I am Becoming Racist
This is going to be controversial naturally so I have made a throw away account to post this.
I need help not being prejudiced towards people from India. Sadly I have really started to notice some racist tendencies in myself regarding Indian people. I live in an area that has had an explosion of immigration from India. I work in early childhood development at a school that has a large population of Indians. They’re mostly from Punjab and Haryana as I understand it. The following are what I consider to be the driving reasons behind my growing disdain for these people
- our school has had to stop hiring male aides for early childhood because the Indian immigrant children come in absolutely petrified of them. They will run and scream and cry if I grown man approaches them no matter their race. I have never experienced this in any other group of children. When we address this with parents they either don’t speak enough English to understand or do not see the problem.
- regarding my last point, the men hardly seem human to me at times. Which is an absolutely despicable thing to say about someone but after genuinely fearing being in public spaces with them I’m starting to naturally associate young Indian men with danger. I believe these children’s mothers spend so much of their early life instilling in them a fear of grown men that they can’t even be in a classroom with them. (Perhaps for good reason?)
- before I started in ECE I worked retail. My coworkers and I would fight over who was forced to help Indian customers. They snap at you, never utter the word please or thank you, and generally have an air about them that you couldn’t be any more important to them than the dirt on their shoe. I attribute this to the caste system however those I’ve spoken to said recent immigrants are from lower castes than those previously. Also…caste system…really?
- on a small anecdotal note, I had a long time friend who was a beautician and ran a very successful beauty parlor. A true business bitch! Suddenly she took a “family” trip to India and never returned. Her parents married her off. Basically kidnapped her. Her business was left in the hands of who I don’t even know and has since failed.
Let me state OBVIOUSLY this does not represent an entire race of people as a whole, however it’s becoming too common for me to not ignore. I would have never really considered myself a racist person before this but I genuinely find myself disliking every Indian person I come across now. It’s so hard because I absolutely adore my students and they are the absolute light of my world but the culture they’re often coming from breaks my heart. I will say, I do have a lot of parents who absolutely revere me as the person who is educating their child. They are very kind and often bring gifts and treats for my staff. I can’t say they would have treated me as well as a cashier in a department store however. This is more of a rant but also a sort of cry for help. I feel so guilty feeling this way, and I feel like I need help not having this attitude towards Indian people. I consider myself to be a very progressive person, and I feel I am pretty aware of my own moral shortcomings. This is definitely one of them. But it feels as though every freaking day, every negative notion I have of Indian people they are stoking the fire. Is there a reason it seems so bad now? I remember growing up I had quite a few Indian friends, their families were kind, and I never really had any negative thoughts towards them as a people. Now, if I walk into a public place with a group of Indian men, I just walk right out. It’s not worth the harassment. I decided to post in this community because I think it will reach more people with different viewpoints and experiences to help me understand.
EDIT TO ADD: I live in the US. Everyone is assuming Canada and damn! I can only assume Canada is going through something similar based on these comments. Sorry tried to add a user flair but couldn’t figure it out.
EDIT AGAIN: A lot of folks in the comments are pointing out that it is much more cultural than race based. I agree with this fully but conveyed that poorly in my post. If anyone of any culture was acting the same way I would feel similarly. This is mainly about a large influx of people from cultures entirely differently from my own coming in and “causing problems” so to speak. I do think my post was worded harshly and I could have been more articulate but I was venting. I do want to really emphasize that I do not think all Indian people are like this and it really is only this new group of people that my area is experiencing.
