Doubly Deprived : outlookindia.com: "Sandipan Chatterjee
The Missionaries of Charity orphanage
RACISM
Doubly Deprived
Dark-skinned babies find few takers at adoption agencies
Anuradha Raman
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When it comes to adoption, fair is forever lovely and black is never beautiful. Social workers in charge of orphanages add this grim footnote to the many happy stories of orphans being rehabilitated—dark-skinned babies find it difficult to find parents willing to adopt them.
Couples approaching these orphanages have a typical wishlist that comprises the following:
The baby should be fair;
It should have 'good features';
It should be young, preferably three months old; and
It must be in perfect health.
While official figures are hard to come by, of the 3,000 adoptions that took place in the country last year, the demand for fair-skinned babies was estimated to be as high as 65 per cent.
Most dark babies are adopted by Westerners aiming to give a child a family.
Interestingly, many of the dark-skinned children were adopted by westerners, most of whom, according to social workers, come to India with the sole aim of providing a family to a child. 'It is a charitable act, done in the service of mankind,' says J.
K. Mittal, chairman, Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), a nodal government agency which oversees adoptions in the country. Mittal feels the search for a fair child is part of the Indian psyche. His associate, Sunita, says very often the reason parents cite for rejecting a child is that it is dark-skinned.
A social wo"
Saturday, June 27, 2009
'India Is Racist, And Happy About It' : outlookindia.com
'India Is Racist, And Happy About It' : outlookindia.com: "OPINION
'India Is Racist, And Happy About It'
A Black American's first-hand experience of footpath India: no one even wants to change
Diepiriye Kuku
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In spite of friendship and love in private spaces, the Delhi public literally stops and stares. It is harrowing to constantly have children and adults tease, taunt, pick, poke and peer at you from the corner of their eyes, denying their own humanity as well as mine. Their aggressive, crude curiosity threatens to dominate unless disarmed by kindness, or met with equal aggression.
Once I stood gazing at the giraffes at the Lucknow Zoo only to turn and see 50-odd families gawking at me rather than the exhibit. Parents abruptly withdrew infants that inquisitively wandered towards me.
On a visit to the Lucknow zoo, people gawked more at me than at the exhibits.
I felt like an exotic African creature-cum-spectacle, stirring fear and awe. Even my attempts to beguile the public through simple greetings or smiles are often not reciprocated. Instead, the look of wonder swells as if this were all part of the
act and we were all playing our parts.
Racism is never a personal experience. Racism in India is systematic and independent of the presence of foreigners of any hue. This climate permits and promotes this lawlessness and disdain for dark skin. Most Indian pop icons have light-damn-near-white skin. Several stars even promote skin-bleaching creams that promise to improve one’s popularity and career success. Matrimonial ads boast of fair, v. fair and v. very fair skin alongside foreign visas and advanced university d"
'India Is Racist, And Happy About It'
A Black American's first-hand experience of footpath India: no one even wants to change
Diepiriye Kuku
e-mail one page format feedback: send - read
In spite of friendship and love in private spaces, the Delhi public literally stops and stares. It is harrowing to constantly have children and adults tease, taunt, pick, poke and peer at you from the corner of their eyes, denying their own humanity as well as mine. Their aggressive, crude curiosity threatens to dominate unless disarmed by kindness, or met with equal aggression.
Once I stood gazing at the giraffes at the Lucknow Zoo only to turn and see 50-odd families gawking at me rather than the exhibit. Parents abruptly withdrew infants that inquisitively wandered towards me.
On a visit to the Lucknow zoo, people gawked more at me than at the exhibits.
I felt like an exotic African creature-cum-spectacle, stirring fear and awe. Even my attempts to beguile the public through simple greetings or smiles are often not reciprocated. Instead, the look of wonder swells as if this were all part of the
act and we were all playing our parts.
Racism is never a personal experience. Racism in India is systematic and independent of the presence of foreigners of any hue. This climate permits and promotes this lawlessness and disdain for dark skin. Most Indian pop icons have light-damn-near-white skin. Several stars even promote skin-bleaching creams that promise to improve one’s popularity and career success. Matrimonial ads boast of fair, v. fair and v. very fair skin alongside foreign visas and advanced university d"
Our True Colours : outlookindia.com
Our True Colours : outlookindia.com: "Our True Colours
(3 of 3)
Like a tool to help climb up the social ladder. Adds D.K. Bhattacharya, a retired anthropology professor from Delhi University, 'There are reports from Africa where indigenous people would smear their face with limestone during Christian ceremonies to resemble the white missionaries.'
Prakash C. Jain, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, who has studied the Indian diaspora, says there has also been an 'undercurrent of racism' between people of Indian origin and Africans in Africa. Traditionally, most Indians limited social interaction with Africans and stayed in separate housing estates. Intermarriage was practically non-existent in South Africa, with just 57 instances from the pre-World War II era to the '60s, he points out.
A liquor vend in Mumbai boycotts Foster’s
For T.K. Oommen, emeritus professor of sociology at JNU, racism combines elements of 'culturalism' and 'ethnicism'. So there is the broad, implicit and very prevalent idea that Africans are culturally and ethnically inferior to Indians. 'Indians have always made such distinctions. Look at the Shiv Sena that targets non-Maharashtrians or the Lachit Sena that targeted non-Assamese,' he says.
Mumbaikars befriending whites
This cultural chauvinism also explains why discrimination based on colour in India is limited not just to the blacks, but surfaces even against the whites sometimes. Julia Sullivan (name changed on request), an Australian postgraduate student at Pune University, feels it is because she represents a different culture. People from her apartment complex once came into her flat and accused her, point blank, of"
(3 of 3)
Like a tool to help climb up the social ladder. Adds D.K. Bhattacharya, a retired anthropology professor from Delhi University, 'There are reports from Africa where indigenous people would smear their face with limestone during Christian ceremonies to resemble the white missionaries.'
Prakash C. Jain, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, who has studied the Indian diaspora, says there has also been an 'undercurrent of racism' between people of Indian origin and Africans in Africa. Traditionally, most Indians limited social interaction with Africans and stayed in separate housing estates. Intermarriage was practically non-existent in South Africa, with just 57 instances from the pre-World War II era to the '60s, he points out.
A liquor vend in Mumbai boycotts Foster’s
For T.K. Oommen, emeritus professor of sociology at JNU, racism combines elements of 'culturalism' and 'ethnicism'. So there is the broad, implicit and very prevalent idea that Africans are culturally and ethnically inferior to Indians. 'Indians have always made such distinctions. Look at the Shiv Sena that targets non-Maharashtrians or the Lachit Sena that targeted non-Assamese,' he says.
Mumbaikars befriending whites
This cultural chauvinism also explains why discrimination based on colour in India is limited not just to the blacks, but surfaces even against the whites sometimes. Julia Sullivan (name changed on request), an Australian postgraduate student at Pune University, feels it is because she represents a different culture. People from her apartment complex once came into her flat and accused her, point blank, of"
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