentionally, affectionately, ignorantly, patronizingly, or as aggression- in any form, it is just wrong.

Our obsession with fair skin is just the beginning of our deficiencies. We discriminate based on caste, religion, region, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, even what we eat would isolate us and make us susceptible to discrimination. If we really think about it, all these various forms of discrimination are the manifestation of the underlying ‘class discrimination’. It is always the ‘powerful vs the weak’. While we all, at some point would have been the victims of one or the other forms of discrimination; we would have discriminated against someone, for some reason, at some point in time too. Sometimes we are the aggressors and sometimes we are the victims; it depends on our ‘Position of Power’.

It is not easy to dismantle these deep-rooted societal structures; especially something like caste segregation that is historically ingrained for well over 2000 years. It is clear that we can’t rely on our leaders, gurus, and heroes (the 3 top influencers in this country) to come and change this for us. The change has to start with us; and the first step is to understand that as individuals we all carry such biases based on our position of power and once we acknowledge that fact, the next step is to be conscious and not letting these prejudices color our day to day interactions. So, as individuals this cycle of ‘1. Understanding 2. Self-checking and 3. Changing’ is critical for us to move forward.

I am not so naïve that I dream of an equal society anytime soon, but in recent times we have come some distance by taking a few steps in the right direction and the next generation holds out a lot of promise and hope.