Latest
07:25 AM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
May 25, 2013
People are dying, being killed, maimed, half the world lives on the razor’s edge, the other half is getting there, it’s a harsh life and we are writing about fried chicken and Tiger Wood’s feelings. Come on, is that an issue?
Bad taste is a human thing. Sure, Sergio Garcia wins no prizes for tact but if someone had said we are serving him tortillas and chili pepper no one would have got their knickies in a twist. In any case, slaves in southern American states did not get fried chicken for dinner, they got grits. So get over it. And if you can say black, brown, yellow, you can say colored. Even white is colored.
All this piety and propriety being flung around. As if everyone else was politically correct. We are all sort of racist even if we dress it up in liberal robes. We used to be ethnic funny and we had the confidence to laugh at ourselves.
We told jokes about ourselves not so long ago. No one cared that much, no one bristled and held a press conference. Now we seek slight. That tolerance has soured like milk and curdled into offense, a sort of racist slur. Now we are racist lite, racist mean, racist ugly and racist violent. Fortunately, most of us use prejudice only to shore up our own sagging self-esteem and confidence and don’t really mean to hurt or hate, it is just that we don’t know how to bridge gaps in caste, color and creed. So we cling to our type, go to our corner, our sort of folks, birds of a feather stuff.
And the idiot thing is we defend ourselves with outrage when there is no need.
If someone said to me oh, Punjabi, okay we’ll give you spinach and makki ki roti I won’t fall about. Why is it that when it is American black everyone goes into fourth gear. Chris Rock kills you with laughter, so does Eddie Murphy. And a hundred others.
Damn, we might have different colored coverings but we all bleed red.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
If my call is so important to them, why don’t they answer it for 22 minutes?
How come when I want to, but something specific online is the only item out of stock.
When I get into a queue or lane going fast, the moment I get in, it becomes the slowest and refuses to budge.
Read more... | Archives