As a casual observer, their culture seems to include considerable classism; to the degree that 'where are you from?' appears to be an extremely common and loaded question [saved for the locals]. I only recognize it because it exists in mine, not a judgement.
Don't tiptoe around the topic. By class you mean caste. As a white guy who has worked in tech for 25+ years and has made many Indian friends, I continue to be astounded by how fixated many (obviously not all) of them are on caste. In particular, how much time and effort gets spent trying to suss out each others' caste by asking questions like you noted. Every time we get a new Indian team member and the existing ones start asking him where his parents are from and I see him start to uncomfortably evade answering while all of the other non_Indians in the room have no idea what is happening, it starts to make ME feel uncomfortable.
Can't tiptoe around words I don't know :P I did say 'casual observer'! Thank you for sharing, reading to do. Seems related to my frustrations as a low-born but now well-made American.
edit: I say 'seems' here lightly; a system is conveniently reinforced by depriving participants words and the ability (or even desire) to identify. Time and time again the gut feeling is a well-established thing.
And as an Indian who has lived for 25+ years in India, I continue to be astounded by how fixated white guys like you are on caste when I have never once witnessed caste-based discrimination in my life, despite belonging to a categorized "originally backward" caste.
I hope that the caste system is on its way out though, although for that to really happen there need to be long-term societal reforms, just like with classism in e.g. Europe. Especially in the UK, working/middle/upper class is still very much a thing.
Indian society can be pervaded by a grotesque shadow practice of caste which still exists today.
And it's been used in the US by Indians who practice caste-centric Hinduism who feel they are at a certain step of the caste ladder to those below them, or non-Hindus.
If you put it like that, all humans and cultures can be racist, xenophobic and discriminatory to others who they don't like, but Indian culture is infamous for its caste system built on discriminating the other Indians of lower castes.
It's similar to how white people from developed rich countries routinely discriminate other white people from poorer less developed countries, except they have much better PR and washing on it than India's caste system which is out in the open.
It's nothing to do with skin color or ethnicity in the end, it's all to do with wealth and social status, and people are always trying to climb up the status ladder, and that usually implies bootlicking those with higher status, and kicking down the ladder on those with lower status.
If you zoom out and look at this issue more abstractly, we're still acting like those groups of apes you see on National Geographic documentaries.
That was true till 10-20 years ago or so when we had things like the Matrix and Lord of the Rings, but most of the modern entertainment content coming out of the US right now is not only low quality predictable slop but also filled with US-centric political messaging, identity politics and virtue signaling that nobody else outside the US identifies with or wants to pay for. Taht why so many bomb.
lets hope that these undesirable elements of movie making are short lived and history sees it as a glitch. I want stories, not politics for my entertainment.
Some people say it to mean that. But another perspective is that there can be racist structures which do not sit in any one individual. So you can be personally non-racist but somewhat trapped in such structures. If you go against the grain, you can risk life-and-limb (hey, Godwin!) or in a less extreme setting, socially ostracized.
To say that some quality is embedded in a culture isn’t even close to the same as saying all people originating from that culture possess that quality. The extent to which India’s (racist) caste system is embedded in its culture is hardly up for serious debate, the influence it has in India has basically been proven by science at this point.
A hypothetical claim that all Indians are racist would clearly be absurd, but it’s hardly surprising to find a group of Indians practicing something that is openly part of their native culture.
I don't think everyone is racist but I do believe that everyone has strong tribal preference. In my opinion, people feel most comfortable around those who are most like them. This is why you can look at any food market, friend group, etc. and see so few groups of people of mixed cultures. It's very natural. Racism is when you discriminate against another race/culture, even if it's just "he speaks my language, I can understand him better.."
Western countries aren't strong or desirable because of narrow minded monotheistic religion.
Every culture has some good and bad traits. Ideally immigration makes us all better as we learn from one another. Isolated cultures tend to become stagnant and weaker over time.
I believe you to be a culture war bot or shill, given your standpoints and hiding behind a new account.
First off, third world is an archaic word, it stopped being relevant after the cold war ended. Using that now is a clear dogwhistle.
Second, you mention Judeo-Christian foundations, isn't one of the base tenents of that to "love your neighbour"? Anyway, that too is archaic, as most developed countries have a clear separation of church, state, and culture ever since the Enlightenment. It's a shame the US seems to be backsliding.
I do expect new arrivals to acculturate, not to Judeo-Christian values but rather to liberalism. (In the philosophical sense, not the bastardized way the term is used in American politics.)
This is because liberalism evolved as a response to sectarianism and developed tools to allow people with different worldviews to live and work together.
Can I say then - what a surprise a blanket racist statement. And to add comments by others on how superior their culture is. Must be a American/European.
Racism is embedded in human nature and in every culture. Though it takes different forms. I don't think "Indians" deserve any special mention on that one.
It's telling that we're quick to ascribe anything bad to "human nature" while balking at the notion that anything positive might also be human nature. Greed and exploitation? Yes, absolutely, human nature, nothing you can do about it. Racism? Totally human nature, just look at this random animal species. Cooperation, trust, hospitality? No, those must be unique virtues expressed only by the pure of heart or the naive, just think of the wolves.
Nevermind that "race" as a concept did not exist in the modern sense in Western cultures prior to colonization despite the exposure to other peoples with other skin tones from other parts of the world. Nevermind that cooperation and aiding the weak and forming alliances has been the only thing keeping us alive as naked, defenseless animals that need to sustain our young for years before they can carry their weight, feed themselves, let alone fend for themselves.
> Nevermind that "race" as a concept did not exist in the modern sense in Western cultures prior to colonization despite the exposure to other peoples with other skin tones from other parts of the world.
I'm not sure what the tweet has to do with your question.
To your question: I'm referring to modern Western racism which is built on the scientific racism that became popular when there were economic incentives to explain why chattel slavery is okay when you do it with some people when it's otherwise not okay to do with others. This was downstream from a massive need for cheap labor in the colonies to produce exotic goods to export to Europe for profit.
I don't know why you're asking for an explanation of random unsourced and unqualified historical factoids (without mentioning e.g. which harems, which courts, where and in what time period, which seem kind of important specifics when using vague generalisations like "largely") - maybe ask whoever you learned that from unless you're "just asking questions".
But if you want a general answer to "why is there discrimination against groups outside the imperial core" mine would be that it is easier to justify an exploitative power hiearchy, especially one that subjugates the majority of "its own" people, if you declare outside forces as non-human or sub-human to prevent fraternization which might challenge your rule.
You can easily find this happening in sexism/"patriarchy": men are humans, women are different because they can get pregnant so they are more emotional, more deceitful, stupider, incapable of abstract thought, too easy to manipulate to deserve voting rights, more likely to cheat on their partners because they want the best genes for their offspring, naturally nurturing and caring, inherently better at social skills, inherently risk averse and unfit for leadership, etc etc whatever whatever. Or, as I already said, racism: white people are humans, Asians are different because they're clever but have no soul and operate like a hive mind, Black people are different because they're stronger but impulsive and child-like and must be disciplined to protect them from themselves, Arabs are different because they're deceitful and uncultured and only know how to steal and destroy and breed, etc etc whatever whatever. Heck, you can even find it in the trappings of "enlightened" critiques of democracy (or defense of capitalism, i.e. the centralisation of control of "capital"): us studied high-IQ people of wealth of course should get a say in things but most people allowed to vote are very stupid, easy to manipulate, only seek to reaffirm their biases, bordering on mentally incapable of managing their own life but also of course completely at fault for everything they suffer, etc etc whatever whatever. All of these are bullshit just-so generalisation that just happen to neatly explain why we (men, white folks, academics, people of wealth, etc) deserve to be in charge and anyone who isn't in that group not only does not deserve to have any say but it is in fact in their best interest for us to be in charge of their life too and if this just happens to benefit us immensely, that is only by pure circumstance and what harm does it do anyway if that is the case.
Also, I'm not talking about individual bigotry or stereotypes. "Scientific" racism existed to help perpetuate a system of power relations by justifying the ownership and subjugation of groups of people. Caste systems does and medieval European feudalism did much the same. "Tribalism" however is a red herring because in tribal systems, society is confined to the tribe itself and interactions between tribes are, essentially, diplomacy. Once society expands past a tribe, we usually use the term "nepotism" (or "networking" if you want a positive spin).
> I don't know why you're asking for an explanation of random unsourced and unqualified historical factoids (without mentioning e.g. which harems, which courts, where and in what time period, which seem kind of important specifics when using vague generalisations like "largely") - maybe ask whoever you learned that from unless you're "just asking questions".
I literally said Ottoman and Mamlukian harems. There was only one Ottoman dynasty in one place in one historical time period. As there was only one Mamlukian harem in one place in one contiguous historic period.
FYI both of those dynasties, as did many other kingdoms and empires, had a strong preference for Slavic and Caucasian (as in from the Caucasus) consorts, as can be seen from the ethnicities and religions of most of their dynastic rulers' mothers. And Islamic and Mongol rulers were notorious for keeping younger male slaves from both regions as companions. Heck, the Mamluk dynasty itself was formed by a bunch of Cuman and Circassian slaves who ended up being so powerful as to control their Ayyubid masters.
Also, we know that some of those pre-human species interbed and co-mingled with each other. The dynamics between tribes is also completely different from modern racism.
Just ascribing behavior we observe in humans to "human nature" is a thought-terminating cliché and prevents looking deeper into how we got here and why. Modern society didn't pop into existence fully baked and that goes as much for the good (which we rightly laud as important achievements we need to preserve) as it does for the bad (which we often just describe as "human nature" to avoid challenging our assumptions).
If everything bad is human nature, there's literally no way to improve things. If everything bad is human nature but only for certain people, that's one step away from arguing that the only way to improve things is through genocide.
With respect, it can be hard to see the nuance in this if you're from the US (a country that is so racist even the government openly practices it, but sanctimonious enough to pretend it is instead free).
