29 November 1997, 990 words
Having spent the past two weeks closely studying all the Hindu columnists, I am going to attempt writing a real Indian column today. First, though, I have to change my first name. I thought of calling myself Kumar Baldeosingh, in tribute to my guru Kumar Mahabir. But then I thought that someone might write an unkind limerick about my new name. You know, like:
There once was a fellow named Kumar
Who was really kind of poohar.
Although he got a doctorate
His bigotry was so innate
That his mind remained an intellectual sewer.
So I have decided instead to call myself Kurma Baldeosingh. Not only is this an anagram of my guru's name, but it is virtually impossible to find a good rhyme to kurma. Besides, everyone likes kurma and anyone who doesn't is clearly racist. (Notice how closely I've studied Kumar's style.)
In emulation of the Hindu columnists, I intend to write only about racism. After all, Hindus form 25 percent of the population and race is the topic which interests 100 percent of Hindus. (CSO Report, 1995; Bamseelal, unpublished paper, 1992.) The question is, what angle am I going to use? Rajnie Ramlakhan writes about her fear of being raped and her objection to Iwer George singing about her as an Indian woman. (Express, November.) But I am a man and I think only persons for whom such issues are relevant should voice their objections, though this doesn't explain why Ms Ramlakhan has called for rapists to be castrated and Iwer's song to be banned.
Kumar and starboy commentator Anil Mahabir already attack the newspapers for their racial biases. I mean the newspapers' biases, of course, not Kumar's or Anil's. After all, Kamal Persad uses political history to show that Indians aren't racist but only reacting to PNM racism. (Express and Independent, 1996-1997) The Indian population in Trinidad is 40.3 percent and 91 percent support the UNC (Kumar Mahabir, Independent, Nov. 19.) India will have over one billion people in the new millenium.(The Economist) But the newspapers do not reflect this reality. In fact, looking at the world through my new Indian spectacles, I've now noticed that there is a lot of racism in all branches of the media.
Take commercials. Starboy commentator Anil Mahabir has often pointed out that Indian men are never the leads in commercials. But the situation is worse than that. When Indian men are used in commercials, it is often just to denigrate them.
Look at that Clayton's Cola Tonic ad. The Indian man is shown with a tall red woman. But what happens at the end? "You forgot the Clayton's," she says, and pushes him into the swimming pool! Clearly, this is meant to show that Indian men are both weak and have bad memories.
Or look at Craven A. Every man in that commercial is well-muscled except a briefly-glimpsed Indian youth with a hollow chest and a potbelly. Why was he not the lead, since he better represents the average smoker? And Indian men are just as subject to lung cancer as anyone else. Moreover, cigarette-smoking constricts blood vessel which can cause impotence in later life so the emasculated Indian man, as Anil Mahabir has described him, would be the natural lead for any tobacco commercial. (Presumably Anil was talking about himself since I don't feel emasculated. Of course, I don't smoke.)
It is only the Kiss bread commercial which has a powerful-looking Indian man: and he does not tow the illegally-parked car when given a sandwich, thus promoting the stereotype that Indians are easily bribed.
Still, I can't write only about television commercials. Kumar has done a lot of useful research in pointing out the anti-Indian biases in all the daily newspapers (Independent, every column). I can't do better than to develop Kumar's theme. For example, why is it that black commentators are given so much more space than Indian ones? Lloyd Best, Owen Baptiste, and Selwyn Ryan are given hundreds of column cms. Ryan's columns often run to over a thousand words whereas Burton Sankeralli's are usually only five hundred. Why is this so when Burton is so much more philosophically competent than Ryan? When the Indian revolution comes, it is Burton who will provide philosophical justification for State oppression, weak economy and official murder which are characteristics of all leftist States.
And the overthrow of the Creole hegemony will come, for Indians form 63.3 per cent of the population and 96.7 per cent of all Indians support the UNC. Yet the media still views Indians as interlopers in this country. Why is there not one column written in Hindi in any of the newspapers?
This bias is also shown by the fact that black editor Keith Smith has a daily column while starboy commentator Anil Mahabir has only a weakly one. Surely no one except a black supremacist, to borrow a phrase from guru-ji Kumar, could argue that Smith is a better writer than Anil. And why does Tony Deyal's column appear on the Internet when Anil's doesn't? Only a black fascist editor could think that Deyal's jokey column would have a broader international appeal than Anil's local politics of race.
But it is these black Nazi editors who fire words like bullets from the barrels of their pens from the fortresses of their newspapers (if I may paraphrase more of avatar Kumar's eloquent imagery) who decide what goes into the papers. And why are Kumar and Kamal Persad only allowed to write fortnightly in the Independent? After all, Indians form 83.6 per cent of the populace and 99.8 percent support the UNC and why people should want to have public meetings at all when this Government so perfect, Ramesh should lock up all dey asses...
Man, this Indian writing thing is harder than I thought. I think I'll go have a bath and then read some philosophy. For some reason, I'm feeling both nasty and stupid.
Copyright ©1997, Kevin Baldeosingh