‘I saw this hot Chinki Chick!’
‘Sticks and stones may break my bones
but names will never hurt me’
I remember this little nursery rhyme I learned a long time ago. It was supposed to ward off insults and make the name caller feel like an ineffectual fool. Said with an affected braggadocio, it gave me a temporary reprieve, a fragile armor against the Stupids, Donkeys, and Idiots we used as children.
But I know the truth now. We all know about it.
Words are weapons. Words provoke. Words hurt. Words leave scars. Words can kill.
Language is what we hear at our homes even before we register overt acts of discrimination. Words come loaded with meaning. Words with accompanying gestures, tone and expressions convey stories. Words are a manifestation of what is in the mind. These words tell us that there are Others who are Different, who are not as smart or good or noble as us. Others could be mean, wicked, out to cheat and rob us. Others could also be stupid, weak, useless and only fit to serve us. We grow up believing that Different is wrong even if no one from this Other group has actually hurt or harmed us. We carry it forward through our words, new words that we coin for the new Others and without realizing it, we become prejudiced and intolerant.
Young Nido Tania, the boy from Arunachal Pradesh who died tragically, was first felled by an insult, a racial slur. A waiter at a restaurant in Delhi was killed for calling a customer a ‘Bihari!’ The anti-racial protests are not about physical abuse and beatings as much as the daily verbal taunts and abuse that the people from the North East face. Most of us are shamed and pained but in our hearts, we know that it is nothing new.
We use these words unthinkingly. They have been absorbed into our bloodstream. They mix innocently with the other words we use daily. An aunt speaks about her landlord who behaved like a ‘kanjoos Marwari’. A friend says “I thought you Madrasis drank only coffee.” We all laugh at Surdi jokes. We don’t think it is unusual if someone says ‘These kaalus and chinkis are taking over the place.’
Just as we don’t think it is unusual when someone says “I saw a sexy babe! Look at that chick! kya item hai! kya maal hai! Eve teasing is not so much an offense as it is a national past time where any male can toss derogatory remarks at any passing female. This is not confined to the roadside Romeos alone. I have heard educated men talk about actresses, their own colleagues and even bosses in this manner. Carly Fiorina, the former head of HP was referred to as a ‘token bimbo’ during her first job. An assertive woman boss is always a bitch.
There are more offensive terms for women than men in every language in the world.
Racism and Sexism are not all that different. The personalities of racists and sexists are the same. They are people who support hierarchies and social inequality. They have little empathy, sensitivity or interest in other cultures. Both oppress those who they perceive as weak in an attempt to bolster their false notion of superiority. Both target people who cannot change or help the way they are. Both racists and sexists learn and express their prejudices through the words they use.
I am not against protests, rallies and the rule of law to curb racism and sexism. I hope they do some good. More good can be done by changing the language we use at home, in front of our children and during dinner party conversations. My husband and I are careful not to use four-letter words in front of our child but now I try to be more mindful of how I refer to a community that is different from ours.
It is not very difficult to choose our words carefully if we are conscious of it. What is a challenge is to correct someone else who is using an offensive term? Not in anger. Not as a retaliation. Not in judgment. Not patronizingly. Real change in our attitudes can come about only if we are able to gently but firmly call out some other person, man, woman or child, who uses a derogatory term. There are a thousand reasons not to do it. I have used many of these at some point in time.
It is not a big deal.
They didn’t mean it.
I shouldn’t be hypersensitive/overreact.
They will think I am hypersensitive/overreacting.
I don’t want to spoil our relationship/the mood/the party.
What’s the point?
It is not like my saying will really change anything
I don’t want to start a fight or get into an unnecessary argument.
She/He is quite a nice person-otherwise
He is my boss/friend/friend’s husband/husband. I can’t tell her/him anything.
They will not like me anymore.
‘I guess what he said wasn’t that bad’ -Dissonance in not confronting targets of Prejudice is an interesting research I came across. The study, which was led by the University of Toledo’s Heather Rasinski, is based on the theory of cognitive dissonance. Not only does failing to confront prejudice help preserve a perpetrator’s intolerance, a series of experiments found that looking the other way can literally make you a worse person. Rasinski and her team hypothesized that when somebody who values confronting prejudice fails to do so, they will attempt to eliminate the gap between their beliefs and actions. Specifically, the researchers proposed that failing to confront a sexist would raise a person’s opinion of the person passing those remarks and weaken their own commitment to confront prejudice.
So the next time I hear a friend say “I saw this hot Chinki Chick at the pub”, I will not smile politely and bypass the statement. I might say “Do you mean you saw an attractive Chinese or North Eastern woman at the pub?” or “It is more respectful to avoid words like Chinky and babe”.
Well, I don’t know what exactly I will say. But I sure hope I say something, anything that prevents another human being from being the target of insensitivity, prejudice, and intolerance.
This article was first published on IBN Live’s blog
