If we want to be truly improve as a culture, we must learn to truly appreciate ourselves, both the good and bad parts of us.

One more thing– there’s plenty of celebrating the good about our community but like most humans, we are loathe to examine the bad, which is why some of the comments upthread seem disingenuous.

Look at the discussion inspired by this post. It turns in to a chorus of “not me! my parents were awesome!” and “the media is racist!”. Demondoll, you yourself decided to bring up condescension as your primary concern and you worried that the media’s sensationalism was making that problem worse for you…how is that helping us improve as a culture, if we aren’t willing to take our lumps, because we’re afraid of arming “feminists” or others with ammunition?

Jesse Jackson didn’t like Obama speaking the truth to his community on Father’s day…sometimes we need to confront what’s wrong within our family, instead of avoiding it or rushing to distance ourselves from it.

Using your personal tragedy to mockingly oppression-olympics-one-up someone else and their experiences? CLASSY. That totally makes me sympathetic to you!

Whoa. Didn’t the intern already tell everyone to chill before commenting on this highly-emotional and controversial subject? I don’t know that your statement (or “last word”-ing in general) is moving us towards productive dialogue. To accuse someone who is obviously hurt that they are “Using” a personal tragedy implies something rather unsavory which isn’t the classiest thing to do to a survivor, is it?

Seriously, I’m sorry you went through what you did, but not everyone did

It’s difficult to get “sorry” from the earlier part of your quote, the one which ends in the sarcastic declaration of sympathy which I excerpted above.

In any case, if one of us goes through it, that’s one girl too many. I’m saddened that people are focusing on certain aspects of this, out of insecurity, trollishness, denial, whatever. It must feel like a slap in the face to someone who has experienced this to read a number of comments which are critical of the media when what we really need to do is call out these attitudes when we witness them, in our family and friends. Commenters hello, campmuir and Harbeer have all tried to explain why crying “racism!” or ignoring very real issues is an awful thing for us to do. I guess for those who have ears, let them hear…

A little more respect, for everyone, please?

There is no need to throw the baby out with the bath-water.

Unless it is a baby girl, of course.

I’m sorry for what you went through, and women who are abused certainly have my sympathy. However, you could try being more respectful in your comments. It sounds like you don’t want to hear other people’s points-of-view.

It’s true that there are some problems in our community, and we ought to face them honestly. However, we should not bash our entire culture based on these problems. Sometimes, desis are way too critical, in a way that I rarely see in anyone else. There are good things and bad things about EVERY culture. It saddens me when Desis don’t see the good in their own culture. I think this may ultimately have to do with power and our position in the world. We are bottom-feeders in a sense, because we come from a poor country. And it is common for bottom-feeders to loathe themselves and wish to be like those at the top. If we want to be truly improve as a culture, we must learn to truly appreciate ourselves, both the good and bad parts of us. Often the good stems from the bad and vice-versa; things are often interconnected.

There is no need to throw the baby out with the bath-water.

That’s all I have to say.

Using your personal tragedy to mockingly oppression-olympics-one-up someone else and their experiences? CLASSY. That totally makes me sympathetic to you! Seriously, I’m sorry you went through what you did, but not everyone did and I think it is annoying when people assume that you’re SO OPPRESSED. So can we keep the issue of people assuming things about brown women, and the issue of shit like this ACTUALLY happening, separate please?

i can’t believe some of the comments on this thread about western labels and media. face the facts. our people have created a mysoginistic culture in which a woman’s life is valued less than a man’s. we place limited worth on our women and we have for centuries. where else (besides perhaps the middle east) has a culture sanctioned dowry and honor killings and sati? in what other country have we had to pass laws against fetus gender selection? why is a menstruating woman forbidden from entering a temple? does no one find it strange that sita is considered the ultimate example of a hindu woman because she killed herself after returning to ram after living in another man’s captivity (to quiet down the complaints from the masses about her “honor” – even thoguh she was kidnapped). What kind of morals are we passing down to our kids? we may consider ourselves progressive here in the west, but the ugly truth is that we still have these deep rooted beliefs in our psyche as a culture and a people. ugh. it’s just so infuriating.

Yeah my parents have been more strict that regular American parents, but never abusive, and neither have my friends’ parents been (a couple of them told their parents they have boyfriends, and their parents weren’t happy but they certainly didn’t bring out the matches either). Since this blog is all about proclaiming the diversity of desi American experiences, I’d like to make clear that mine, and many others’ doesn’t include this sort of misogynistic attitude.

Aside, menstruation is considered impure in nearly all major world religions, and women aren’t allowed to enter places of worship in all of those. A lot of the misogyny we’re talking about has been part of many cultures throughout history, and the undercurrents will never go away despite how urban and modern our world gets, but for some reason it’s highly concentrated in the subcontinent, or it seems to be so. To tackle the problem we need to actually look at its roots in culture instead of overgeneralizing and condemning an entire society.

The media’s constant highlighting of the rare honor killing in this country smacks of racism.

Honor killings might be rare, but the coercion and oppression that lead up to them is pretty common. Do you follow what I’m saying? Do you realize how many people are abused and stuck in situations they would not freely choose because of these barbaric patriarchal attitudes and the actions that follow from them? A lot. Every day of life sucks for a lot of women (and queers) in our community and life sucks for their kids, too. Man, some of the stories I’ve heard…and I’ve had a sister and a cousin disowned, too.

36 · ShallowThinker said

I wonder how many well off, educated brown people kill there own family and by “well off” I mean educated middle class.

Yeah dude, people from good families never do wrong.

46 · CR said

I’m so sorry you had to put up with that. It’s so much worse than my almost getting killed for dating someone my dad didn’t approve of, yes, yes it is.

Word.

lazy_ngawang

Your problems with your loser family has nothing to do with what demondoll experienced….dont be such an attention *%%%4. why don’t you go to police instead of whining here. desi girls are way too soft ….:(

Don’t assume and don’t assult. Be respectful of other people’s experiences, OK?

CR:

“I’m so sorry you had to put up with that. It’s so much worse than my almost getting killed for dating someone my dad didn’t approve of, yes, yes it is.”

I understand you might have been upset by demondoll’s comment, and understandably so, but let’s keep this clean. It’s legit for demondoll to be frustrated about cultural condescension, we write about that here too. Frustration at being talked down to need not negate recognition of real problems in the community.

Sigh, everybody, just … count to 100 or something and cool down before commenting again. Thanks.

Your problems with your loser family has nothing to do with what demondoll experienced….dont be such an attention *%%%4. why don’t you go to police instead of whining here. desi girls are way too soft ….:( if any man would had tried that shit with my sis i would play football with his head.

First of all, go fornicate with your inexcusably rude self. Second, I did go to the police and that’s why I’m still alive and responding to the likes of you. But thanks for making assumptions about me being “too soft”. Why so protective of Demondoll? And why so appallingly insulting towards millions of desi women you don’t even know? How lucky your sister is, to have such a compassionate sibling. “Loser family” indeed.