My oh my, @azircon. What to say about this?
I was born and grew up on the bottom end of an uneven universe. I spent a lot of time being angry about that when I was young. What a waste of time. Nobody cares if I am angry with them, not unless I have a big wallop to inflict, which I never have had.
I learned to work, quietly and diligently for what I wanted, what I needed. I learned especially not to look around at what other people had.
Consider at the world we live in. That man lives surrounded by gold. Has a private plane. Is immune to the justice of the courts. I could think about that a lot, and it could infuriate me. But no. I speak my piece, accept that nothing is fair in the world, and hope I escape notice of bad actors.
You do your best to equalize things in your universe. I do my best in my smaller universe. And then, humility tells me to go on, and live with what I am and what I have.
Zuckerberg is contemptible. With all his money and all his influence, he has less freedom than you and I do. We do not genuflect before the gold-topped figure who leads our nation. He does. He bows publicly and conspicuously. What has his money bought him, if he feels so afraid that he gives up his dignity?
Hope those trolls never visit me. If they do, I hope there is a mute button somewhere.
Have a most happy, wonderful day with your family. The trolls can't touch that unless we let them :)
Well, I grew up in Calcutta, India (I still use the old British name, on purpose!) I grew up in a rough neighborhood and went to a rough school. A very rough school :) A school where sometimes local people were afraid to pass by, and this is no exaggeration :) I finished that school and had a great time there, everyone loved me, again I kid you not, but that is a long story. But please believe me, I know how to handle trolls and roughness :) I can teach people a thing or two about it :)
I went to college, then University, and another one and then another one, moved to US as a student. Went to University of Oklahoma, studied, taught, did research :) Yes, did field work in rural Oklahoma as a brown immigrant student at the heart of the bible belt. No, I was never threatened, and never treated poorly. In fact my whole 25 years in the United States, I was never been racially discriminated on my face! Ever! And I have travelled all over the country, urban-rural, studied-taught did everything! You can probably tell where the love for my country comes from.
To tell you the truth, I have been racially discriminated only in India! LOL! My home country. Did I tell you and we can be very racist and don't even know that we are? Yes we are so.
People said to me if I feel like half-Indian and half-American. I said and I really believe this: that I am 100% Indian and 100% American.
That is probably a lot more than you wanted to know, but there you have it. None of this is secrect as I have discussed this openly many time here at hive.
PS: my wife who was born in wealth, always went to exclusive private schools (LOL) said something very similar to what you said when I get angry, and I will always remember this; she said: "you can only control your own emotion you can't control others"! We went to University together, nearly 30 years back now!
I want to hear all of it. Thank you!
One of my good friends--we were in a writing group together--was from Bengal. She spoke of the race issues in India. She didn't address castes, but skin tone, which amazed me. Also, I have read a great deal about Rabindranath Tagore. I even wrote a small children's book about him. I wanted to introduce Western children to this remarkable person they probably would never learn about.
Nobody ever read that book :)))
Lucky you. Thirty years....
So the racism in India has many layers, and its very complex and difficult to understand for outsiders. The most common form is provincialism.
I don't think I have seen that word used commonly here, but it is like people from NY looking down on people from Alabama, although they are both white. I remember the famous movie Mississippi Burning!
In India, my home state, West Bengal, (where Tagore is from, and my people are very proud of him), Bengalis look down on people from say Punjab (western Indian state) and say Sikhs are 'dumb' while Sikh or Punjabi people are very fond of Bengalis and lived in Calcutta for generations!
Bengali's (now they are called bongs, as rest of the India has caught up with our superiority complex!) looks down on our neighboring state Bihar (before it was Jharkhand and Bihar) and Orissa; and call them derogatory words 'bihari' and 'ures'; as they are un-smart and bit subhuman, while they are rather respectful of us Bengalis.
You see what I mean? All these superiority complex comes from the old fact that Calcutta was the British Capital and got educated in western education better than the rest of India, which were 'back waters'. Totally untrue by the way, but that was the perception. It served us well, as we lived in the past and rest of the India caught on and left us behind in education, industrialization, and standard of living. Yet Tagore's land still think about the days of Bengal Renaissance.
There you have it, Bengalis are traditionally self-critical too. This is the most honest review you can get :)
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