- Jyoti Sinha
 |
| Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG |
South Asian Workers’ Center (SAWC)[i] is proud to have volunteers who are from the South Asian community, as well as those who are not. One such volunteer, a Haitian student who lives in Malden, Patrick, offered to help our organization with the food drive.
In
mid-May, Pat spent a few hours at BJ’s (Grocery Store) gathering essential
items for 25 families in Malden. He purchased rice, kidney beans, cooking oil, fruits
and veggies, milk, and eggs. One of the homes that he was instructed to drop
off some food at was owned by a SAWC coordinator, named Ganga, a light-skinned
South Asian woman who helps out with pandemic relief work. Upon opening the
door and seeing Pat with heavy bags of rice and beans, Ganga immediately shut
the door on his face. She was taken aback. She was waiting for a visit from the
SAWC community. Her first and immediate response on seeing an unfamiliar and
non-South Asian person was to shut the door.
Faced with this abrupt
show of disrespect, Pat was furious and dropped the bag off at her door and ran
to his car. He immediately called and vented to me about the hurtful
interaction:
“Yes, Professor Sinha.
Your community people are racist. This white lady shut the door in my face as
she owns this big house and she thought it is a Black guy who could be a
criminal and rob her? How can she treat a student volunteer like this? Isn’t
she aware that I am helping the community?”
How has this
coordinator never learned that you don’t shut the door in the face of a
volunteer who is helping you during the pandemic? They should be taught about the
history of Black people’s struggle in this country.
“I was out in the
store for three hours, risking my life!! Isn’t my life important? Do you know the
Black community are more prone to catching this virus infection? Most Black people live in crowded housing conditions due
to legal segregation and redlining policies. They have poor access to health
care due to racism in the health care industry. They have chronic health
conditions from intergeneration trauma and environmental stressors, which lead
to weaker immunity.”
And
they are the essential workers.
And let me tell you #Blacklivesmatter! Do you
understand the reason why I am so furious? I have nothing against your community,
but why can’t your community accept a Black person helping them?
I had to talk to Ganga and understand why she
treated Pat in this terrible fashion. I was on a telephonic conversation with
both of them on separate lines.
Ganga:
I never shut the door on him. He was without a mask, so I went inside to get one
for him. I am a 60-year-old lady with underlying health issues. I do not want
to be exposed to the virus! He was out for so long and could have passed the virus
to me.
Jyoti:
Apart from passing on the virus, he was buying groceries for 25 families in
your neighbourhood. Many of those families have been COVID victims and barely
have supplies in their kitchens! Can we please show some respect and acceptance
for people who are not from our community?
Pat:
I had a cotton bandana that I covered my face with, it is very sturdy and
comfortable. Better than the I-19 masks people buy from the market. It is not
easy to get infected when you have those masks and also, I drink a very healthy
Haitian drink.
Ganga:
Do not worry Jyoti! This student of yours is a disturbed guy, I often see him
picking fights with all the neighbours in Malden. He is mostly on drugs and
seems disturbed to me. He is, for sure, seeking publicity and attention within
the South Asian community! We should not allow such notorious people to join
SAWC; I can give you many South Asian volunteers who could help our centre.
Jyoti:
Can we stop having such stereotypical assumptions about people, I am offended
by this statement Ganga. He is my student, and I know him to be a social
justice advocate so let us be nice to people who are doing something for our
community. He is helping us during the
pandemic; let us keep our biases and prejudices away. Forming such an alliance
with Haitians, Hispanic, and African American groups will help us get over our hesitation
in connecting with other communities. Especially during such a tough time, we
need to form alliances. It is entirely unfair to call him a drug addict!
Ganga:
(a very religious person, defends her point by saying, today is Thursday and it
is Lord Vishnu’s day, he sent this disturbed guy to help us as he wanted to
teach us a lesson.) Pat is abnormal, so he was shouting and yelling at our
community. You see how most black people are loud and aggressive. He refused to
unload and drop the rice and beans bags in front of my porch, as he did not
like the South Asian community. He is just doing this for grades and passing
your course work. Lord Vishnu took care of the South Asian community, and my
son, who is working from home, came out and helped unload the stuff out of his
car. Lord Vishnu is also giving us a message to involve our community. Other
communities do not understand our culture. For others to understand our culture,
we need to invite them for our Pujas, bhajans and recite mantras to them. Pat
is disturbed so these mantras will help him calm down and not blame the entire
world for being racist. Anyway, Black people are very loud and look so
different from us. Also, many have criminal histories, either doing drugs or
shoplifting. Therefore, they are always suspected by the cops. I watch such news
almost every day.
Jyoti:
Really? Different? In what sense? South Asian men are also treated poorly by
white folks in this country you told me so last time! So why this bias against Black
people by us, the South Asians?”
There
is no grade or academic point Pat earns from helping SAWC community!
Certain
behaviours that people think are common to Black people, such as rapping or
dancing while walking, are seen as being ‘disturbed’ and/or ‘abnormal’ by
certain members of the South Asian community. For a Ganga, a Black Haitian
young man spells “danger” - Pat was a potential danger”.
This is what sociologists understand as a stereotype - a widely held, simplified, and essentialist belief
about a specific group. It is closely linked to prejudice - a preconceived
opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. Such attitudes lead
to discrimination -the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories
of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex. Pat for Ganga
represented the ‘other’.
------------------------------------------------------------
Related to this: Prejudice against Blacks within the South Asian community has been talked about during the #BlackLivesMatter protests and in other contexts. Sharing some links that discuss this:
Source: BBC News
--------------------------------------------------------------
Another member of our community, Sufia, an Indian cook who has lived in America for 30 years, was speaking to me in Hindi about why she would not come for our community cooking event. Her comments showed how her family’s intra-group prejudice toward those from their same religious group, but from a different region, lent to the inter-group prejudice she and they hold toward Black people.
Sufia: “Nahi..hum
bangali muslamano ke saath baat chit nahi karte, hum nahi ayengey aapke
community cooking event par and humey nahi chahiyea yeh ration pani. Bangali
musalman humse bahut alag hote hain… low category ke Muslim hote hain. We
Indian muslims are the most superior, we have been to Haj and are very
religious. Hum unsey gift card lelengey par khane ka samaan nahi!
Translation:
No, we do not interact with Bangladeshi Muslims, never in our 30 years in
this country did we ever make friends, talk, or dine with them. They are
inferior to us; we Indian Muslims are much more accomplished, have better class
and are superior to them in all senses. We have been to our Holy places, so we cannot
eat anything from their kitchen or offered by them. We can accept gift cards
and pandemic support checks from them, but not produce or other edible stuff
from them.
Kalo
ke saath to hum kabhi baat bhi nahi karte.
We
never talk to blacks!”
Jyoti: But why? This is so wrong! What is so wrong with black
people whom you think are inferior and different from you?
Sufia: (offended and mad at Jyoti) Do not ever
try and reach out to me again. I do not want to talk to anyone who wants to
change my thinking at this point of my life. My husband worked at Whole Foods
(grocery store) his whole life. I am a chef by profession and cook in people’s kitchen
and help them with their household work. I cook, clean and make exotic dishes
at South Asian people’s kitchen to make my living. My husband and me worked
very hard to make our living in this country. Our kids are our legacy, and
their success defines whether we did right or wrong. Both our sons are
well-settled, earning well, and are Software Engineers in California. With our
pride, conservative ideas and beliefs, we helped our kids become successful. Now
you are interfering with our ideologies and calling it a bias? Do not ever try
calling me. Go away! Our kids will not approve of us joining any ethnic group
or believe in community building exercise.
Moreover,
to answer your previous question: There is no way we will ever talk to or relate with any Black
communities in our neighbourhood. We are different from them, and their food
habits are so different from us.
This
explicit voicing of what can be seen as clear racial and ethnic prejudices and
stereotypes by ordinary, regular people is deeply disturbing. It violates every
attempt to build bridges, nurture diversities and solidarities across groups.
That it becomes manifest in a humanitarian crisis such as COVID-19 is both worrying and distressing.
________________________
Related to this: The nomination of Senator Kamala Harris as the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate is historic beacause it's for the first that an interracial woman - Black and Asian American lineage will be running for such a high office in the US. At the same time, her position as a woman of Black and South Asian lineage has led to conjectures on what it would mean for both the communities and the relation between the two. Some related links:
 |
| Kelsey Kremer/The Register |
It is not easy for people to accept that they harbour prejudices, stereotypes, and they discriminate. As members of an ethnic or racial group, they have been brought up with such ideas. These are common sense of their groups. Sociologists and anthropologists have found common sense both confounding and powerful. It makes sense to follow common sense in everyday life. It is practical at a personal level and deeply political at the macro level. The guiding maxim would be to stay within your ‘own’ groups; avoid the ‘others’. That is ‘safe’; much like the advice for women to stay home; the elite to be in ‘gated communities’; the poor to be kept away. What is rendered invisible in the narrative is that this is unjust and discriminatory. The logic would be, therefore, that South Asians should stay within their groups. But as we saw the South Asian community is vast, diverse, and internally hierarchical. As our group grows in America, we need to encourage one another to listen to and care for the diversity of other groups as well.
[i] South Asian workers' centers is a community-led organization
based out in Boston. The center helps the immigrant community connect with the
available resources in their neighborhood. We organize through food ,culture,
art and activism.
https://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/news/20200612/guest-solidarity-during-pandemic----sawc-and-community, accessed on 18th September 2020.
Jyoti Sinha teaches within the Sociology department and the Honors College at University of Massachusetts Boston. Her immediate research interest focuses on community building within the South Asian diaspora in the northeastern region. She is the Founder and President of the South Asian Workers’ Center (SAWC), a home for the South Asian diaspora within New England.
Comments
Post a Comment