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Thursday, June 25, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MICHIGAN IN COLOR

South Asians need to be 
heldaccountablefortheir 
Anti-Blackness

NITHA ARUN & SUBARNA BHATTACHA-
RYA
MiC Guest Writers

The cold didn’t stop anyone from going 
out during syllabus week. We went to an 
event hosted by Sigma Beta Rho, a multi-
cultural fraternity mainly made up of South 
Asian males. The DJ was playing a song and 
the n-word dropped. Without hesitation, 
the crowd of South Asian men sang along. 
To every single word. I stood in shock, yell-
ing to my friend over the music, “Did you 
hear that?” I was one of the only people that 
reacted.
People moved on after the event — if they 
even noticed it to be one — and their silence 
spoke to their complicitness in this blatant 
racism. When the situation was brought 
to the organization’s board, they tried to 
brush it aside. They continued to listen to 
Black artists’ music and claimed their con-
venient proximity to Blackness was enough 
to warrant them a “pass” to say and sing 
the n-word. These same people have said 
nothing substantial since the murders of 
Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George 
Floyd and countless others in the Black 
community. This is not a singular problem; 
rather, this indifferent attitude towards say-
ing the n-word is a symptom of the pervasive, 
ingrained anti-Blackness in the South Asian 
community. 
It’s important to introspect upon our lives 
as South Asians and the experiences that 
come with growing up in America. Many of 
us have heard about or been directly affected 
by the atrocities committed against people 
of our community in America: the “Dot-
busters” after 9/11 who singled out any per-
son who had brown skin and murdered them 
as Islamophobia heightened, or the murder 
of two Indian immigrants in Kansas. Some 
of us have faced more normalized types of 
racism: the IT jokes the Chad or Brad — or 
whatever his name is — made in AP Econ 
or the microaggressions you faced as you 
walked down the street. We’re all aware of 
the stereotypes in the media like Apu and 
Raj which deem our identity as humorous, 
reduced to a side character for comic relief. 
South Asians have been historical targets of 
racism, but we must remember our experi-
ence in no way matches the breadth of insti-
tutional racism which the Black community 
has to confront on a daily basis. We need to 
contextualize ourselves within the history 
of the United States. There are mountains 
upon mountains of problems which remain 
unsolved, but they cannot be resolved if we 
alienate ourselves from the Black commu-
nity, which is what brought us this far in the 
first place. We can never achieve true equal-
ity as non-Black people of color in America 
if we stoop so low as to demean, berate and 
disrespect those who came before us. 

Breaking out of the iceberg: a 
taleofinspirationforGenZ

PRISHA GROVER
MiC Staff Writer

Graphic by Hibah ChughtaiI

“Avatar: The Last Airbender” was an 
animated children’s show released on Nick-
elodeon during the 2000s. The story sur-
rounds the culmination of a 100-year long 
warbetween the hegemonic Fire Nation and 
all other nations and tribes of the world. It 
is based on several people who have the abil-
ity to control one of the four elements around 
them — air, water, earth and fire — while one 
person, the Avatar, can control all four and 
is tasked with keeping the world in balance. 
ATLA is a great symbol of cultural unity. 
It fuses several influences: the stories of Hin-
duism; the cultures of the Arctic, Inuit and 
other indigenous groups; Chinese culture 
with slight influences of Japanese culture 
and many more. The concept of the Avatar 
itself is derived from Hinduism. In Hindu 
scriptures, the god Vishnu has inherited 
an avatar, or an earthly form, the ten times 
he has thought the world needs it most. He 
takes on a brand new life and assimilates into 
normal society, living as a voice of reason and 
good. This is what the main character of this 
show is based on — the concept of the avatar 
who works to keep balance in the world and 
ensure peace is kept. In ATLA, the avatar is 
the reincarnated spirit of Rava, the spirit of 
good, and is meant to master the elements of 
the world and maintain balance.
The different tribes are based on differ-
ent beautiful cultures around the world. The 
two water tribes are respectfully based on 
the Inuit and Yupik people. Their weapons, 
style of clothing and manner of gathering 
food all match up with these cultures. In 
every tribe or nation, there are influences of 
Chinese culture. In the water tribes, it comes 
in the forms of the betrothal necklaces. In 
the Earth Kingdom, the most blatant show of 
relation to the Chinese is the Great Walls of 
Ba Sing Se, similar to the Great Wall of China 
which was built to consolidate the Chinese 

states and protect them from invaders. Their 
clothing — especially their military cloth-
ing and of their leaders — are all based on 
ancient Chinese garb. The Fire Nation’s 
culture is derived from several different 
sources, including the Aztecs and Incas. This 
influence can be seen in the Sun Warriors, 
who teach those around them to harness the 
power of the sun and appreciate its cycles, 
using their sunstone. Another strong influ-
ence in the Fire Nation is of the Chinese and 
Japanese, as with the other groups. The top 
knots worn by Fire National royalty — such 
as Fire Lord Ozai, Prince Zuko and General 
Iroh — represent their positions of power. 
Finally, the Air Nomads are based on Tibet-
an philosophies. In line with their universal 
philosophies, the Air Nomads spend their 
lives meditating and searching for enlighten-
ment. They search to be detached from the 
world and free their spirit.
Each character in this show brings some-
thing unique to the table — whether it’s 
their personal experiences or family history. 
However, the most important part about 
them is the things they have learned from 
their different cultures and the history of 
their people. Katara and Sokka learn about 
the strength of the Water Tribe from their 
grandmother and Katara’s teacher and draw 
inspiration from them. Katara also learns 
about the nuances of the moon spirit, a long 
standing symbol and guardian of her people, 
and learns to draw strength from her. Aang 
learns about the universal philosophies of 
his people from his teacher, Monk Gyatso. 
He learns from their teachings to be impar-
tial, kind and compassionate. Toph uses 
the knowledge of her culture to be strong 
and unrelenting. She takes the strength of 
her predecessors and teachers, and learns 
to turn potential weaknesses into unique 
assets. Despite how different their cultural 
and ethnic backgrounds are...

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The Civil Rights Movement paved the way 
for South Asian immigration into the United 
States. Due to the pressure from the move-
ment, Congress passed the Immigration and 
Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the 
Hart-Celler Act. This bill allowed the immi-
gration of wealthy/potentially wealthy South 
Asians into the United States. The latent con-
sequence of this was the myth of the model 
minority. White leaders saw our general eco-
nomic prosperity in the U.S. and used it to 
dismiss the systemic racism that affected the 
Black community. We were tools used to por-
tray the way all minority populations should 
aspire to be; anything less was dismissed as 
laziness and ineptitude. 
We must stop thinking our academic and 
economic success puts us above the Black 
community. This only perpetuates the model 
minority myth, created by white America to 
divide us in the first place. If we continue 
to take advantage of this privilege we have 
been allotted through our “model minority” 
status while denying that it exists at all, we 
will always be complicit in the crimes perpe-
trated against the Black community. 
This complicitness is present in our con-
versations and seemingly harmless “pref-
erences.” I’m reminded of the time when 
my family was house hunting for a home in 
Michigan. Even before stepping inside the 
two-story brick house with a vast lake in the 
backyard —every Indian family’s American 
dream — my parents decided we wouldn’t 
live there because a Black man walked out 
the front door of the neighboring home. We 
need to recognize this generational rac-
ism and ingrained hatred for those who are 
different from us has to end here. We need 
to move past generations of colorist ideals 
because it has impacts not only on our rela-
tionships with other communities, but also 
our own mental health. No one is born racist. 
Anti-Blackness is learned through the envi-
ronment we are exposed to growing up. It is 
our duty to unlearn it. 
We need to hold our peers and family 
accountable without hesitation. We all know 
the scene. You’ll be at aunty’s house for a hol-
iday party and just as you are about to stuff 
that samosa in your mouth, an uncle will 
comment on “how lazy Black people are,” — 
this being the same uncle who made his wife 
bring the food to him. Now, you have two 
options: Pretend you didn’t hear anything 
and eat your samosa chup chap or confront 
him. Your parents give you the “don’t say 
anything” look. It is at this point that you 
drop the obedient achha bachcha guise and 
indoctrinate uncle on the systemic racism 
that has resulted in several inequities in the 
Black community. 

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