Colston Statute Taken Down

Today, Black Lives Matter protestors in Bristol pulled down the statute of Edward Colston, who made his fortune in the slave trade and plowed some of it back into the city. There have been campaigns in the past to have it removed, but they came to nothing. A Cambridge academic that I follow on Twitter wrote "So all this guff about 'erasing history' is the cover story for the real anxiety: the attack on property. If they come for statues today will they come for our houses and land tomorrow? And indeed they might. Hence the anxiety." The tweet echoed my feelings. White liberals are all for ending police brutality but the moment the conversations starts to move beyond that they get uncomfortable. White supremacy, the caste system, misogyny are all wage suppression systems and wage suppression or what Marxists would call exploitation of labour is the framework for living standards. The moment you threaten these mechanisms you are threatening living standards of privileged groups, not just the rich. Just like solutions to the climate crisis might involve a drastic change in living standards of middle-class Westerners. A change in living standards doesn't mean they will be fighting for scraps in the streets. But how many people are willing to acknowledge and make amends for white privilege, caste privilege, gender privilege, etc. by accepting a change in their standard of living?

To Protest or Not To Protest

A friend and I have decided not to attend the Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol tomorrow for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Covid-19 because infections are rising in our part of the country. Incredibly, organizers are asking attendees to social-distance for two weeks afterwards if they can. Secondly, ministers have been warning against attending the protests, indicating that a second wave of Covid is coming, and the Tories want to pin the blame on BLM protestors. But, seeing the crowds in London today it is difficult not to feel that this is a historic moment for this country and the world. A protest is not a negotiation. What triggers it and what fuels it could be entirely separate things. The police in the UK are less brutal towards black people than in the US, although that is an extremely low standard. But, after 10 years of austerity, being locked up in their houses for months, and months if not years of economic depression ahead of us, people can be excused for feeling that they are at the end of the tether. Police brutality in the UK is not an issue that gets me fired up, to be honest. I have just been here for a few years and no one I know or know of has experienced it. But, one can also attend a protest out of curiosity, to witness what may be a historical moment. Maybe these protests are the beginning of a leftward lurch? 

I am not going to play the cynic and say it is easier for white people to perform wokeness by going to a protest than examine how they themselves are complicit in white supremacy in their everyday lives through their words/silences and actions/inactions. If I don't want to go for protest, I should just admit that without being sanctimonious about it. 

Doomsaying

It is dawning upon me that I am a habitual doomsayer. Most of my hot-takes are about the coming hellish storms, and I can't think of one positive prediction I made. Being cynical and of the judgemental disposition, as confirmed by the Myers-Briggs test sets me up nicely to be a doom-sayer. I have written before about how being a doomsayer is safe territory--if doom occurs you at least have the satisfaction of being proved right, and if it doesn't hurray anyway. But, it is worthwhile to consider if I am biased towards doom-saying, and habitually a glass-half-full kind of person. I don't think I am a negative person and I have toned down my cynicism over the last few years. But its  something to be conscious of. 

Over-Editing

Yesterday, a friend asked me to go over her statement of purpose for a job application, and like a true journalist, I whipped out my red pen and set on it like a lioness on a gazelle. But, mid-way it occurred to me there is a difference between rewriting and editing, and I should be clear what is expected of me. As a journalist, I was taught that copy editors are ruthless and one should learn to write better rather than be bitter about them mangling your copy. Working for an international newswire, i was fortunate to work with some great copy editors. I would probably have ended up as some sort of an editor if I had stuck around in journalism.

But, it struck me that rewriting too heavily means suppressing the original author's voice and imposing one's own words on the piece. That may be fine in certain situations but not in all. I am a reasonably good editor and writer, so when someone asks me for help I can usually find ways to improve the copy. But, I must fight the temptation to rewrite it completely. One can definitely improve a copy without rewriting it and silencing the original author's voice. 

Anti-Blackness of Non-Black PoCs

I still remember the day, about five years ago, when a Dutch friend told me about a conversation she had with another Dutch friend in which me and my ethnicity came up. Apparently, when she asked if I was black my  friend had replied that I am from India, and she had replied something to the effect of, "So, he is black" or all non-whites are black. That story hit me like a brick, and it took me a few days to get over it.
Growing up in India means anti-blackness is ingrained in you even if you are not one of those Indians who makes money noises or throws stones at black people. The caste system makes sure of that as it encourages contempt for the castes below you and abject servility to the castes above you. Dark skin equals lower caste,  so black skin equals lowest of the low. Black people experience racism everywhere but I would be surprised if they experience the same level of contempt that they do in India. Unless you are a T-20 cricket star from the West Indies.
It took me a while to come to acknowledge my anti-blackness and the complicity of brown people in upholding racial hierarchies. The middle rung of racial hierarchies can be a comfortable place. If you are a racist brown person, at least you are not at the bottom of the heap, and there are other races you can turn your nose up at. If you are a woke brown person, you don't suffer from white guilt, while implicitly benefiting from your proximity to the white race. If you are black or even half black, you are unmistakably of African origin. Brownness confers more ambiguity especially if you are fair-skinned s you could be from anywhere from Eastern Europe to Central and South Asia or from Latin America. For instance, in Mexico, I was often mistaken for a native

Watching US Crime Dramas

Will we ever be able to watch U.S. crime dramas again? I was just thinking about how Hollywood behaves like the propaganda wing of the US military and the US police, making them seem impossibly cool and courageous. Today, I came across a tweet which was a much more refined version of my stray thought. The narrative in movies/TV is always from the cops' perspective, which it encourages it viewers to adopt. Make bad-ass cops seem good, hold up propensity to violence as a good thing. 

What happens when the Strike-Breakers Go on Strike

I spent most of today following news of the Black Lives Matter protests in the US. A couple of days ago, I was telling my Dad that the US and India are likely to see huge upheavals in coming years. Rapacious capitalism built on a scaffolding of white supremacy and caste, respectively, was tearing the social fabric. But I am not going to pontificate on what's going on. Playing Nostradamus on a blog that no one reads is a low-stakes endeavour but it feels shallow--current events are too serious for me to be playing intellectual-intellectual.
However, I have learned a few things that have surprised me. Firstly, how well police in the US are paid and how effective their unions are. Left-wing activists have always seen the police as strike-breakers and protectors of capital. But, if moves are made to cut their budgets and curtail their power, how will they respond? What happens if the strike-breakers go on strike? What happens if they turn violent?
Crises can be very revealing events. When people or groups are pushed into a corner, how they respond can reveal a lot about power structures and institutional configurations.