Uruk Hai⁽¹⁾ defends Logic

Gajanana⁽²⁾, what's happening to the smart people?

We were watching 'Maria, Maria' by Santana, and there were a lot of black dudes dancing in the video.

Discussion:

They: Black guys are better dancers.

I: Yea, because they practice a lot, I guess.

They: No, black people as such have a sense of rhythm, naturally.

I: Yea, but that's because they practice. Becuase they grow up in an environment where they get time to practice, because they grow up in an environment where dancing isn't considered a waste of time, because they grow up in an environment where they express themselves through dance. An Indian guy who grows up in a similiar environment and practices his moves will move around pretty well as well.

They: No, no. I know an African guy who hadn't danced much, and whom everyone thought was like a lame dancer...but once day he danced like a god and all the chicks were bowled over.

I: I never said that people cannot be good dancers instinctively. All I am saying is that this trait will not be restricted to blacks.

But They just wouldn't accept that. Maybe it was because They wanted to claim superiority to the blacks in other fields, like intelligence, creativity, may be? They gave me example after example of black celebrities who were good dancers and non-black celebrities who were lousy dancers, some who had been to discotheques in the USA telling me how dance floors were totally dominated by black guys.They then went into statistics, giving me numerical examples about how Jews were better bankers, Blacks better runners, Indians better IT professionals and so on.

As if that wasn't enough, They started talking about how Brahmins⁽³⁾ were smarter, and at this point in time, I was chuckling, while they gave me figures of the number of Brahmins in NTU as proof of Brahmins being smarter. And all the time, the voices were getting louder and the body language, more aggressive. One of Them stood up and all, in an unconscious effort to intimidate me.

Now this was getting to be like being locked up in a room with a megaphone-weilding Goebbels, so I shut my ears and did what I do many a times when I am in an argument.

Cut to Thought Experiment:

Ashwin is 18 years old. He has just scored 95.33 on his HSC, and he is generally happy with himself. All those hours of slogging in the night have paid off. He can see his mother smiling, red faced in relief. As a Brahman [tathakathit⁽⁴⁾] it was quite imperative for him to score high. He was feeling really proud of himself, looking at his hard earned marks on his sheet. His friend, Atul walks up; he is an OBC⁽⁴⁾ [tathakathit], and asks,
"How much did you score?"
Pat came the answer, "95.33, man. You?"
He shrugs and replies, "92.5. Good marks man, but then again, Brahmins are smarter..."
Ashwin looks at him, incredulous, "Dude, I slogged my butt off on this one. Don't you say to my face that these marks are because I was born with some smart gene, ok?"

Cut back to Discussion.

By saying that black guys are better dancers naturally, you are depriving the black dudes of the hours of practice that they put into devising new moves that rock. By saying that Indians are naturally better at mathematics, you deny them the glory of the logical mind that they mould over the years of learning various theorems and co-relating them. By saying that black people are naturally better runners you are discounting the many gruelling workouts that one has had on the track.

By attributing anything to a person's affiliation to a racial, national or religious demographic you are insulting the person's efforts, creativity and his individuality. You are belittling his achievements as something that had to be expected in lieu of the person being from a particular racial, national or religious background.

I found that offensive. They said that they would be fine with a person saying that they were good at computers because they were Indians, as opposed to because they had taken more interest in computers at a younger age and had shown a voracious appetite for technical manuals. Shame, shame.

Glossary :

(1) Uruk Hai - Militant Orcs in JRRT's novels, a slur that a close friend has coined, dedicated to the alleged Puneri⁽⁶⁾ in me, I suppose.
(2) Gajanan - Elephant-headed Hindu God, considered smartest amongst all the gods. [larger brain-body size ratio]
(3) Brahmin - Priestly class in the Hindu caste system, claimed blest with superior intellect sans proof.
(4) tathakathit - Literally, "So called".
(5) OBC - Other Backward Castes, I would say they lay in the twilight zone of the elites and the commoners of the classical Hindu society.
(6) Puneri - A person who calls Pune home, and home, Pune. I don't, it's a misnomer.