Race and color in India.

[kwassa]

This is an outstanding commentary piece on how Bollywood creates racist stereotypes in it's films. It sounds a lot like us.

The occasion are groups of people roaming around in the Greater Noida area of India beating up any Africans that they can find there.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/it-does-matter-if-you-re-black-or-white-racism-entrenched-in-india-s-pop-culture-with-help-from-bollywood/story-yTXBgDcSjNHfjSYDKVzD8O.html

Festering racism in India is back under the spotlight after a wave of violence was unleashed on Nigerian students in Greater Noida, who were beaten, kicked and punched by a rampaging mob. For the 40,000-odd Africans living in India, this was an only-too-familiar reminder of the danger the community lives under.

Six Africans were thrashed in three separate incidents in Chhattarpur last year. A week before that, a Congolese national was bludgeoned to death. In Bengaluru, a Tanzanian student and her friends were attacked by a mob last year.
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In our television serials, advertisements and our biggest cultural influencer – Bollywood – people of darker skin tones are pushed to the margins to be caricatured as comic relief or demonised as villains. Dark-skinned actors find themselves cast as villains or grotesque comics, and female artists find that their skin colour is preventing them from being cast as an object of the hero’s desire. They are drug-peddlers, rapists, criminals or vamps who will be defeated by the mostly fair-skinned hero.

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Our movies are frequently set abroad but our heroes don’t seem to meet any non-white people there, even in ostensibly multi-ethnic cities such as New York. African characters are either absent or seen as animalistic or beast-like. Such tropes are watched, enjoyed and internalised by millions of people who treat Bollywood as a near religion and then go back into their cities and villages, remembering that dark-skin is a indicator of danger and crime.

[Recursion]

1. India is the only place I've been that's as racist as the US

Good piece, thank you for posting it

[JI7]

2. i agree and it seems to be getting worse

i'm thinking a corrupt party/govt that still promotes acceptance is probably better than someone that ignores or looks the other way at best to these things.

the poverty and all the other problems is mostly because of this bigotry over race, religion, caste etc.

[Recursion]

4. A few years ago, I would even have listened to the argument that BJP was going to fix it

But I've just seen too much casteism, too much racism, too much sexism, too much homophobia (which, what? Hinduism is like the least homophobic religion in the world, and yet here they are...), and too much communalism from them.

I'll say it: Shiv Sena are Nazis in saffron. RSS are Nazi-sympathizers in saffron. If the only holdouts are West Bengal, Goa, and the Northeast, then that's where I pin my hopes for the future.

[JI7]

3. bollywood also "borrows" a lot from black american hip hop culture

i can't stand those movies but just watching a bit of it, especially the song/dance scenes you can see it.

someone needs to call it out. but the film industry is just as bad as many other areas.

[at140]

5. Racism in India goes back 4000-5000 years back

when the Aryan nomads invaded India from Northwest direction. They were light skinned and did not wish to mix with the dark skinned indigenous natives. That was the formation of the Caste system.

[IronLionZion]

6. Yup, and dark skinned Indians like me are called black, as if that's an insult

Also many other types of Asians also think I'm black. It was pretty bad when I visited China about 10 years ago where people were fairly sure dark skinned people were dangerous criminals with contagious diseases. The strongest sunscreens are from Asia and people use umbrellas when it's sunny out to avoid a tan.

It's surreal how racist it is over there in India and neighboring countries. People buy dangerous chemicals to lighten their skin in order to attract a marriage partner. If they can't afford full body, they'll just do their face and hands leaving them with strange tan lines.