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Sangeetha Shankar
5 months ago
Sangeetha while your Tamil pride is definitely heartening, it unfortunately dosen't reflect the entire spectrum or reality. I'm a proud Tamilian born and raised in TN and then also lived in Maharashtra and Noida for many years. I speak Tamil at home…...
Read More
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Senlav
5 months ago
I am an Indian Tamil and grew up all over india (North and South) thanks to my dad being in Army. The reason i am clarifying I am an Indian Tamil is because the Author seems to be Malaysian Tamil and not sure that may have played into the bias in…...
Read More
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12
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Stephanie Renée
5 months ago
THANK YOU for helping the Western world understand where our ignorance about other ethnic and cultural distinctions is a liability! Your input in this important matter is vital!!
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8
2 replies
Reply
Sangeetha Shankar
5 months ago
Also Kamala Harri's biracial identity in itself is a huge challenge for so many to come in terms with. As an Indian American, I feel that further dividing her identity into Tamil etc..is both disrespectful and irrelevant to the work she has done as…...
Read More
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6
Reply
Rohit Sharma
5 months ago
In your next article please enlighten us about what caste she belongs to.
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6
3 replies
Reply
Jayshree Shukla
2 months ago
The hate and bias which you are writing about doesn’t even EXIST in INDIA … . Don’t spread LIE… .
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-5-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
2
Reply
Insulted ABDesi
5 months ago
I am so sorry you are choosing to keep some of the strongest stains on Indian culture alive and well. As an ABDesi myself your article reminds of why I’m so happy I didn’t grow up burdened by issues you clearly carry. I only wish you had thought more carefully before speaking so recklessly
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-6-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
2
2 replies
Reply
Bih
about 2 months ago
Tamils are a culture that has existed for thousands of years before the coming of India as a country,
As someone who isn't very educated about Indian and it's ethnic groups and politics, this article really educated me and opened my eyes to Tamils and gave me more insight about Kamala's Indian background. Thank you for writing this. The fact that…...
Read More
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-7-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
1
Reply
Bal Ur
about 2 months ago
Ah, I'm seeing now that you are a South East Asian Tamil, and have never lived in India and probably don't have immediate family members who have either (and evidently haven't researched it very well either). Extremely amusing to me that you would…...
Read More
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-8-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
1
Reply
Bal Ur
about 2 months ago
"Within South Asia, and within India, Tamil people are hated" LOL wtf? This is ludicrous and half-baked beyond even Trumpian proportions. Share this article with any Tamil Indian who has actually lived in India and they will burst out laughing. You…...
Read More
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1
Reply
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Kamala Harris is not just Indian, she is Tamil, and THAT is important.
Sangeetha
Aug 13, 2020·5 min read
From LA Times
By now if you have not heard about Kamala Harris being Biden’s pick for the vice presidency…what am I saying? Of course you have.
Kamala Harris is Blasian, in that she has a Black father and an Indian mother but it is important to note that her mother is not just Indian, she is Tamil, which is why Kamala Harris has her first name.
By the way, it is pronounced as Ka(COme)- Ma(MERmaid)-La(LAH). Not CAMEL-a or Ka-MAH-la or any of these other variations that have made me cringe. Also, her middle name is Devi, pronounced as “they-vee.”
Once the announcement of her candidacy was made, I knew immediately what was going to happen and now, here I am watching it happen in real-time: Asian media, especially South Asian media, has completely erased her Tamil heritage, instead focusing on how she is “Indian.”
If you aren’t Indian, you are probably wondering what’s the big deal, so I will try to explain.
Within South Asia, and within India, Tamil people are hated. We are hated for being dark-skinned, because Indians are obsessed with light-skin and colourism is so rampant within the Indian community.
North Indians hate Tamils because we refuse to speak Hindi and we have historically rallied the South against Hindi imposition. They do not consider us to be Indian because they think Hindi should be the national language while Tamils do not feel the need to give up speaking a classical language for pidgin Sanskrit.
Hindi imposition in India resulted in widespread riots in Tamil Nadu in 1965 (in part a reaction against upper-caste hegemony in government bureaucracy) as well as current economic extraction: Tamil taxes are used to pump money into the poverty-stricken Hindi speaking belt while Tamils get back very little for the federal taxes they pay. Measures by the central government such as the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test makes it difficult for Tamil doctors, worsening the dire job situation.
When called out on his government’s anti-Tamilness, Indian Minister Tarun Vijay said this:
Tamils are a culture that has existed for thousands of years before the coming of India as a country, in fact, we are the world’s last surviving classical civilization. Tamil civilization predates India as a nation-state. “The consensus of the research community is that the Dravidians are natives of the Indian subcontinent and were present prior to the arrival of the Indo-Aryans (Indo-European speakers) in India around 3,500 years ago.”
If anyone is Indian on that land, it is us.
Even supposedly progressive Desi organizations engage in virulent anti-Tamilness, which led me to make a post on Instagram asking for Tamils to share their experiences with other South Asians. There’s loads of stories there, and you should go read them to learn first hand how other Indians hate us. North Indian beauty standards and condescension has been something many Tamils have lived with our whole lives.
But now, lo and behold, a Tamil (and Black: the two most hated things to Indians) woman might become the second most powerful person in the world (though the vice presidency is sometimes said to not even be worth a bucket of warm spit, but that’s another story).
Now that she has power and fame, now North Indians and other South Asians are claiming her as one of them. Every, single, article, both in the West and in India has been about how she is “Indian.” This article goes out of its way to make sure you know that she is not just Tamil, but more than that, she is Indian.
These people who have spent their whole lives (and entire generations) hating us, calling us slurs, making fun of us in their Bollywood films, etc.: these people have decided that Kamala Harris is now Indian enough for them to claim because of all that power she wields. They have taken concerted steps to erase her Tamil heritage, especially when she herself does not. She has spoken about growing up eating idli, vadai and sambar (quintessential Tamil dishes), not butter chicken and daal or whatever North Indians consider to be their cuisine.
For someone like me who comes from a country where Tamils are often portrayed as alcoholics, as violent, as incapable of progress and achievement: Kamala Harris’ ascension actually means a lot. It means that we can stop believing the lies of racist states like Singapore and Malaysia. We can realize that it is not our culture or our race that limits us, it is that we live in racist countries that deny us opportunity. Not that the United States is not any less racist but the fact that Harris can climb to such a position there while such a possibility is completely denied to us in our home countries says a lot.
Kamala Harris is not for everyone to feel a connection to. She is Black and Tamil, and for Tamil and Black people to feel represented by. (As to how represented we feel by someone with a dodgy record of jailing Black people is an important conversation) but the point is that she does not exist for all you other Indians who have hated us for years and years to suddenly crow over her.
It is a surreal experience seeing her Tamil heritage being erased in favour of her being Indian by the very North Indian diaspora who have told us for years that Tamils are not Indian enough.
Keep your Chopras and your Kaurs: Kamala Harris is not for you. If you have done nothing to combat anti-Tamilness, (and lets tell the truth, most non-Tamils have been complicit in it instead) you don’t get to now claim her as yours.
கமலா தேவி Harris is Tamil, not just Indian, and you best remember that in the coming months when you write about her and speak about her.
Support my writing on Patreon. For just $10 a month, you support my free articles (like this one) which I make available for everyone’s reading pleasure as well as other articles, weekly roundups and resources that are published exclusively on Patreon.
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More from Sangeetha
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Activist and writer. Coined the term #chineseprivilege. She/her, Tamil, Curvy, Southeast Asian living in Melbourne.
More From Medium
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Sangeetha
Follow
248 Followers
About
Get started
Open in app
Responses (14)
To respond to this story,
get the free Medium app.
Open in app
Sangeetha Shankar
5 months ago
Sangeetha while your Tamil pride is definitely heartening, it unfortunately dosen't reflect the entire spectrum or reality. I'm a proud Tamilian born and raised in TN and then also lived in Maharashtra and Noida for many years. I speak Tamil at home…...
Read More
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-0-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
14
Reply
Senlav
5 months ago
I am an Indian Tamil and grew up all over india (North and South) thanks to my dad being in Army. The reason i am clarifying I am an Indian Tamil is because the Author seems to be Malaysian Tamil and not sure that may have played into the bias in…...
Read More
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-1-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
12
Reply
Stephanie Renée
5 months ago
THANK YOU for helping the Western world understand where our ignorance about other ethnic and cultural distinctions is a liability! Your input in this important matter is vital!!
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-2-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
8
2 replies
Reply
Sangeetha Shankar
5 months ago
Also Kamala Harri's biracial identity in itself is a huge challenge for so many to come in terms with. As an Indian American, I feel that further dividing her identity into Tamil etc..is both disrespectful and irrelevant to the work she has done as…...
Read More
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-3-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
6
Reply
Rohit Sharma
5 months ago
In your next article please enlighten us about what caste she belongs to.
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-4-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
6
3 replies
Reply
Jayshree Shukla
2 months ago
The hate and bias which you are writing about doesn’t even EXIST in INDIA … . Don’t spread LIE… .
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-5-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
2
Reply
Insulted ABDesi
5 months ago
I am so sorry you are choosing to keep some of the strongest stains on Indian culture alive and well. As an ABDesi myself your article reminds of why I’m so happy I didn’t grow up burdened by issues you clearly carry. I only wish you had thought more carefully before speaking so recklessly
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-6-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
2
2 replies
Reply
Bih
about 2 months ago
Tamils are a culture that has existed for thousands of years before the coming of India as a country,
As someone who isn't very educated about Indian and it's ethnic groups and politics, this article really educated me and opened my eyes to Tamils and gave me more insight about Kamala's Indian background. Thank you for writing this. The fact that…...
Read More
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-7-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
1
Reply
Bal Ur
about 2 months ago
Ah, I'm seeing now that you are a South East Asian Tamil, and have never lived in India and probably don't have immediate family members who have either (and evidently haven't researched it very well either). Extremely amusing to me that you would…...
Read More
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-8-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
1
Reply
Bal Ur
about 2 months ago
"Within South Asia, and within India, Tamil people are hated" LOL wtf? This is ludicrous and half-baked beyond even Trumpian proportions. Share this article with any Tamil Indian who has actually lived in India and they will burst out laughing. You…...
Read More
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...-9-----------------respond_sidebar-----------
1
Reply
You have 1free member-only story left this month.
Sign up for Medium and get an extra one
Kamala Harris is not just Indian, she is Tamil, and THAT is important.
Sangeetha
Aug 13, 2020·5 min read
From LA Times
By now if you have not heard about Kamala Harris being Biden’s pick for the vice presidency…what am I saying? Of course you have.
Kamala Harris is Blasian, in that she has a Black father and an Indian mother but it is important to note that her mother is not just Indian, she is Tamil, which is why Kamala Harris has her first name.
By the way, it is pronounced as Ka(COme)- Ma(MERmaid)-La(LAH). Not CAMEL-a or Ka-MAH-la or any of these other variations that have made me cringe. Also, her middle name is Devi, pronounced as “they-vee.”
Once the announcement of her candidacy was made, I knew immediately what was going to happen and now, here I am watching it happen in real-time: Asian media, especially South Asian media, has completely erased her Tamil heritage, instead focusing on how she is “Indian.”
If you aren’t Indian, you are probably wondering what’s the big deal, so I will try to explain.
Within South Asia, and within India, Tamil people are hated. We are hated for being dark-skinned, because Indians are obsessed with light-skin and colourism is so rampant within the Indian community.
North Indians hate Tamils because we refuse to speak Hindi and we have historically rallied the South against Hindi imposition. They do not consider us to be Indian because they think Hindi should be the national language while Tamils do not feel the need to give up speaking a classical language for pidgin Sanskrit.
Hindi imposition in India resulted in widespread riots in Tamil Nadu in 1965 (in part a reaction against upper-caste hegemony in government bureaucracy) as well as current economic extraction: Tamil taxes are used to pump money into the poverty-stricken Hindi speaking belt while Tamils get back very little for the federal taxes they pay. Measures by the central government such as the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test makes it difficult for Tamil doctors, worsening the dire job situation.
When called out on his government’s anti-Tamilness, Indian Minister Tarun Vijay said this:
Tamils are considered “Black” by other Indians, with all of that attendant implications. We are treated as less-than, we are othered, we are, in effect, seen as “not Indian.” Vijay’s comments contain a fundamental assumption about us: that Tamils are not Indian because we don’t speak Hindi or have North Indian customs and traditions. When he refers to “your ancestry” and “your culture” he means North Indian ancestry and North Indian culture.
Tamils are a culture that has existed for thousands of years before the coming of India as a country, in fact, we are the world’s last surviving classical civilization. Tamil civilization predates India as a nation-state. “The consensus of the research community is that the Dravidians are natives of the Indian subcontinent and were present prior to the arrival of the Indo-Aryans (Indo-European speakers) in India around 3,500 years ago.”
If anyone is Indian on that land, it is us.
Even supposedly progressive Desi organizations engage in virulent anti-Tamilness, which led me to make a post on Instagram asking for Tamils to share their experiences with other South Asians. There’s loads of stories there, and you should go read them to learn first hand how other Indians hate us. North Indian beauty standards and condescension has been something many Tamils have lived with our whole lives.
But now, lo and behold, a Tamil (and Black: the two most hated things to Indians) woman might become the second most powerful person in the world (though the vice presidency is sometimes said to not even be worth a bucket of warm spit, but that’s another story).
Now that she has power and fame, now North Indians and other South Asians are claiming her as one of them. Every, single, article, both in the West and in India has been about how she is “Indian.” This article goes out of its way to make sure you know that she is not just Tamil, but more than that, she is Indian.
These people who have spent their whole lives (and entire generations) hating us, calling us slurs, making fun of us in their Bollywood films, etc.: these people have decided that Kamala Harris is now Indian enough for them to claim because of all that power she wields. They have taken concerted steps to erase her Tamil heritage, especially when she herself does not. She has spoken about growing up eating idli, vadai and sambar (quintessential Tamil dishes), not butter chicken and daal or whatever North Indians consider to be their cuisine.
For someone like me who comes from a country where Tamils are often portrayed as alcoholics, as violent, as incapable of progress and achievement: Kamala Harris’ ascension actually means a lot. It means that we can stop believing the lies of racist states like Singapore and Malaysia. We can realize that it is not our culture or our race that limits us, it is that we live in racist countries that deny us opportunity. Not that the United States is not any less racist but the fact that Harris can climb to such a position there while such a possibility is completely denied to us in our home countries says a lot.
Kamala Harris is not for everyone to feel a connection to. She is Black and Tamil, and for Tamil and Black people to feel represented by. (As to how represented we feel by someone with a dodgy record of jailing Black people is an important conversation) but the point is that she does not exist for all you other Indians who have hated us for years and years to suddenly crow over her.
It is a surreal experience seeing her Tamil heritage being erased in favour of her being Indian by the very North Indian diaspora who have told us for years that Tamils are not Indian enough.
Keep your Chopras and your Kaurs: Kamala Harris is not for you. If you have done nothing to combat anti-Tamilness, (and lets tell the truth, most non-Tamils have been complicit in it instead) you don’t get to now claim her as yours.
கமலா தேவி Harris is Tamil, not just Indian, and you best remember that in the coming months when you write about her and speak about her.
Support my writing on Patreon. For just $10 a month, you support my free articles (like this one) which I make available for everyone’s reading pleasure as well as other articles, weekly roundups and resources that are published exclusively on Patreon.
https://medium.com/m/signin?actionU...80---------------------clap_footer-----------
323
14
More from Sangeetha
Follow
Activist and writer. Coined the term #chineseprivilege. She/her, Tamil, Curvy, Southeast Asian living in Melbourne.
More From Medium
This Was Not The Representation We Asked For
Tom Matsuda in Equality Includes You
Your Claims of Being “Colorblind” Aren’t Helping Anything — How The “Colorblindness” Argument…
Justin Jones, MD in BeingWell
How We Got Over & Get From Under
Rann Miller in Chocolate Nuisance
“Latinx for Black Lives”Is Erasure, Not Allyship
Central American News
The invisible visibility of black women and police
Shamontiel L. Vaughn in I Do See Color
To white women who mindlessly erase black women: Your allyship is trash
Lecia Michelle
In Search of Black Story(tellers)
Saki Benibo
I’ve Seen My Brother Die a Hundred Times. I’ve Seen My Sister Die a Hundred More.
Devonya Batiste in An Injustice!
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