Is Hindutva-pop cringe?
The New York Times, India’s Soundtrack of Hate, With a Pop Sheen – Mixing dance tracks with calls for religious warfare, Hindutva pop amplifies a wave of Hindu nationalism in Narendra Modi’s India. The title says it all. I am not personally invested in Hindutva (I’m American, it would make as much sense as an …
{{{Brahmins}}} do not descend from a common group
I don’t know if I mentioned it, so I will do so here: Brahmins do not seem to form a natural descent group from a common ancestral population. I say this because Vagheesh Narasimhan looked into the question, and the model could not be made to work. That being said, Brahmin groups do not seem …
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Why brown Americans find ethnic and national factionalism amusing sometimes
What do they call a light-skinned Punjabi? “The brown guy.” What do they call the Pakistani Muslim? “The guy who worships cows.” What do they call the sharp-featured Khatri? “The Indian looking girl.” What do they call the black-skinned Tamil? “The brown guy.” What do they call the pale Pandit? “The brown guy.” What do …
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Brown American in 2019
Interesting interview of Zoomers by Millennial Hasan Minhaj. Especially interesting to me because I’m Gen-X. Near the end, there is a reference to the fact that the diversity within Indian Americans is something that these kids wish people understood more. One of the things that the old Sepia Mutiny blog made many Gen-X and Millennial …
Maacher Jhol!
Think Indians Are Mostly Non-Vegetarian, Or Only ‘Upper Castes’ Are Otherwise? This Menu Smriti Will Change Your Views: In fact, if we discount the smaller states (Northeast excluding Assam and Goa) and consider the rest, we are left with only three provinces across the country where the meat-eating percentage on a weekly basis is in …
The native and the coconut civilization
Recently a discussion emerged on Twitter about the relative success of Indians in America and Indian Americans and the origins of that success. While Noah Smith pointed to their cultural and economic status to begin the conversation, W. Bradford Wilcox noted the stability of the marriages of Indian Americans. There are lots of directions one […]
Food!
A commenter below mentioned offhand how they didn’t like beef. Myself, I love beef. And growing up beef curry was something we ate a lot. Since we were Bengali we ate more fish and shrimp of course. I had assumed that among Muslims in the Indian subcontinent this would be common, least outside of Hindu-majority …
The shadow of the crescent
Obviously I have not had much time to write on my blogs recently. But I thought I would pass on a casual judgement I have come to in regards to Indians, and particularly Hindus. Their mentality is powerfully shaped by the Other. This is true of modern Muslims as well obviously. As Bernard Lewis would …
Indian Twitter shows why a “universal translator” wouldn’t work
India is one of the top countries on Twitter. And, since many Indians have some command of English, they interact somewhat with the English-speaking Twitter crowd which is mostly based in the USA and UK. But, the differences in style, idiom, and cultural references, make conversations often very difficult and totally incomprehensible. Despite the fact …
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To catch a hypocrite: looking up revealed preferences
One of the strange things about the whole Justin Trudeau brown/black-face affair is that it makes someone like me, nonwhite, but unconvinced of the extreme racism of most white people, reflect a bit. I spent my formative years in overwhelmingly white environments and didn’t encounter that much racism. I did not know anyone who did […]
The Indian cultural Left is in India, but not of India
A comment on Twitter about the lack of the Islamic world’s own Arundhati Roys, and therefore the lack of Leftism. My own reaction is that this is wrong. There is plenty of Leftism in the Islamic world, just not the sort of cultural criticism that Arundhati Roy specializes in. To give an example, the PLO …
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America does a good job assimilating immigraints
Priyanka Chopra tweeted during a time when we were this 👌🏽 close to sending nukes to one another. Instead of advocating for peace she tweeted in support of the Indian army pic.twitter.com/LhbMkOW59v — Ayesha Malik (@Spishaa) August 11, 2019 If you are lucky, you are not aware that Priyanka Chopra got “called out” by a …
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America does a good job assimilating immigraints
Priyanka Chopra tweeted during a time when we were this 👌🏽 close to sending nukes to one another. Instead of advocating for peace she tweeted in support of the Indian army pic.twitter.com/LhbMkOW59v — Ayesha Malik (@Spishaa) August 11, 2019 If you are lucky, you are not aware that Priyanka Chopra got “called out” by a …
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A matter of representation
Several readers have brought it up in the comments, and it even cropped up in a secret message group I’m in, so I need to talk about this issue I guess. There is a serious lack of representation in the 2019 winning team from the United State of America in the International Math Olympiad. Except …
Little Qatar playing the Soviet Union in our time
It’s cool how Jake Tapper compares occupied Palestinians to white nationalists while he’s actually giving them a platform on his own show (Richard Spencer most recently). Collect your man @cnn. — Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) August 5, 2019 There is a little Twitter tiff going on because of what seems like a misunderstanding (misrepresentation?) of what …
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Memory outlives flesh
In the comments below a reader asks a legitimate question: why the focus on Indo-Aryans when the most probably model suggests that even among the most “Aryan” of South Asian groups the ancestry attributable to the Andronovo-Sintashta people are only on the order of 30%? In most of northern South Asia, the fraction is probably …
American culture in 2019
I think cultural influence and power outlasts and lags peak military or economic power. Greek culture with the rise of Rome, Roman culture during the post-Roman period in the West, and Italian art as the locus of power was shifting north in Europe during the early modern period. So it will be with American culture. […]
A darker shade of brown
On the individual level who you find attractive and what you find attractive is your own deal. I’m not one to go exhorting anyone to anything. To be frank I find “campaigns” to make x more attractive a bit cringe. It’s like the joke about having to explain to someone that actually you are very …
An American twist on “joint-family” (?)
The real reason polyamory is the future – homes with only 2 parents can no longer afford children. https://t.co/msJW5ZgRVo
— Eliezer Yudkowsky (@ESYudkowsky) June 15, 2019
The world turned upside down
They are told it’s the Kali Yuga, and they rejoice!
The Dharma and the Dao are needful
As they are what not to do!
Striving to virtue is sin,
Abnegation of indulgence the ultimate betrayal of self.
There is no god above to glorify,
Just a sense …