Brown power now!
A comment below set me off because it’s so dumb. In the 1980s brown Americans were so marginal that my parents were excited when they saw a little Indian boy in a cereal commercial. Today the man behind the skirt is <<<Saikat Chakrabarti>>>, a Communistic fellow of bhadralok, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley pedigree who …
AOC’s brain has gone and done it now!
I call Saikat Chakrabarti “AOC’s brain.” I think it is likely that he is responsible for her tweet’s that mention prescriptivism: Here is your Twitter Prescriptivism Prize 🏆 while you’re at it, try capitalizing my name next time. https://t.co/NbAV3HyqUR — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 9, 2018 Chakrabarti went to Harvard, studied computer science, then Wall …
Was India ever really “secular”?
Anton Wessels, a Reformed Christian professor of “missiology”, wrote a book many years ago, Europe: Was It Ever Really Christian? The title reflects on the fact that a secular ‘post-Christian’ Europe may never have been very Christian at all, at least in Wessels’ telling. Wessels writes from a Reformed Protestant perspective. This tradition has taken …
Is the social justice exterior overwhelming the Indian nationalist interior?
One of the most interesting things I have experienced over the past 15 years or so interacting with young Indian Americans, usually of Hindu background, is the disjunction between the scripts that they are inculcated with in their education in broader society, and the quite nationalistic/parochial perspectives that are imparted to them by their parents. …
Continue reading “Is the social justice exterior overwhelming the Indian nationalist interior?”
Easter Attacks in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka blasts: At least 137 dead and more than 150 injured in multiple church and hotel explosions: More than 137 people have been killed and more than 150 injured after coordinated bomb blasts hit a number of high-end hotels and churches in Sri Lanka on Sunday. The blasts, reported to have occurred in the …
BrownCast Podcast episode 26: Surya Yalamanchili, all-American desi on politics, India, and culture
Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above. You can also support the podcast as a patron (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than …
An Iyer in the Whitehouse
As most of you probably know, <<<Kamala Harris>>>’ <<<mother>>> (who raised her after she was divorced from Harris’ father was an immigrant from India. A Tamil Brahmin physician, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan Harris instilled a sense of Indian culture in her daughter. At least according to Harris’ Indian. The weird thing about Harris for me is … Continue reading “An Iyer in the Whitehouse”
Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act on Affirmative Action
Three comments 1 – He was relatively fair. I mean you knew what talking points he was going to deploy and what his conclusion was going to be. 2 – Minhaj is very American. A particular sort of American. Though the episode focuses on “Asian Americans”, Minhaj sounds like he was birthed out of The Daily … Continue reading “Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act on Affirmative Action”
Nikki Haley shows she’s a good politician in regards to religion too
This week on The Remnant podcast, Jonah Goldberg, whose wife works for Nikki Haley, expounded at length about her skill as a politician. His point, which is legitimate, is that Haley is well liked by the broad mass of Trump-supporting Republicans (if not elite pro-Trump idealogues), as well as Trump-skeptical conservatives. I’ve known of Nikki … Continue reading “Nikki Haley shows she’s a good politician in regards to religion too”
Global alliances and wheels within wheels
Over ten years ago I read Adam K. Webb’s Beyond the Global Culture War with some skepticism. In it, Webb outlined the future revitalization of non-Western societies and cultures and their ultimate face-off with global liberalism. It’s a really strange book, which talks positively about the Iranian Revolution and Rabindranath Tagore. But I think elements … Continue reading “Global alliances and wheels within wheels”
How Donald Trump is like Marxism and Psychoanalysis
Recently my Twitter and Facebook timelines have been littered with references to this story: Man, 92, Allegedly Beaten With a Brick & Told ‘Go Back to Mexico’ by a Mom in Front of Her Child. Terrible. It was posted on Twitter, and Facebook, as evidence that Donald Trump’s America was horrible. Some of the Twitter […]
The Nation of Islam has an antisemitism problem, and that’s about it
Currently, there is a mini-controversy of sorts related to antisemitism, Louis Farrakhan, and some organizers of the 2017 Women’s March. The main problem seems to be that these three co-chairs of the Women’s March, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Tamika Mallory, are balking at denouncing their association with and tacit tolerance of Farrakhan. In particular, […]
It isn’t what you say, it’s who you are
Sarah Haider in the talk above outlines the reality that she has particular privileges in regards to talking skeptically and critically of Islam because of who she is, not the force of her arguments. More precisely, her status as an immigrant, woman, and a person with brown skin, inoculates her against the reflexive charges of […]
Populism leads to tyranny
I just listened to the authors of How Democracies Die on NPR. First, the book might well have been titled “The necessity of liberalism.” Basically, democracy without liberalism is clearly not democracy in their judgment. But second, I was struck by their emphasis on the role of elites in dampening and diminishing the passions of […]
Why the Democratic wave may be bigger because of gerrymandering
I’ve been saying for a while that I think the Democrats will probably retake the House in 2018. More recently the probability seems to be getting higher and higher if you look at the generic ballot. But I noticed something on Twitter and made an observation which I think perhaps I should put here: the […]
Political polarization in the Twitter-sphere and how it will end
A few weeks ago a very Left-wing (I believe Marxist?) reciprocal follow on Twitter quoted Sebastian Gorka. I couldn’t see what was being said, so I assumed Gorka had blocked him. I clicked the link only to find that I was blocked by Gorka! This really confused me because to my knowledge I have never […]
Why Trump could murder someone and people would still support him
In 1683 the Ottoman Turk marched toward Vienna. John Sobieski, the king of Poland, became a hero to all Europe because of his defense of the Habsburgs in their time of need. In contrast, France had traditionally been a rival of the Habsburg monarchy. In honor of their tacit alliance with the Ottomans they rejected […]
The 100 Million Killed Under Communist Regimes Matter
Growing up as a child I didn’t know much about Communism except that it was bad. I knew that it was atheistic from what I had heard at the mosque……View Post
The cretin shall rise again
Roy Moore is almost certain to be the Junior Senator from Alabama soon enough. That much we know. Part of me takes pleasure in the victory, as it is true that the Republican establishment of states like Alabama is sclerotic and corrupt (just like the Democratic establishment of Illinois or California). Roy Moore is certainly […]
On the Rohingya issue
I have a post over at my primary blog, Rohingya Unmasking Complexity In A World We Want Simple. Because the Rohingya issue is going to be in the media spotlight for a bit in the near future we need to be clear about the deep historical facts, which frankly the press is going to not … Continue reading “On the Rohingya issue”