The Alex Iwobi ‘gorilla’ insult shines a light on south Asian anti-black racism.

Pedro_P

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Bollywood actor Esha Gupta was part of a shameful conversation about the Arsenal player. The problem goes way beyond her, though.

Bollywood actor Esha Gupta said she was ‘sorry you thought it was racist’. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images
▼ “Did you know Gandhi was  racist?” A white friend sits opposite me, grinning so widely I wonder if there’s going to be a punchline. “We know,” I reply, “we all know.” Her smile fades quickly and she moves on. I stop listening, the noise in the cafe dies down and the soundtrack to a sad Bollywood film fills the moment. She thought I didn’t know. Why don’t I talk about it more? I hide the trauma of black people because Gandhi was one of the few saviours we had in our toxic community. Anti-blackness was a punchline I wasn’t expecting.
One thing I remember from studying A-level sociology is the idea of how you develop through your primary and then your secondary education – something that contributes greatly to social dynamics. Primary education is what you learn from your family home, secondary education is what is passed on to us from institutions.
Our primary education, influenced by generational attitudes and exacerbated by class and race structures, is our base before we walk into a classroom and are told what to think. The different ideologies passed down to us are either embraced or eventually unlearned – and I’m hoping a generation of British Indians would have unlearned all the casual racism we witnessed against black people.
Burnt Roti, the south Asian magazine I founded, is concentrating on this for our next print issue. There is a thirst for our community to nurture an activist movement, and our magazine would like to be at the forefront. Yet we must force ourselves to look within first. Some people feel they have the right to align themselves with black people, as if their struggle has been equal. But there were black slaves in India and Pakistancenturies ago, and today, Africans who move to India to study are regularly beaten. Yes, we have aspects of their experience in our lives, but not to the same extent; so why are we so adamant? When our mothers tell us not to speak to black people, or if they refer to someone as “dark” while grimacing, why do we not correct them?
Two days ago, Arsenal supporter and Bollywood actor Esha Gupta uploaded a screenshot of a text  conversation on Instagram  stories. She and a friend both laughed at footballer Alex Iwobi, claiming that “evolution stopped for him”, referring to him as “gorilla-faced”, and a “neanderthal”.  (▪ ▪ ▪)

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Buddha480

But is this not extremely 'normal' in India and especially North India ? As a brown skinned South Indian living in the Noth, I know exactly how common this is