Exploring Racial Biases: Indians Biases
Foreword: I apologize in advance if anything hurt someone here. Also, as I'm closer to this culture (but also not that much at the same time) and I still have some unresolved pain, I'm going to rant a bit here. You are warned, so brace yourself if you are Indian.
Family Situation
I consider the Indian side of my family toxic. Most families have some toxicity and there's always worst of course, but some people that I know are pretty high on the toxic scale to the point where I consider some of them as criminals. Here are some example of situations and of people:
I have an uncle who a long time ago used to get drunk, get back home, beat his wife, and rape her. He also used to give her death threats. They are still living together now, but he calmed down a lot because he is quite old now
A few years ago one of my cousins tried to kill his dad. He took a piece of glass and tried to slice his dad's throat
When I was a kid, I saw my Indian dad throwing a knife at my white mom. The reason was stupidity, they just disagreed on the appellation of the knife, and in an excess of rage, my dad threw it. Hopefully, he missed her and of course, it was her fault.
I have an aunt who calls her son names like dog and asshole. She is pretty authoritative and gives him order all the time
An older cousin quit the country to live in Europe with a woman that he met. He has three kids now, but nobody knows what he is doing and how he makes money
There's a lot of alcoholics in the generation of people that raised me
Overall people all always fighting together and it looks like the more they fight together, the more family values are important for them
In general, I didn't spend that much time with my extended family. Even if I know about these stories, I didn't experience that many traumas from them. The traumas that I experienced came mostly from my dad's influence. He was often angry, full of hate, agitated, authoritative, and was having pleasure humiliating people, me, my mom, and my sister. He calmed down a lot in recent years as he started to get old, but it's still not a pleasure to interact with him so I reduced my interactions to the minimum. I also cut the rest of my uncles and aunts, I don't want to waste time with my dad's brothers and sisters. However, I see most of my cousins as decent people, except for two of them.
Compared to that, my French side was the total opposite. I used to go to France each year with my mom and sister until a few years ago. When I was there it was like heaven, not only things worked better on the material level because the country was more developed, but people would also be much more kind and respectful. People would be more joyful, share more love, have fun and make jokes where in my Indian family many people weren't able to understand jokes, would take things seriously, and get angry. Finally, I felt free, I didn't have to be careful of what I say and feel the oppression of my dad.
I think the fact that the two sides of my family were the complete opposite in terms of consciousness contributed to the formation of the belief "white people good / Indian people bad".
2018 - 2019 Work Experience
In 2018, I entered the job market as a software developer and found a job in an offshore company of French origin. It was also the first time that I entered an Indian majority environment as I used to spend time in white-majority environments at school and in college.
What I saw the first time that I entered this company blew me away. It felt very strange, it was so silent that it felt deeply inauthentic. Nobody would smile and just barely communicate for the entire day, there was almost no humanity. Only a few people who were a bit more extroverted would try to break the ice and make a few jokes, but it was rare. Overall, it felt like a cemetery, the days consisted of: enter the company, work, have a break, work, have lunch, work, have a break, work, end of the day with almost no communication and no sharing of emotions. I don't know how things are in other companies, my guess is that there are some commonalities in corporate environments, but I don't think that the human side is always as poor as what I experienced.
So... the work environment sucked, but what surprised me even more was the psychology of the people. People were very afraid of everything: they were afraid of asking questions, they were afraid of asking for help, they were afraid of sharing ideas, they were afraid of admitting mistakes, they were afraid to speak. It looked like they didn't have an independent thinking ability but only knew to obey the boss, say yes to the boss, shut up, and do the work. I rapidly understood that it was a deeply stage blue environment and that a self-improvement culture didn't exist there. People were too afraid to explore things by themselves and therefore were doomed to repeat the exact same thing that they learned ten years ago even if it was outdated. It disappointed me a lot.
The initial environment wasn't fulfilling, but that was just the beginning. Some experiences intrigued me, some disappointed me, and some ultimately hurt me.
Experiences that intrigued me:
One day I was having a launch with my manager whose name was Vishal (he will come back a lot as I develop) and another guy. The other guy did a joke and said: "If Vishal is mean to you, just let me know and I'll protect you!". I responded: "It's OK! I'll handle him properly!". Vishal startled in fright, he was shocked where the other guy laugh. I didn't understand what happened at the moment, I just did a joke, but it deeply shocked him.
As I was working in an offshore company, it happened a few times per year that some people from France would come to do some management or other kind of work. What I noticed is that local people wouldn't be in their normal state. They would start to get nervous or would want to show their worth to white people by suddenly trying to be a bit more fun or extroverted. They would also let white people do things that weren't in the company rules. For example, white people would come to work in shorts and sandals where it was prohibited. When I saw this, I thought: "Oh, it's cool I can come with sandals too". I came with sandals and the director told me that it was inappropriate and that there was a dress code in the company. In my mind, I was like: "Tf happened? White people can do this, but us, locals can't?"
Experiences that disappointed me:
In a previous post, I mentioned that French people often joke about races and made jokes about me because they perceived me as non-white. What's incredible when we are mixed race is how much people's perceptions can change to fit their survival agenda. So... in this Indian majority environment, I was perceived as white and a few Indians did the same kind of jokes that French people did and called me white or French. As someone who lived in the same country for almost my entire life, it felt like a dagger in my heart.
One day, I got an email from a company that looked pretty interesting. I decided to talk about it with Vishal. I talked to him and he got very agitated, he asked me my age, he told me that life is how it is, that I should not play with my future, and finally that if I quit there would be no possibility to come back. He was trying to manipulate me to stay in the company. I saw the threat of not being able to come back as a stage blue manipulation strategy as one of stage blue greatest fear is to be cut off from its community. In retrospect, I think that he was afraid that it could hit his reputation because he recruited me.
Another day, I was having lunch and a conversation started about education. The guys that I talked with told me that we should beat children at school because otherwise, they wouldn't learn. I was blown away, and I was even more blown away when someone around my age said the same thing. In my mind, it was like: "Come on, this is the 21st century. We don't beat kids at school in the 21st century". They were unable to see that the difficulties that they were having in life were caused by these exact same childhood traumas.
I had an experience where I was discussing a problem with someone and the person's solution was just not appropriate. The problem wasn't even complicated, just a few research would have been enough to understand the issue, but he started to get very aggressive with me. I called Vishal to fix the issue, the other guy expected Vishal to give him right as they were friends, but Vishal gave me right, which pissed him off. I think I was nitpicking on this issue because it was very small, but I also think that this guy was getting jealous of me because I was very competent.
Experiences that hurt me:
At the end of a day, Vishal was reviewing my code and asked me to come to see something. He didn't agree with how I did something and I didn't agree with him. I was a little annoyed because it seemed obvious to me, so I said the following thing with a little of arrogance: "Well if we do this, let's continue by putting all the code in the same file." — If you know about programming, you can understand what I mean, if not what happened is that we just disagreed a bit on the structure of the project. — He asked me: "Like this?". I responded: "Yes". Then, I said that I would do some research. However it was the end of the day, there was no time to do any research, then I had the following insight: "Well, I can ask this in the team discussion group and get some quick feedback from the team.". One part of the team was located in Mauritius and the other part in France. So I just asked in the discussion group: "Hey, me and Vishal are having a conflict. There are 2 solutions. This solution: [...] and this solution: [...]". I didn't mention who was behind which solution to the problem. I tried to be as objective as possible even though I obviously wanted to win. A few seconds after, a message from Vishal appeared: "Raphael we don't discuss this here". I tried to talk to him, and wanted to say: "I think it's better if we let them think and give an answer". He shut me up and responded aggressively: "No, it's not better.". I was surprised, why such a reaction? I just wanted to get some feedback. He then told me to come with him in another room and he exploded in an outrage: "ALL OF THIS FOR THIS?! YOU SAID THAT WOULD DO SOME RESEARCH AND YOU DIDN'T DO?! THEY ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET THAT COULD HELP AND YOU KNEW THAT BUT YOU POST A MESSAGE?! YOU ARE QUESTIONING MY COMPETENCIES?!". I was watching him being full of hate and wondering tf was happening? Why such a strong reaction for me just asking for feedbacks? I wanted to say something to clarify and started: "I didn't say who...". He shut me up and responded: "YOU DIDN'T SAY WHO?! YOU MENTIONED VISHAL AND RAPHAEL AND YOU SAY YOU DIDN'T SAY WHO?!". I continued: "Yes, OK. I gave names, but I didn't who was behind which solution." (I did that because I wanted to be as objective as possible). Then, he told me: "I GOT A MESSAGE FROM SEBASTIAN ASKING IF EVERYTHING WAS OK?!". Sebastian was his manager located in France. I responded: "What's the problem? I just said that we had a conflict and wanted to get some solutions.". He responded: "CONFLICT?! CONFLICT?! WHAT ARE THEY GOING THINK?! IF WE HAVE SOME ISSUES, IT NEEDS TO BE RESOLVED AT OUR LEVEL, THEY DON'T NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE!!!". Apparently, the fact that I used the word "conflict" scared the shit out of him. I responded: "Ok... so I cannot use the chat for technical questions, can I ask on the internet than". He said: "Yes, don't use the chat for this. You can ask on the internet instead". Then, he finished: "YOU ARE LOOKING TOO MUCH AFTER SMALL DETAILS, WE CANNOT GO FORWARD LIKE!". I think he was right for the last statement. He basically thought that I was trying to overthrow him which is the reason why he exploded in outrage, and of course, from my perspective, this reaction was way too overexaggerated for the problem. I felt deeply hurt from this experience, it felt unfair, and I felt oppressed. I felt that I had no right to say anything, no right to contradict anything, no right to make progress.
Christmas was approaching, it was some days after the previous event. I was having lunch with other coworkers, Vishal arrived in the room and sat at the same table. I was still hurt after the previous experience, but I wanted to move on. I thought that as I mostly have to obey and don't have the right for having my own ideas when it comes to projects, I can at least get to know people a little. I don't celebrate Christmas that much, so I asked: "Do you all celebrate Christmas?". Vishal looked at me and exploded in rage: "YOU! YOU! SINCE HOW MANY YEARS YOU HAVE BEEN LIVING IN MAURITIUS?! YOU LIVE IN MAURITIUS AND YOU DON'T KNOW THAT PEOPLE CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS?!". I was speechless. Tf did I do again? I felt slice into pieces and it also felt incredibly racist, much more racist than the sarcasm that I got from French people. After this experience, I thought: "Alright... so... I cannot speak when it comes to projects, I cannot share my ideas to improve stuff, I cannot try to correct stuff because people think that I'm trying to overthrow them. And now I cannot even try to get to know people?! Tf am I supposed to do?". Shut up, obey the boss, don't do anything that the boss doesn't tell, don't try to share any new idea, don't try to improve stuff, just do the work, shut up, end of the story. And also don't even try to get to know people. Because of these kinds of experiences and the psychological pressure, I started to spiral down into depression. It felt that I had no freedom, no rights to say or do anything by myself, except obeying people like a slave. I decided to cut everyone. I would just come in the morning, work, eat, work, and go back home without communicating with anyone. I was afraid of strong aggressive emotional responses, I was afraid that anything that I said would get misinterpreted, and that I would get talked down and aggressively insulted. I also started to become toxic, I started to hate this environment and all the people that I was working with. I particularly hated Vishal, I hated this guy so much that I would show him my hate by looking at him aggressively in the eyes. But I was also depressed, super depressed, and it seemed like the more depressed I was getting, the more people would be angry after me. It happened, another guy got angry at me for not be happy, I got talked down to for not being happy. It seemed that not being happy wasn't OK and that we shouldn't show difficult emotions. In retrospect, I think it was because everyone was depressed, but people were ashamed of it, they were ashamed of showing emotions and saying that they didn't felt right. When they were seeing that someone wasn't well, it reminded them of themselves and they would masquerade their depression behind anger. Things don't stop here. Even though I had a full-time job, I was also working on a small business aside. However, I felt so much oppressed and the psychological pressure was so high, that my mental state was getting worst and worst and I internally exploded. I started to get panic attacks at night, I was shaking, I felt many times that I couldn't breathe, that I was dying. I was experiencing insane fears at midnight, or 1 AM, or after, I was completely alone in my small apartment by myself without any help. I then would go to sleep for a few hours, and then woke up again in the morning to go to work. That was the most traumatic period of my life and it was 3 years ago.
I had other wtf experiences before quitting this company. One day I posted a question about a task, then someone told me to go see a person. I went to see the person so that I could get some help. This person looked at me and say: "This... this... look at this, this is not elegant.". I asked: "What?". He responded: "To put comments and ask questions on tasks, other people will see that.". I said: "It's fine, it's just a question.". He responded: "Is it a defy? A competition?". Tf was happening again? I cannot even ask a question when I'm blocked on a task. How can I progress in my work if people get ashamed that I ask questions?
Here's one last experience that I'm going to share here, it happened some days after the previous one. One day the same coworker was very agitated during the daily meeting, at the end he revealed that the main team in France wasn't satisfied with the work, it was taking too much time and because of this they would maybe stop recruiting. After the meeting, he came to us and started to talk. I had this thought in my mind: "I'm a little French and I can see that sometimes they aren't able to understand themselves properly because of cultural differences, maybe this causes a lot of issues?". This was a BS thought, I convinced myself that this is what was happening where in fact I felt discriminated and had a lot of resentment against people. I started talking, and the guy shut me up: "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! This is not what is happening! Don't think that!". Then started to get angry: "What you are a little French?! This is not a question of French or Mauritian here! I have been working with French people for many years and I never had any problem! This is Sebastian! Hey...it's not that simple, no it's complex, complex. Hey, I'm not a school kid... I have some experience, I have been carefully observing people for many years and I know how people are! He is saying that we are taking too much time so that he can kick us out!". For me, it looks like that he observed a lot of people, but not that many conscious people. He basically confused stage red or toxic orange with someone that was at healthy orange/low green and made a conspiracy theory in his mind. Then, he went to his table while making some signs with his fingers signifying that I was mentally disturbed, and said multiple times: "What's this? A defy again?? A defy??"
I felt extremely oppressed in this environment. I felt like I had no right to say anything, no right to think by myself, no right to try to improve anything, no right to share ideas. I felt like people were taking my joy away, that they were taking my passion away, that they were taking my life away, and taking my greatest gift which is my ability to use my mind to creatively solve complex problems.
During the middle of 2020, I was still processing the trauma and experiencing regular backslashes. One day, I was so much in pain that I dug into a spaghetti conversation on this forum:
I'm not really proud of me, but I just couldn't help myself. I felt so much oppressed that I had to get it out in some ways.
On my last day in this company, Vishal asked me to come into his office so that we can talk a little. This was the moment where the old person who supposedly knew everything about life would tell me how life is and what I should do in life. I was listening but didn't say anything. I wanted to shout in his face (WARNING: if you are Indian, this is racist): "YOU ARE ALL PSYCHOLOGICALLY ANTIQUATED COMPARED TO EUROPEANS STANDARDS!!!". I wanted to express all my frustration and pain that I had working in this company, I wanted to insult him, to put him down, to break him into pieces, but I didn't say anything because it would have been useless and would have caused him unnecessary pain.
In retrospect, I think that Vishal probably suffered some PTSD because of the strong aggressive reactions, but I didn't even know what was PTSD at that time. I also think that the fact that these guys worked in offshore companies for more than ten years for white people and weren't paid that much created internalized anger against white people, and as a mixed-race person I got some of this anger back straight to my face.
I still have some emotional scars from this experience, but I think I will be able to sort them out. The experience was traumatic, but not traumatic to the point where I'm unable to function in life. I'm currently doing much better than before, I almost feel like a new human being. I'm fine and functional overall, but I can still feel a bit of anger, pain, and sadness sometimes. It's now just a matter of time until I recover completely.
Another Last Experience
Here's one last experience that I had a year ago.
I was walking with two dogs unleashed when I saw an Indian man coming with two kids and a dog leashed. By just looking at him, I knew that something bad would happen, he was also carrying a big tree branch in his hand.
One of my dogs barked with his dog. He didn't think twice and beat him immediately. I wanted to tell him that next time it would be better if he could stay aside (there was a big empty space) so that we don't have any issues with the dogs. He shut me up immediately and started to talk to me very aggressively. Then my second dog walked in front of him (the dog didn't do anything, didn't bark, didn't run, but was just walking peacefully) and he beat him too.
After that he came close to me, looked at me in the eyes, and told me while being full of hate: "NEXT TIME I'LL FUCK YOUR DOG AND I'LL FUCK YOU TOO.". I responded: "Alright...". It was time to move before things degenerate.
Of course, I had some responsibility too because my dogs were unleashed and he had kids with him, but I still consider his reaction over-aggressive.
Spiritual Hypocrisy
I wondered a few times in the past why is India considered the most spiritual culture in the world. What is it that makes it so spiritual? What is its foundation? I came with two points:
Some exceptional individuals discovered some stuff a long time ago and the entire culture got shaped by this base
A deep need for it
I currently think that it's a bit of both working together in a strange loopy interdependent way. However as I lack knowledge on India's history and its foundations, I'll keep that as a supposition and won't assert a point of view based on ignorance here.
I feel that there is a lot of spiritual hypocrisy. It seems to me that the religious standards are way too high for average people, so high that it backfires and create the opposite result. Many Indians show themselves as kind people, who love, care about others, and care about their families. I remember renting an apartment in the capital. One day I had new neighbors and met them, the woman told me with a kind smile that if I needed anything, they would be there for help. A few days after I was hearing her and her husband screaming at each other. I personally never felt that much love from this culture, but oppression: oppression from my dad, oppression from my family, oppression from my coworkers.
This obsessive need to care about others becomes toxic and we get over-controlling parents who control everything that their kids do even after they pass 25 or 30. It also turns into a people-pleasing culture and many people don't thrive in life and don't develop properly. It's easily possible to see that with this obsession for family values where people are obsessively concerned about their families, not because they genuinely care about their families, but because they are afraid of it. They live in fear, and they work because they are afraid of how their families see them. Kids need a minimum of freedom, room for self-expression, and need to experience life rather than obey all the time in order to develop an independent thinking ability.
Also, for a culture that claims to be so spiritual emotions are very repressed, which creates sickness. It looks like many people wear a mask because most of them are just average people who aren't able to meet high spiritual standards. It creates a lot of shame so people put the good/kind person mask, but it doesn't work because emotions need to be experienced rather than repressed. People are also afraid of moving forward because of fear of making mistakes and not being seen as good, so many of them either submit to authority and put the good person's mask or just stop caring about anything anymore and become ultra toxic. In all cases, it creates a situation where a huge chunk of the culture stays stuck in low consciousness because it cannot attain those high spiritual standards.
I don't find this spiritual at all.
It's fine to be wrong, it's fine to make mistakes, we shouldn't be shamed because of this. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine for god sake.
It's fine to not be happy all the time and experience difficult emotions. Making mistakes and being bad is part of life, and accepting making mistakes and correcting them is being spiritual, and recognizing having failed to recognize mistakes is also being spiritual... All emotions need to be express, life is about experiencing a wide range of emotions, it's not possible to be highly conscious individuals all the time. There's no need to put on the good person mask, nobody is good nor bad.
This emotional repression creates a lot of toxicity, especially in men.
Bias Formation
Here are the causes:
My Indian family is catastrophic
The work experience that I had in an Indian majority environment was very oppressive
Because the consciousness gap was so high between my French side and Indian side, I always had a preference for my white French side. This got amplified by the traumatic experience that I had working in an Indian majority environment.
I have some resentment against this culture because I expect all people to be oppressive, over-controlling, and over-aggressive.
But of course, things are more complex than that.
General Patterns And Generational Differences
Indian culture is mostly at stage blue. The things that I'm complaining about: authority, aggressive overcontrolling people are common characteristics of societies that are deeply at stage blue even if they are still cultural differences between different societies.
I noticed that I'm not the only one complaining about this, my cousins are also complaining, and other young Indians are also complaining. While studying in France my sister met an Indian girl and asked her if it was the same thing in her family, and she responded yes. If this is something that many young people are complaining about, then I don't consider pointing this out as racist, but as a real social problem that needs to be addressed.
Also, new generations are always more open-minded than older generations. Many young Indians that I met (including my cousins) were just regular people, not oppressive overcontrolling people. However, this still varies depending on the environment that someone grows in. Most of my cousins are living in Europe, so they developed at stage orange/green. I expect most young Indians who grow up in a first-world country to be around stage orange. In my country, most of them are probably around stage blue/low orange, and in India, most of them are probably deep into stage blue.
Letting Go
I can practice forgiveness here too. I need to forgive:
My terrible Indian family
My terrible Indian dad
The coworkers that I worked with in this Indian majority environment, especially Vishal.
I actually already did that and it liberated a lot of pain and cleared my mind. I used to have a lot of recurrent parasite thoughts of this experience, this is almost not the case anymore. I'm currently much more able to focus and to work properly
I also already forgave Vishal. I visualized me hugging him and telling him: "It's ok, it's ok."
I also need to accept that all societies aren't at the same level of development. Indian society is mostly at stage blue, I cannot continue to entertain anger because this society isn't as evolved as I would like it to be.
Finally, I can spend more time with my cousins, try to meet healthy Indians, learn from them, and learn more from Indian culture.
