Wednesday, June 4, 2008

On white privilege

I never thought I had an identity as a white person before, or with other white people, but in India you smile at other white people on the street. Everyone stares at you because you are white, especially if you are white and blond, or wearing Western clothes (I get stared at so much more in Western clothes, and auto drivers try to rip me off much more, than when I'm wearing Indian clothes). I have never felt more like a "white person"... In India, it doesn't matter if you don't like to identify as white, or you identify as "Jewish"... here people look at you, and you are white. So people try and rip you off and beggars target you and follow you for kilometers and boys assume you are easy like the women in Hollywood movies (like, really easy)... I'm not complaining. I know this is just a specific context of white privilege, getting harassed by vendors and beggars and boys and getting stared at by everyone, a result of being rich, though I'm not rich by American standards, I'm rich by virtue of being able to have afforded coming to this country, or go to another country outside of my own. This is the 'price' I say for having white privilege, for being from a country with world class medical care, a high standard of living, being able to afford (or in my case, arrange for a fellowship to pay for me) to go abroad....

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About Me

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I wrote this blog while working at a women's resource center in Hyderabad, India through a social justice fellowship through American Jewish World Service.

When I think of India, I think of...

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