Racism Charges - A manifestation of attention seeking behaviour?

As the power shift across the globe happens towards the coloured countries, many complex soft issues are coming to forefront. Globalisation has resulted in increased interactions among hitherto excommunicated communities. Therefore people are probably taking time to understand each other and accept each other as equals and shed the historical notion of racial superiority. For example a British would really find it difficult to accept an Indian as an equal, though his actions may indicate otherwise. It's a result of deep rooted historical baggage and it will take time before the prosperity and power does a reasonable shifts to countries like India for them to be acknowledged as more than an underdog.

This underdog status is doing us more harm than good. It makes us more complacent in lesser time with lesser achievements. We fail to recognise that we are being elevated to a star status because people never expected us to do anything and we are, contrary to no expectations, are doing a few things right. We are very low in the Human Development Index and probably every other social index apart from SENSEX and GDP growth parameter, both of which doesnot necessarily mean a great life for the citizens of India (See my previous blog for details).
This zeal to be accepted into the upstream class of nations has resulted into hypersensitivity. If we dont have mettle clamour and unsettle. We find every small issue, blow it up and clamour and unsettle the biggies and in the end declare ourselves victorious. This is same as the self declared victories of Al Qaida. This attention seeking childish behaviour has resulted into many a racist attacks and indictments.

Shilpa shetty in a recent episode of Big Brother, a very popular Channel 4 show in UK, was called a 'dog' and an 'Indian'. Both are being used to prove that she was racially abused. I really find no sense in it. First of all calling her a dog shows a serious gap in understanding of gender on the part of the caller and she indeed is an Indian. So where is racism in the picture. Also there is every chance that the controversy might be a manufactured one, as it has potential to give cheap publicity to the show not only in UK but across the world.Herchelle Gibbs proclaimed the pakistani spectators as 'Bloody Animals'. Again I find it difficult to elicit any kind of racial connotation from the phrase. Ok it isnot a great thing to say but common, in a heated match things get much worse and the less said about it the better. Moreover Herschelle Gibbs himself is of coloured origin. So why would he abuse his own people, so to say. Again the attention seeking couloured world jumped to the occassion of flexing its muscle and make a issue out of nothing. We perhaps have made ourselves a butt of ridicule by being over sensitive. It gets us nothing but low self esteem.

In this age when Indians and other coloured people are rising to historical successes do we even need to care about racism. The rise itself is a slap on the face of the racists. The best way to disarm the remaining racists in the world is to ignore, just like we ignore a barking dog. Do we argue with it and ask him to take his bark back? Even if it does it gains us nothing except wasted time.

My grandfather used to tell me an interesting story about his childhood. His lower caste friends used to touch the food of brahmin guys while they were gulping down the tasty meal. The brahmin guys would immediately leave eating and rush back home to take bath, while his muslim friends would enjoy the meals. The sikh guys were smarter, they used to move the Kada once over periphery of the plate , while reciting the holy name and thus consecrating the food again. Thus sikh guys were unperturbed by the naughtiness of their muslim friends. We perhaps need to do the same thing. (Please not that this anecdote was used just as an illustration, it is not meant to hurt any sentiments, if at all.) A racial comment should be met with a smile over the ignorance of the abuser and without wasting any time we should continue towards the larger goals. If we donot learn to do that we might end up getting easily deflected from our meals ending up wasting water for taking baths.
(Pic from -> http://static.ibnlive.com/pix/sitepix/01_2007/shilpalead248.jpg)