I never said Indian men love white women

OH? I believe it was implied in comment #136.

I love how some people just love to make this all “you’re a white woman and obsessed with yourself” bullcrap.

Well that’s exactly what you’re doing..you even admit it. I mean, it’s nice you’ve found a nice man of Indian origin etc etc but we got the point after the first 20 times of you saying so.

I don’t go around telling them “oh poor you, stop crying… ” I know what it is like and I know how frustrating it can be to have people judge you before meeting you and stereotype you into a box. (Like, you Jenna, and some others have done to me on Sepia Mutiny as well).

I never told you “oh poor you, stop crying”. &when did I stereotype you? I said a lot of Indian guys view white women to be sluttish but that does not mean I believe that.

Too many people are too busy feeling upset and slighted by the ‘white woman’ that dares to make any comment about South Asia that they don’t really seem to notice that we have more in common than we have to fight about

Really, who? I’m not getting upset over you being a white woman commenting on a South Asian blog, I think it’s great you’re open to new cultures, I’m upset because you make everything about yourself. Take the blog about Air India, you commented, which is fine but somehow you managed to make that about you having a half Indian kid. There is nothing about your experience in India or anything.

Many of my comments end up being about me, because it seems I need to constantly attempt to prove to others here that I am “allowed” to have an opinion about anything related to South Asia

. 1) You don’t need to prove anything, most people on here are pretty open to listening to everyones views. YOU are the one bringing your own judgements about Indian people here. 2) You making everything about yourself is an attempt to prove you are allowed to have your own opinion doesn’t make sense. Here’s a little lesson: If you need to prove to someone you are “allowed” to have an opinion, you are wasting your time, because you (and they) should know everyone is entitled to an opinion. But see, you have this complex where you think everyone despises you, when in reality, YOU ARE WELCOME TO SPEAK YOUR MIND. You want to talk about an issue regarding south Asians? Feel free, my friend. What annoys me is when you comment, it’s about something completely irrelevant and (surprise) yourself.

Before I respond to you, I read your comments in their entirety before responding.

If you can’t return the favor, don’t bother replying.

You seem to be like many Desis, know-it-alls, who can’t stand when non-Desis dispell your worldview.

So you are a dark-skinned South Indian of a low Hindu caste who is dating a “gora” (white man), probably Republican, and believe in the meritocracy myth of America, where if you pull yourself up by your boot straps, you will succeed. You are probably against affirmative action, thinking South Asians have not benefited from it.

I am pseudo-socialist who believes that those in a position of wealth should ensure a redistribution of wealth for those less fortunate. This comes from Islam, where Muslims are mandated to pay the zakat (poor alms – obligatory charity) to those less fortunate in society.

I don’t disagree with affirmative action. Even if I would not benefit in the educational realm, South Asians have benefited from affirmative action in the rewarding of government contracts, etc.

“Socialism” and “communism” are not bad words, don’t buy into the Right-wing Islamophobic sentiments that “Islam was a reign of terror in Indian history.” I’ve been to those websites, and the historical record is much more complex.

Before pursuing the medical field, I was interested in social studies and history. Yes, I didn’t want to ghettoize myself into the sciences and engineering, I resisted what my parents demanded and pursued what I liked.

I sense your rather conservative, whereas I am more liberal on many fronts.

Well, if you don’t read everything, you will come across misunderstanding my viewpoint by selecting statements out of context.

Pogrom called you a modi apologist, not I!

No nation is perfect, but for your information, I would say “Jai Hind” before I would say “Pakistani Zindabad.”

Even though I may be biased to Pakistan in favor of India, I will not pretend that India is not without its flaws.

The same goes for the US and its policies towards Afghanistan since the Cold War.

Afghanistan was the victim of Cold War rivalries between the “free world” and communism.

Not all Communism is bad, the Communist Party of Indonesia were quite progressive. But the US crushed that party and thousands were slaughtered on the streets of Jakarta by government forces.

As a Muslim, I have an internationalist perspective, but I am no armchair jihadist.

Dude most of your statements I have stopped reading. I mean you state some things that have no relevance at all. Anyways this whole convo has derailed the thread. But I’m afraid like most of what you say, the above statement is full of holes and I suggest you read more on the analysis of Kerala’s major problems and successes and it’s history.

In the Umayyid period, the Arab rulers relied on Greek speaking Christians to do the administrative work of the empire. While Arabic was the liturgical language of the empire, Greek was the administrative language of the empire.

The Mughals operated on a similar basis. True, Hindus who converted to Islam did so because of the social perks and prestige that came with it. In fact, some Muslim Desis I know admit to having Hindu branches of their family tree, and anecdotal stories of how their family became Muslim was not because of a sincere belief that Islam was “truth,” it was about the social perks that came with it when northern India was ruled by Muslim sovereigns.

Few Muslim Indians are foreign in origins, though some may have Persian, Arab, or Turkish origins, the vast majority and their lineage have always been on the subcontinent.

Sameer, based on your name, I would assume you are at least of a Desi Muslim background.

What is so hypocritical about my statements?

Did I not acknowledge the shortcomings of my community. Kerala’s success is due to the Communist Party and their enlightened policies.

Shintoism is similar to Hinduism, it is a religion whose oral traditions and sacred texts are tied to the geography of the Japanese archipelago. It is a religion that arose out of the local traditions of various localities, and eventually codified after Buddhism ascended in Japan.

In my Asian studies classes, modern Hinduism was a reaction to the ascendancy of Buddhism under Emperor Ashoka in India. Buddhism was essentially wiped out of India by Hindu persecution, by priests who desired to reinstall the old pantheon of Gods.

Buddhism has been persecuted by Muslims, Hindus, Confucians, and Shintos alike. In China, Buddhism was initially deemed a “foreign Indian” religion which contradicted with the ethos of the Han Chinese. China and India do have strikingly different civilizations. Buddhism gradually replaced the Hindu religion practiced by Southeast Asians from Thailand to Indonesia.

Islam under the Malaki Sunni Madhab eventually replaced Buddhism in maritime Malay Southeast Asia due to Indian Muslim traders. To the Malays, Islam was viewed as “another Indian religion” in a long succession of Indian faiths to replace the previous ones.

I am a secular cultural Shia Muslim. Afghanistan is on the “Indian frontier” and our culture has been shaped by cultural, theological, and historical developments that took place on the subcontinent.

We Afghans sing Indian wedding songs at our nikahs/shaadis. We incorporate Hindi/Urdu in our speech, even if our languages might be Pashto, Dari (eastern Persian dialect), Uzbek, Tajik, and other Turkic languages. Our culture is a hybrid of Persian, Indian, and Turkish influences with native elements.

The Taliban is like Pol Pot’s vision of Cambodia, an abrasion to the traditional Sufi Islam of Afghanistan that had its shortcomings, but was surprisingly tolerant.

Yeah, I agree, I mean Hinduism has some of the oldest written books for religion…it is certainly different than many “tribal” religions not under the umbrella of Hinduism. Of course there is also the specifics of particular regions…its geography, history, etc to why said religion survived. It’s very silly to assume b/c Hinduism, Sikhism, thrived in parts of South Asia that that meant the way Islam was practiced was tolerant. Considering all the beautiful temples that were destroyed over centuries and historical record that shows how rulers ruled, there was definintely “worst than Modi” type genocide and violence going on, and presently goes on in certain regions of Islam controlled govts. Your hypocritical and false assertions continue to amaze me Gustavo.

That seems to have a tinge of hubris. They could have made another extinct, but they chose not to. What Arab religions exist today? What Afghan religions exist today in Afghanistan? Very few if any. Perhaps it was not so much that Muslim rulers were not “truly” intolerant of some weaker group, but that the other group was able to withstand and survive unlike Arab, Iranian, Afghan religions in those countries.

If this were slashdot.org, I’d have modded this +5 Informative.

You don’t have to look very far for another “Priti”. Even Anna, who posts here, always asserts her Malyalee Christian identity. I’ve also heard the ridiculous claim from an “aunty” who has lived here for the past 20 years or so that her kids were “more Indian” than kids who were brought up in India.

If the Muslim rulers of India were truly intolerant, Hinduism would have become extinct or have few followers left like Jainism with only an estimated 5 million adherents today.

The 12 million displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs as a result of partition was not an intended consequence or designed by the Muslim League.