Last month, FBI Director Kash Patel wished his followers on X a happy Diwali. It did not go over well.
Far-right Christian nationalist and white nationalist accounts flooded his post with bigoted memes and rhetoric. “Go back home and worship your sand demons,” a far-right pastor wrote. “Get the f**k out of my country,” read another reply. Said another, “This is America. We don’t do this.” These responses, some of which were seen millions of times, were on the tamer end of the spectrum.
Similar hostility followed Diwali greetings on X from former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, as well as posts about the holiday from the White House, the State Department, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Some Indian American conservatives seem shocked that segments of the political right are now taking aim at them.
I also note that some of the more westernized/ integrated east Indian immigrants are also openly critical about the off the boat ones who show lower levels of integration. Same goes for the Asian population. We’re just a bunch of xenophobic, racist fucks.
India has always had their caste system, which is essentially a systematized cultural bigotry. They grow up with the idea that some Indians are better than others, just by virtue of their birth, and you can’t expect that attitude to disappear just because they came to America.
Indian Hindus have had a caste system since it was introduced in the Vedas.
It wasn’t necessarily systemized until it was legally codified by the British during the colonial era. Indian historians have debated the fluidity of caste prior to this time and concluded that while caste endogamy was clearly the norm, caste was much more fluid historically.
There are thousands of castes in India. When the British came across this system, for the purposes of census administration, they limited self identification as only one of the four castes described in the Vedas.
The idea of one group of people seeing itself as superior to others is a common theme throughout human history. The US had a race based caste system for most of its history with the addition of legally codified chattel slavery and segregation.
Pulitzer prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson argues that America still has an invisible caste system.
America utilizes DEI to remedy past and present caste discrimination. India (like the civil rights act of 1964) outlawed caste discrimination at its inception in article 17 of it’s constitution.
I say this mainly because I come across many people that see caste as a uniquely regressive institution the likes of which has not existed in other societies. Every hierarchical system based on race or ancestry is casteist and essentially every human society in civilizational history has had and likely currently continues to have that bigotry deeply ingrained within it.
Valid. Thanks for the clarification, it was really interesting, I appreciate the new knowledge.
Years ago, I had job selling timeshare in Florida, and I worked with a really handsome Indian guy, who always wore a really nice suit. We all hated getting Indian or Asian customers (even our Indian and Asian sales people) because they were notorious for never buying.
I asked the Indian guy about it, thinking he should have a better shot than most. He said:
“The way Indians are, there are a whole bunch of characteristics that have to be in common before they will trust me enough to buy. We could line up perfectly on almost all of them, but if even one thing is off, then they won’t buy from me. But YOU aren’t Indian, so they don’t have those expectations. They aren’t trying to line up their characteristics with yours, because they don’t expect them to match up. They probably still won’t buy from you, but overall, YOU’VE got a better shot at selling to Indians than I do as an Indian.”
And I did sell to a few Indians but all of them were unconventional. Two of them were Indian men married to white women, so clearly they didn’t care what their families thought of anything, and the third was so rich that he looked at the price and said “That’s all? I spend more than that on vacation on watches. Honey, you like this? Yeah? Okay, we’ll take it.”
This isn’t about caste though, usually it’s about self preservation
It’s a little funny when they realize they’re near the bottom of the American caste system
Historically all immigrants seem to want to be the last ones in and close the door
Am an immigrant, not true.
I’m an immigrant and I’m furious they let you in lol
Am an immigrant, this is true for many
Unfortunately that’s true
Not entirely true, many want to bring their family (see settler immigrants in early America) and there are still many that don’t want to eliminate immigration entirely.
Yeah they dont want to integrate at all tho, they want little india over here, they dont mesh with the youth or the elders, last couple immigrant waves of indians arent like pre 9/11 ones, the whole shunning comes because they act like they’re above everyone else and more “advanced” or whatever the fk, the superiority complex they got is wild, they are out here talking sht because you let your daughters wear shorts or do sports, obv you’re gonna hate on them and act like they are weird for not integrating like you have.
Idk why yall are so against immigrants not liking others who dont adapt, we came here for america, they came to do india 2.0 with all the wrong lessons learned
Yeaaaaah, no, that’s a tired, old argument that’s been used by xenophobes at least since Irish and Italian immigrants started coming over (and almost certainly has been used long before that. But I’m not a historian.) Just because people prefer being around those who understand them doesn’t mean they’re “shunning” everyone else.
The entire idea that it’s somehow “wrong” for people to hold onto the way of life they’ve always known is really messed up. Nobody needs to do things the way you do, just because you’re their neighbor. My lifestyle is probably vastly different from yours, and if I were to find a community filled with others like me, that wouldn’t mean we’re “shunning” you or trying to change what you’re doing.
Also don’t forget, integration becomes easier with younger generations. You might think the “old waves” of immigrants integrated “better,” but that’s just what happens when you’re immersed in a culture for a longer period of time. Did the Irish and Italians turn the country into Ireland 2.0 and Italy 2.0? Of course they didn’t. They may develop centers rich in another culture, like “Little Italy” in NYC, but I fail to see what’s wrong with that.
How is this like the third outright racist comment I’ve seen on Lemmy this morning? Fuck off.
BTW my neighbours gay and punjabi her dad accepts her because he came earlier and assimilated, same wave as my parents, they have a different mentality now
Maybe you need to talk to more people before telling others they are out of touch, your hand picked anecdotes from the few Indians you met aren’t representative of a billion different individuals. Yes there’s a lot of idiot conservative type these days, that’s becausea conservative right wing goverment came into power a few years back and this is the result of their propaganda , the same that has happened in the US recently and they share similar view points to American conservatives, non of what you are talking about is exclusive to Indians, growing up an abcd has obviously done a number on your mental health, so I hope you seek some treatment for that, but your parents generation was no different from the current gen, the political and social landscape was just different back then.
And you think they respect gay ppl at all? Trans ppl at all? Theyll be nice openly as is polite but they are the biggest haters of anything like that, defending fobs who literally hate you if you’re on blahaj is wild
Im literally in 2 group chats for us jobs im unqualified for but im prioritized because im indian, if you think ppl are capping they are not, personally I hate my recruiter, man spends 6 months out of the year in india praising india implying my dad has stds because hes a truck driver, thats the typical kind of person I deal with when dealing with ppl straight out of india, they have a massive superiority complex
They want you to only associate with indians, drop all white friends and relationships and talk shit on american culture constantly, this isnt just them, this is common, if you dont speak hindi or punjabi you wont notice
Nobody wants this. Just stop.
I dont respect a whites opinion on racism either way, half of yall sound like you live in the midwest, no diversity in your upbringing just parroting shit you read online, how about you talk to some indian immigrants or children of immigrants for once
Yall think you speak for us all, you speak for no one
Yeah my indian ass sharing my lived experiences is the most racist person on this site I bet
My kid just called from his college excited that he had mango lassi French toast. That’s integration
Thats literally assimilation, fusion of cultures, butter chicken pizza is us assimilating
I promise the immigrants other immigrants hate on likely aren’t saints and were actively hating them for assimilating first
My parents get heated when they see them using soap at beaches and sht, they know they arent supposed to, they ignore the rules because they think they are above them, theyll say as much
I know tons of white, US-born people who think it’s okay to throw trash out on the street. They know they aren’t supposed to, they ignore the rules because they think they are above them.