Racism

Is Chris Broad Racist?

I don't think so. I think racism is a word used too lightly and easily, these days everyone is branded racist 'pour un oui ou pour un non' as we French would say.

Does Broad favor white people over colored people? I would tend to think so.

Now is this racist? Not necessarily.

Things are not simply black or white, some studies on human behavior have shown that white colored people will always be more trusted than other complexions.
When you show faces and ask people to associate adjectives to the faces, people will always associate gentler adjectives towards the fairer faces and more negative adjectives or will take more time to attribute gentler adjectives to colored faces.
And these people can come from any ethnical backgroung, if the panel is large enough the results will be similar.

The problem is that the color difference is ingrained in our whole culture and that from childhood we hear stories on fair princes and princess fighting the evil dark people. White has always been a sign of purity and Black of evil.
If you study most children's stories in any culture, you will see that the hero is always of a complexion which is fairer to the others, and that's how he stands out.

There are a few stories of dark people who then become fair(the ugly duckling being a variation of this) but these stories are too little to compensate the other stories and I wonder if they compensate anything. Like in Shrek, no princess Fiona could not stay as a princess she had to become an ugly ogre like shrek because ugliness and beauty should not mix!

Let's take Lord Krishna for example, he is supposed to have been very very dark, as dark as the night, but you will see more pictures of him in a light blue some in blue but rarely will we see pictures of him black(some do exist but they are not common in India(at least in Bengal).

Then there is everyday life, things are changing little by little and i think that the fact that Obama has become president of the United States shows that change is possible, but it is going to take a lot of time before anyone can erase the inequalities which rise from our cultural up bringing.

No continent escapes from this discrimination, be it India, China Japan, Africa, America etc.
I'd even go as far and say that Western Europe is one of the least discriminatory regions int he world, but would agree to say that it is far from satisfactory.

Anyway I'll probably write many more posts on this as I think it's a subject which has to be discussed through many perspectives.

Why a blog Keshto, and what are you going to do about it?

Well I don't really know where to start? So why not with the reason behind a blog.

I think I lack writing skills and of course the only way to develop a skill is to work on it.
I've been reading blogs for quite some time now, mainly cricket blogs which have lead to reading other blogs as well. And I quite like this format, it's quite warm and really personal.

I just hope I won't sound too pedant and will be able to write constructive and pleasant to read posts.

I still don't know where this will go of course, I'll share some of my poetry(mainly written in French), I'll share some of my experiences and I hope I'll share many of my thoughts.

Welcome to Chez Keshto I hope you will enjoy your stay here.