The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Monday, November 5, 2018— 3A

Everything except the food

If you know me, the last 
thing you’ll mistake me for is 
being a picky eater.
Be it American food, Italian 
food, Chinese food or anything 
in between, I’ve probably tried 
it. Heck, I’ve even eaten fried 
silk worms in Thailand — trust 
me, they’re actually pretty 
good. But for whatever reason, 
the one food I never liked 
growing up was sadly, my 
own. Even though my parents, 
sister and grandparents in the 
states always loved Sri Lankan 
food, I personally never found 
it appealing.
Some of that I can pinpoint 
back to my seventh birthday 
party, on my first of six trips to 
Sri Lanka. Like any birthday 
party, it had cake, gifts and 
lots of people I barely knew 
showering me with hugs and 
kisses and pinching my cheeks 
until I was sore. When it got to 
dinner though, I expected all 
the food I liked, because it was 
my party.
Instead of trays of pizza, 
mac and cheese, and BBQ, 
however, I was greeted by 
chicken 
curry, 
parippu 
(a 

Sri Lankan version of dhal) 
and many other vegetables 
that didn’t seem the least bit 
appealing to a first grader 
dropped in a foreign country 
for the first time.
Naturally, 
I 
complained 
to my dad that I couldn’t eat 
anything at my own birthday 
party. That sounds reasonable 
enough, 
right? 
Well, 
he 
certainly 
didn’t 
think 
so, 
telling me to “never ask that 
again” and that I would enjoy 
Sri Lankan food for the rest of 
our trip. It might sound sort 
of shallow, but when you’re a 
kid, you don’t always want to 
do what your parents say. So I 
made it a point for the rest of 
my trip to eat as little curry, as 
little anything Sri Lankan, as 
possible.
And each time I came 
back to Sri Lanka, there was 
always some kind of dread in 
the back of my mind. Sure, I 
loved seeing my family who 
lived there, and I thoroughly 
enjoyed 
going 
to 
the 
tea 
plantations, 
beaches 
and 
temples around the country, 
but as petty it was, there was 
at least three moments every 
day I didn’t feel right.
What 
I 
didn’t 
realize 
then, and until recently, is 

appreciating 
your 
culture 
doesn’t 
mean 
liking 
everything about it. In the 
United States, there are so 
many things wrong with our 
society, but at the end of the 
day, being an American means 
accepting people for who they 
are, no matter what you don’t 
like about them.
That wasn’t a conclusion 
that was easy for me to reach 
until after the 2016 election, 
which created an environment, 
from my point of view, that 
made it easy for people to 
hate what was different with 
others rather than trying to 
appreciate those gaps. 
But it gave me a new outlook 
on my time in Sri Lanka. 
Though I wasn’t necessarily 
a fan of the food, I came 
back this summer with a new 
mindset. To truly accept my 
culture didn’t mean I had to 
love every single part of it, 
but it does mean I have to try 
my best to see the positives in 
every single part of it.
For the first time in ages, I 
miss Sri Lankan food. While I 
sit here writing this, enjoying 
a slice of New York Pizza 
Depot, something small inside 
me misses those vegetables.

RIAN RATNAVALE
Daily Sports Writer

Finding solidarity with other marginalized groups

I was recently at an open mic 
night for LGBTQ folks to tell 
their coming out stories. I was 
pleasantly surprised to find 
that, for a predominately white 
institution like the University 
of 
Michigan, 
the 
speakers 
and audience were both of 
a 
surprisingly 
multiracial 
composition. 
This 
pleasant 
feeling 
was 
unfortunately 
soon to leave me. Speaker after 
speaker told their narratives, 
some of which were heart-
wrenching, some of which were 
inspiring, most were both. I 
was transfixed by the sheer 
emotional weight of some of the 
stories, and by the bravery of 
the people who were willing to 
come up in front of an audience 
of at least a hundred to tell 
them.
This trance was soon broken. 
A white person walked up to the 

microphone to tell their story 
of coming out as nonbinary. 
A warning sign came when 
they described their boss only 
as “Indian,” with a sly wink 
to the audience, when what 
they meant to convey was that 
he was socially conservative, 
but 
instead 
chose 
to 
only 
showcase this by relying on 
misconceptions about Indian 
cultural 
values. 
I 
should 
mention this alone is a huge 
misconception 
about 
Indian 
notions of gender and sexuality 
— for one example among 
many, in pre-colonial India, 
hijras, as people identifying 
as neither male nor female are 
called, held important court 
positions, 
were 
considered 
religious authorities and often 
were sought after for blessings. 
It was only after the British 
imposed Western values on 
colonized India that they began 
to experience discrimination 
and criminalization, and the 
country is still in the process 

of decolonizing its cultural 
mindset.
This 
assumption 
about 

collective 
Indian 
ideas 
on 
gender 
and 
sexuality 
is 
offensive, but unfortunately it 
was not the worst thing in their 
monologue. I didn’t think much 
of it until a minute or two later, 
when, recounting an experience 
with 
their 
aforementioned 
Indian boss, they voiced him in 
a full-on racist stereotype Apu-
style Indian accent. To make it 
worse, about halfway through 
their imitation they tapered 
off to a half-assed-but-still-
derogatory 
accent, 
meaning 

they must have known that the 
accent was racist, performed 
it anyways, and then decided 
halfway through that maybe to 
do so was not the greatest idea.
To anyone who might dismiss 
imitating an accent as harmless: 
It’s not. To do so is a form 
of cultural imperialism that 
reduces the rich experiences of 
an entire group of people down 
to a singularity that is easy to 
mock, easy to other and easy to 
exclude. Being the only Indian 
kid in my grade in elementary 
school, middle school and one of 
two in high school, I can barely 
count the number of times 
another kid imitated an Indian 
accent in front of me, either as 
a way to try to make fun of my 
father (who doesn’t even have 
an accent), as a way to poke 
fun at my ethnic background 
or as a way to draw attention to 
my otherness. In each of these 
instances, I felt humiliated and 
often wished I didn’t have to be 
different — something no kid 

should ever have to feel.
There also seems to be a 
misconception 
among 
many 
people 
that 
holding 
one 
minority identity gives you a 
free pass to oppress others. 
The fact that this person was 
nonbinary absolutely does not 

give them a right to be racist. 
If anything, the fact that this 
occurred at an open mic night 
for LGBTQ folks makes it even 
worse — it was intended to be 
a safe space for marginalized 
people of all ethnic and racial 
backgrounds, and their outright 
racism violated the sanctity of 
that space. The same holds for 

people of color who discriminate 
against other people of color. 
Even back in school, most of the 
kids who made fun of me were 
also nonwhite (but not Indian), 
but they were still propagating 
racist attitudes against another 
minority group, and that is 
not acceptable no matter your 
color. Every one of us holds 
multiple identities, be it race, 
gender, sexuality or any other; 
in any one aspect, I may be 
more privileged than you or 
you may be more privileged 
than me. Those of us who don’t 
belong to the majority, for any 
aspect of our identity, must 
be careful not to promulgate 
forms of oppression against 
other 
marginalized 
groups. 
Fighting for social justice is 
not about cherry picking which 
marginalized groups you care 
to empower and disregarding 
the rest. Regardless of if we are 
people of color, LGBTQ or any 
other group, we should show 
solidarity.

DANYEL THARAKAN
MiC Columnist

Exploitation in The NFL

The 
prosperity 
of 
the 
modern 
National 
Football 
League in the U.S. is aided 
by 
white 
supremacy, 
i.e., 
the 
marginalization, 
commoditization 
and 
exploitation of the Black body.
It is clear that owners, 
affiliates, 
administration 
members, and even sports 
analysts and professors profit 
more from the game than 
the players themselves after 
the costs of time, energy and 
well-being are accounted for. 
Yet, opponents of this theory 
argue playing football is a 
choice, and if people don’t 
want to be taken advantage of, 
they shouldn’t play football. 
Or worse, even if Black players 
are being taken advantage of, 
it’s not that bad because they 
still make a lot of money. But 
these 
notions 
perpetuate 
harmful stereotypes about the 
intellect, responsibility and 
the agency of Black players. 
Further, these ideas fail to 
acknowledge the deep-seeded 
truth: Black players are used 
for their bodies to make their 
owners a profit at 
the expense of 
their 
own 
sanity 
and 

well-
being.

The average 
player in the NFL 
is paid $2 million a 
year. The average owner 
makes between $20 million 
and $500 million a year. That 
means even on the lower end, 
owners make ten times on the 
lower quartile of their pay 
scale more than players on 
the median/average quartile 
do. 
Not 
to 
mention, 
the 
injuries sustained in football 
are unparalleled to any other 
modern day, hegemonic sport. 
According to the New York 
Times and TIME magazine, 
“The link between football 
and traumatic brain injury 
continues to strengthen. Now, 
one of the largest studies on 
the subject to date finds that 
110 out of 111 deceased NFL 
players had chronic traumatic 
encephalopathy 
(CTE), 
a 
degenerative brain disorder 
associated 
with 
repetitive 
head trauma.” CTE can cause 
impulse 
control 
problems, 
aggression, 
depression 
and 
paranoia. As time goes on, 
problems with thinking and 

memory develop: memory loss, 
confusion, impaired judgment 
and 
eventually 
progressive 
dementia.
Everything these players 
do, from putting their (mostly 
colored) bodies on the line 
in the name of money, to 
contracting a disease as severe 
as CTE, is political. These 
players, mostly of color, are 
doing 
everything 
in 
their 
power to make a living by 
playing 
a 
very 
dangerous 
game. The owners reap far 
too many of the benefits 
for this to not be aided by 
larger power structures, like 
white supremacy, or owner 
versus player administrative 
dynamics. 
The 
amount 
of 
money these players produce 
versus how much they are paid 
versus how much the owners 
of teams are paid 
is 
absolutely 

astounding 
once one has done 
their due diligence with the 
research.
70 percent of the NFL is 
Black, and yet there exists 
a 
dull 
hum 
around 
that 
statistic. This is a reality few 
openly 
acknowledge. 
It 
is 
never a headline on ESPN, 
nor is it ever discussed in 
depth. 
Colin 
Kaepernick’s 
act of kneeling during the 
national 
anthem 
sparked 
nationwide controversy over 
the 
patriotism 
of 
football 
players, and whether they are 
required to stand for a country 
that does not stand for them. 
There 
is 
undoubtedly 
an 
expectation of colorblindness 
and respect for the American 
flag despite the fact white 
and Black counterparts of 
same crime are treated vastly 
differently by judicial system, 
killings of unarmed Black 
men is a reality, white cops 
shooting with impunity, etc. 

Participants of sports have 
long been encouraged to be 
apolitical and ignorant of 
social conditions, even though 
their bodies inherently occupy 
political space because of the 
United States’ legacy of slavery, 
colonialism and Jim Crow. 
When sportscasters try to 
engage in conversations about 
race or white supremacy, they 
are disciplined or fired. (See: 
Kaepernick, 
Jemele 
Hill). 
Further, 
these 
repressive 
consequences that result from 
discussing the color of the 
talent and/or socio-political 
factors that push players into 
football breed colorblindness.
If we don’t talk about how 
the best and most talented 
players in football tend to be 
Black and undercompensated 
compared 
to 
the 
white 
administrators, 
public 
and 
popular 
discourse 
will 
remark 
that 
disparities 
do 
not 
exist. 
This 

blindness 
(and 
ignorance) 
is 
profitable. Maintaining 
the 
status 
quo 
is 
profitable. Failing to 
understand or combat 
racism institutions is 
profitable. 
Ignorance 
is 
bliss. 
But 
this 
is 
dangerous. By continuing 
to be being a patron of 
institutions 
that 
actively 
marginalize and commodify 
the 
bodies 
of 
Black 
and 
Brown folk without adequate 
compensation, 
we 
stymie 
social progress. Clearly, the 
globalization of the modern 
world and the world of sport 
has allowed for a power 
structure where the people 
who manage the game earn 
much more in compensation 
(monetary or otherwise) than 
those who play it.
Undergirding this love is 
a pernicious and insidious 
power structure that keeps 
the players from receiving 
compensation tantamount to 
the risk, injuries and political 
capital they would sustain if 
never used by the NFL and 
NCAA as chess pieces in a 
game to uphold class and 
racial struggle.

ALLIE BROWN
MiC Contributor

I felt humiliated 
and often wished 
that I didn’t have 
to be different

PHOTO COURTESY OF KATELYN 
MULCAHY/Daily

SADHANA RAMASESHADRI/ Daily

This assumption 
about collective 
Indian ideas ... is 
offensive

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Color, please email us at 
michiganincolor@umich.edu.

