And so, America witnesses history - its all over the place - the fight against racism takes a new turn.....an African American will now rule the superpower....and so on and so forth.
I wonder how you classify a person's heredity. In our perfect example, the wonder kid Obama, has, at the best, a fleeting connection to the much touted 'African American' heritage. His dad was Kenyan (only African, not American) and his mom was 'pure white'. His parents got divorced when he was too young to understand the concept of family and his dad did not spend enuf time with him to have rubbed of any 'heritage' from his side. He was brought up right from childhood till the time he went to college by his maternal grandparents, who were again 'pure white', and that too in America, and there was no whiff of 'black' in his life, except maybe just his skin color (which again was just a chance of predominant genes).
But, in spite of all this, he is touted as the 'black' kid who made the whole community proud. I wonder if he even knows what 'the community' is all about! Or what percentage of 'the community' can actually identify with him - someone who got all the good chances in life without having to struggle with his color.....
And what about his mother? How would she feel that in spite of giving him everything he had, he was still his father's son in the eyes of the world. What about her contribution to his heritage? You bring up a child for 20 years but that is insignificant and someone who spent maybe 2 years holds so much significance!
I dont know what Obama personally feels about this. I can only try to understand the value of the political mileage gained from all this. Is the missing tribute to a parent small price to pay for the white house?
Note - My pan card says "S/W/D of " which stands for 'son/wife/daughter' of !! I find this very esp hypocritical in India where everyone is always lecturing about the importance of a mother in a child's life (esp directed to us working women - meant to make us feel guilty about pursuing a career and not 'concentrating' on our family). I always hear stuff about the importance of a mother in Indian society and how women should not think twice before giving up 5 years or 1/6th of their career to bring up one child. I would like to see just 'One example' of our great Indian society paying a tribute to its famed MOTHER. In fact, the west at least celebrates 'Mother's Day'. In India, the wife is always doing some fast or other for the husband and kids but I am still to see a fast for the mother!
Amen.
4 comments:
As long as men continue to exist victimised in living upto the stereotype created by them, for themselves, the Indian society would remain as double standard to treating its women as second grade citizens!!
Pande ji... Obama ke baare mein to sahi likha... but i would like to differ with you on the Indian mentality thing.. Nowadays a lot of places, like passport, like admission applications, PAN card etc. need your mother's name and that too mother's maiden name. So even though things are not all right, but they are improving we must say...
@Janet aka curious earthian - I agree to what you say but mother's maiden name is more of a security measure imported from the west to perform identity validation in call centers (since it is fairly certain that a thief would not know it) and not as an acknowledgment to woman as a parent.
@ Shivi you may be right but it would just become a vicious circle - Man victimized to follow the stereotype and Woman frustrated that there is no man strong enuf to say 'No' to the stereotype!
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