In a stunning character reveal, we discovered that a life peer of the British house of Lords referred to the newly elected (as of time of scribbling) vice-president elect as “the Indian” because he didn’t know her name. Allegedly.
The Britishverse was naturally aghast at such overt language because naturally, we live in a colourblind society and I suspect many MP’s will wring their hands in a show of support. Bless their little hearts.
Being someone of mixed race and having lived in horrifically homogeneous locales, I can anecdotally say that racism is extremely rare- so rare in fact that I have never experienced it.
Sadly, stupidity is shockingly common. Whilst the internet is in an uproar over 80 year old white men not being as woke as their 17 year old great-granddaughters, I thought I would reflect on the question of identity and this strange phenomenon of having an entire identity being ascribed to an ethnic subgroup you have no tangible (personal) ties to.
My DNA soup is nearly 1/3rd south Asian. In a quirk of genetics I present as completely Indian to Indians, Arab to Arabs, Portuguese to the Portuguese and Persian to the Persians.
Depending on lighting I can be all sorts of different flavours too. Truly I am a racial chameleon.
Paradoxically the girl is white passing whilst being 50% Egyptian & 50% Lebanese. Pretty eyes notwithstanding.
I suspect our offspring will enter the world as utterly confused.
My own experiences (as anecdotal as they may be) have rotated around colour- not race. No one has ever scrutinized the purity of my blood or defined my superficial outward identity based on anything as intangible as my ethnic roots.
..and yet one does feel a sense of tribalism with regards to ones tribe. Having no real roots puts me in an awkward position, I am culturally Western European but superficially I exist outside it. I have absolutely zero ties to South Asia. On my paternal side, our roots follow the diaspora to Kenya- I have zero ties to that country either.
I am flagless.
But one still acknowledges these ephemeral ties for whatever magical reason, I would rather put my cock in a blender than live in India but due to third party perception, I am almost expected to have a sense of kinship with my chocolate brethren.
It’s personally perplexing because my gut reaction is to reject all labels and preconceived notions on my identity whilst proudly ascribing my core attribute as nerdy but if I am to be completely honest; I am guilty of spending perhaps far too much time musing over such matters and my resulting pigmentation. Whatever it may be.
Identity is a tricky web to escape one’s self from. It’s easy to adhere to the idealistic principles of removing colour from the sense of who we are but in practice, it’s something I have yet to accomplish.
Colour shapes our experiences in a way that often transcends cultural quirks and social status regardless of intent. In my experience it was frequently punitive as a kid and yet a blessing in disguise as an adult.
Being ethnically ambiguous has opened a lot of doors for me by allowing me to blend across various groups with nary a whisper of complaint lest the antagonist be considered prejudiced. I get great treatment from the traditional nexuses of power whilst being immune from the negative repercussions by virtue of having a blanket of wealth and social detachment.
Kamala Harris is an American, her maternal and paternal roots crisscross the Caribbean and India, its easy to argue that since she was raised stateside she should only be considered American and yet her pigmentation places her in a category that regardless of social wokeness (woke’ism?) will levy undue scrutiny and segmentation.
Despite crying foul over tropes and characterisations, people of ambiguous colour like myself are less likely to be offended and more likely to be reflective over something that we really do spend far too much time musing over.
Lord Kilclooney might be racist folks. Maybe.
He probably thinks that western genes are superior to others, that racial identity heavily influences cultural and social norms but ultimately, he is just a normal human who had the misfortune of voicing what was on his mind instead of merely thinking it. Subconsciously or not.
To the vast majority of the wokeverse, Kamala is Indian. It’s a noted talking point laced with derision or acclaim amongst her respective peers and this is something that we have to accept instead of pretending that colour doesn’t matter.
I remarked to the girl that I miss the BNP. Vile and racist they may have been, the overt fanaticism of their members made them easy to avoid as trash human beings.
As we fall further into a spectrum of politically correct porridge, it’s easy to forget that many people still adhere to racial prejudice- they just reserve the nastier quips to the privacy of their own homes whilst presenting a socially palatable front to the masses.
Make no mistake, this is a Trojan horse that will fuck us long after the orange man vacates the premises and courtesy masks our collective spite.
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