{{ NUMOL BITES }}

{ honour killings in india. }

reblogging for commentary by thesadnessofpencils and aqrima.

*WARNING* for talk of physical violence and systemic violence, and for racism/colonialism and whitesplaining

aqrima:

grieving:

thesadnessofpencils:

feistyfeminist:

aqrima: [i deleted the original post because i don’t like to have copies of things on my blog, but since it’s reproduced here, it should be fine..?]

feistyfeminist:

grieving:

honour killings in india

I, personally, do not feel that culture is an excuse for violence. In fact, I feel that there is no excuse for violence. Using religion and culture to excuse murder is an act of cowardice. Yet, still they continue…in the name of religion and tradition, etc.

What I find disgusting about this story—beyond the whole pointless death and human intolerance—is that the family changed their story multiple times. Changing your story in such a fashion over and over again is rather indicative of guilt. And an autopsy showing that the young woman suffocated…that, too, seems more like murder than suicide. Were there marks on the neck indicating that she had been hung? Was there rope? Did the rope have any of her DNA embedded in the threads from, you know, hair and skin that would have certainly been torn and irritated? Is there even any evidence that she hung herself, aside from the family’s changing stories?

And isn’t it suspicious that her “suicide” note suddenly appeared after they changed the story?

No, you cannot change society in one day. Ms. Pathak’s brother was right in that. But that doesn’t mean that culture cannot change at all. It can, and it will. Hopefully, one day, the outdated, ignorant, and conservative notion of honor killings will be gone and women will be one step closer to being safe and equal in the cultures that once advocated such archaic systems.

okay, so. this is brutal and horrific, and this is not okay.

but. but but but but but.

you’re saying that this is done in the name of (outdated, archaic, conservative, ignorant) culture, and that is wrong. and some people say that this is what the culture says, and it is outdated, archaic, conservative and ignorant.

you’re working on the assumption that 1) there is some primal indian culture that we (indians, south asians) come from, and 2) that you know what it is.

and you don’t. you really, really don’t. i get the sense you (and the person you reblogged) are just a white feminist who thinks it’s okay to make blatantly racist and imperialist statements about our cultures, while you’re completely ignorant about the ways in which, for one, imperialism has shaped our cultures. made it so that we are in this bind where it’s either fundamentalism or modernity, and nothing. fucking. makes. sense. 

and i’m sorry (actually, i’m not), but this makes me so angry. i don’t like how your interpretations of casteism and the way it comes from our “culture” and blah blah fucking blah…. just recolonize us all over again.

do some fucking research before you make statements like this. seriously. learn some fucking shit.

i can’t even properly comment on this, it just makes me so angry. i’m so tired of my cultures being completely stripped of their complexity and the brutal violence of imperialism that has robbed us of our realities. i am not excusing murder. i’m just saying, don’t say it’s because of our archaic, ignorant, outdated, conservative culture. you have no idea what our “culture” is. there is no single “culture” monolith. so shut the fuck up.

First, I reblogged without comment, so it’d be hard for me to “shut the fuck up” when I hadn’t said anything. Maybe you don’t understand how tumblr works? Its an interesting article and I wasn’t going to delete the comment/credit from the person who brought it to my attention by originally posting it.

Second, reading comprehension is indeed free, and a gift for all who read what you thoughtlessly type. While I can not speak for Grieving, I can read her comment and see that she didn’t even try to judge the entirety of any culture, whether it be Indian, South Asian, Hindu, Jain, Caucasian, Dravidian, etc. The author of this tumblr seemed to spend most of the time focusing on the specifics of the case (DNA, changing stories) and commented on the the victim’s brother saying that you couldn’t “change society in a day” and the victim’s father saying “This is part and parcel of our culture, that you marry into your own caste. Every society has its own culture. Every society has its own traditions.” She then called the notion of honor killings “outdated, ignorant, and conservative.”

But since you wanted to put words in my mouth, I’ll respond. You just excused horrible violence because you feel, wait, I don’t know what you feel because you just flung around baseless insults and couldn’t explain yourself because you were just “so angry.” Here are some facts from the article - since I’m assuming you just reacted without actually taking the time read it, I’ll list them for you:

• There’s been such a resurgence in honor killings in India that the Prime Minister had to order a “cabinet-level commission to consider tougher penalties in honor killings.”
• There are village caste councils, or khap panchayats, that are operating as an extralegal morals police force. Courts are trying to curb these councils but politician are afraid to because it will cause them to lose votes. (these councils, along with honor killings are more prevalent in the Northern states.)
• Here’s the quote for the slain couple’s uncle and suspect in the murder: “What is wrong in it? Murder is wrong, but this is socially the best thing that has been done.”
• The UN stated that in a 2006 survey 76% of respondents said intercaste marriages were unacceptable.

If you had read the article you would have seen where the author of the comment was coming from. Maybe you should be the one who “learns some fucking shit.” You don’t think this accurately portrays the Indian culture? Take it up with the NYT or coherently explain your point of view here. As it stands, your opinion wasn’t worth reading. Oh, and back to my above point, excusing horrible violence on an innocent victim (a whole line of “but, but, but,” really?) makes you an evil person.

First of all, fiestyfeminist, you have the luxury of not being offended because you are a member of the dominant culture. But when you use this luxury to dismiss a person who is offended by it, that’s your privilege showing through. Kindly check it.

Second of all, neither aqrima nor I are advocating violence in the original article. We are instead pointing out that you attribute the source of this violence to our heritage, the same heritage that has been wrecked by imperialism. The author of the NYT article paints the entirety of South Asia with the brush that says: hey look, a bunch of people are doing honour killings! omg! Look at the backward patriarchy! Nyah nyah nyah nyah!

That you are agreeing to such an opinion is what we are calling your attention to. When you say minority cultures are backwards and archaic, without examining the impact your culture has had on ours, or critically examining the patriarchy that defines your own, be prepared for people such as aqrima or I to call you out on your privilege.

Peace out.

I feel as if I need to add some points of clarification here…if only for my own sanity.

Violence is a form of control and power. It is used to subjugate both women and minorities…and no culture is free of that. All forms of violence are demeaning, ignorant, archaic, etc. In short, those adjectives I used to describe honor killings apply to all forms of violence against women and minorities. That includes domestic violence against women in Western cultures, and the endless amounts of women who are killed every single year by their abusive spouses.

However, this article was not about domestic violence. This article was about honor killings. I stand by the fact that honor killings are fundamentally wrong…just as I stand by the notion that rape, domestic violence, and all other violence against women in each and every single culture is wrong.

Violence, such as honor killings, is often excused as part of “culture.” There are huge debates concerning these topics. For example, should we allow something violent described as “culture” to continue because the word “culture” is employed? Or should we work off the basic assumption of human rights? There is no right or wrong answer to this debate. In my original opinion, I was merely pointing out the fact that culture is used as an excuse when it comes to Ms. Pathak’s death. Take, for example, the uncle’s quote about murder being wrong “but [that] this is socially the best thing that has been done” (ref. the death of Ms. Pathak).

In a nutshell, had this article been about any type of violence against women…I would have commented. Depending on the details of the death, I would have responded in a similar manner by pointing out the very suspicious details of her death and the changing stories of the family members. And, honestly, I don’t see how pointing out that violence against women, the prevalent excuse of “culture,” and the suspicious circumstances surrounding Ms. Pathak’s death is in any way “colonizing,” “imperialistic,” or an example of “white privilege.” Honestly…it’s disgust that anyone would be treated in such a demeaning and cruel manner.

i am going to try to respond to this. i was not planning to, originally, hence the delay, but i’m going to. i don’t think i should have to. it is not my job to prove to privileged people how fucked up they’re being, to try to get them to check their privilege. so it is not, and should not be, my job to prove to you, feistyfeminist and grieving, what exactly is going wrong here. but i’m doing it anyway. and i am pissed off about that. that i feel like i have to prove it to you anyway. because you guys are the ones with the power here, the power to “inform”. the power of the new york times backing you up. the power of assumption, of default. your words are the truth, aren’t they? i don’t like having to prove things to you. but i have to. so:

first, thank you again to thesadnessofpencils for articulating things so well in your response to feistyfeminist. i really really appreciated it, and you pinpointed things very very well.

so, feistyfeminist:

i’m not an expert on how tumblr works, but yeah, i’d gleaned a fair amount of the reblogging system and credit, etc. i am not as familiar with responding and re-responding through comments, but i’m getting there. but yes, i knew that you had reblogged grieving, and i am sorry that i messed up the credit to hir while reblogging.

the thing is, though, you didn’t have to say anything. just like people who read that article and agree with it, and circulate it around to boost signals about oppression against women (without recognizing how racist and imperialist that article was, without recognizing how intersections of gender, caste, racial and cultural violence need to be talked about in any such discussion) …. well, all of you don’t have to say anything. you are endorsing those oversimplistic, racist, ethnicist, imperialist and patronizing views of other cultures by refusing to learn about and acknowledge the whole thing. you are, as thesadnessofpencils so astutely described, saying “nyah nyah nyah nyah! look at the backward patriarchy in that culture; at least we’re not doing that!” defend yourself all you like. the point stands: when you refuse to actually look at all the complex forces at play, you are denying a whole people, a whole culture, a whole “nation” (with all the imperialist, forced connotations of what a nation-state really is, with how a nation-state has never been default for us) our legitimacy, our validity, our history, our politics, our cultureS.

so yes, i read that article. i’d also read about this particular case of honor killings before. to be precise, i skimmed through this nyt article. your assumptions about my lack of knowledge about that are very telling. this is something that i have (painfully, slowly) realized i knew nothing about, something that i have had to realize was portrayed through the elitist media (upper middle and upper class, upper caste hindu) apologia (to a western audience, because the thing is, you’re still brown, you’re still indian, you’re still not white, as much as the fundamentalist hindutva crowd might want to trace their ancestry back to some kind of white, aryan race…. you still have to apologize to the west, who have colonized and re-colonized us, you still have to be “liberal” like them, because “liberal” is the way to go, didn’t you know?)

i grew up in india, mostly northern india, among a diverse array of people, and a whole lot more diverse array of people i was privileged not to interact with, not to care about. and so the news i heard was a mixture of liberal and leftist indian academia and apologia, and protests and realities from grassroots social justice organizers (many of whom came from much less privileged backgrounds, and many of whom did not have the upward mobility that my family did). my father is a member of both of these crowds, if they can be generalized at all as such (which they really can’t, but, well). my mother is a white american, with all the complex and painful realities of what that, my parents’ union and my positionality and biracial identity, means. why am i telling you this? because i think it’s important. i shouldn’t have to prove these things to you, but i do, so i am telling you these things about my background, about the complex politics of my background, in the hope that you might realize that… actually, there is no default neutral of “knowing” or “not knowing” about honor killings in india. you tell me statistics, and they burn in my face.

a few years ago, i would have agreed with you. i would have been shocked and upset about this, and i would have been very angry about patriarchy and casteism in india. and i still am. i am much more upset about it than you know. you tell me i’m an evil person, that i’m excusing violence with complexity, and i’m writing this here to tell you that actually, the complexity only makes the violence sharper, more real. the complexity cannot erode the violence. it is the explanation, but it cannot be the excuse (credit to richard siken’s poem, snow and dirty rain, for that phrase). it cannot be the excuse, because i, we, live with this history. because i live with the knowledge that i grasped onto white amerika instead of paying attention to my history. because the violence of priding the west over a postcolonial state that the west carries the legacy of colonizing, and continues to colonize… because that violence is real. because the violence of what happened to nirupama pathak, and her fiance who remains unnamed throughout that article (because upper caste people are the only ones to talk to, didn’t you know? they’re nice and liberal, they talk about “old india”s and “new india”s and nice linear history “we shouldn’t be like this in the 21st century [we have to be more like you white western people, you’ve got it all right, yes yes we realize that now, sorry sorry]”) … because that violence is horrific. because she should not have died. because imagine what her fiance is living through now, with the knowledge that he is so wrong, so untouchable, that his lover deserved to be killed rather than marry him.

because i don’t like any entire marginalized culture, mine or anyone else’s, being completely written off. “archaic”. “conservative”. how do you know what is archaic and conservative? how do you know the history of caste violence? how do you know that history is linear and chronological, period? how do you know what changed with colonialism and what didn’t? how do you know about the oppression in pre-colonial times and the oppression in colonial times and the oppression in post-colonial times? how? how do you so easily take the apologia of upper-caste middle class privileged folks in india as the right thing, oh yes, at least they’re admitting that culture can be changed, at least they should try, blah blah blah blah. Because it makes you happy to hear that. It makes you happy to be told, over and over, affirmed, that your way is the right way. That you’ve got it all right. That you understand cultureS, so much so that you can make it one great culture monolith.

it’s very wonderfully ironic that you say “take it up with the NYT or coherently explain your point of view here”. wonderful use of the tone argument, i must say. (this is a more direct summary). also, you establish my point exactly. the point is, the new york times represents white amerika (mostly). so what you are telling me is that i, a south asian person, should have to tell the new york times to stop being racist and imperialist, because otherwise the new york times has the perfect right to do so. thank you for putting the onus on me, as a marginalized person.

also, this? “reading comprehension is indeed free”
actually, no, it’s not. it isn’t free for the illiterate, for those who see or process things differently (and are thereby constantly dealing with ableism), for those who don’t have the access (financial or otherwise) to literate education, etc etc etc etc. it also isn’t free for those who don’t know english, since you are talking about the reading comprehension of english-knowing people here.

and by the way, your limited understanding of indian cultures (“Indian, South Asian, Hindu, Jain, Caucasian, Dravidian, etc”) really conflates religion with race and ethnicity and geographic location and nationality and probably other things too, and, again, is extremely limited. And no, the “etc” doesn’t cut it. What you did choose to put before the “etc,” based on your limited understanding which you defend rather a lot, is very interesting and ironic.

grieving:

of course violence is wrong. of course rape is wrong. of course murder is wrong. you point out that “culture” is used as an excuse, but you don’t understand why it is used as an excuse. (it’s because we’re struggling, we need to prove to you that we’re trying to change fast enough, that we’re becoming like you fast enough, a nice superpower, so you don’t come drop your bombs on us, so you don’t come in and set up camp again). you don’t understand how the “culture as monolith” argument works. you don’t understand the painful history of it. the cultures that it denies. i am not excusing casteism. which is why i would think twice, now, now that i am realizing my privilege, finally, finally (and i am ashamed), before sapping up what upper-caste people have to say about it, whether they’re supporting it or not. i’ve heard far too many people, you see, say that “oh yes we don’t agree with casteism, that’s really bad…. but we have separate dishes for our servants,” and “reservations, oh my god, you mean we’ll actually have to have our privilege wrenched away from us just a tiny bit?! omg no, no, we must protest this reservations business immediately!” because the “debates” you just casually insert in — because they are the point. because you act like there is a basic notion of human rights that doesn’t oppress people. because you subscribe to the same old tired liberal, individualist, democratic bullshit.

and the thing is? violence is systemic. address the systemic issues, and maybe we have a fighting chance at making things better.

{ URGENT: Action Needed for Leonard Peltier }

email i got today from the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee.  if you cannot participate, passing this around is very helpful.  thank you.

Greetings, Supporters.

Today, and until further notice, please call, fax and e-mail headquarters for the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in Washington, DC.

1.  Do this to request that Leonard be transferred to FCI-Oxford in Wisconsin or FMC-Rochester in Minnesota. Either of these facilities can adequately accommodate Mr. Peltier’s medical needs.

2.  Yesterday, another prisoner was moved into Leonard’s cell.  This raises issues surrounding Leonard’s safety, in particular as he was a victim of a violent assault in 2009.  Demand that the BOP comply with its responsibility to safeguard Leonard while he’s in government custody and that the other prisoner be moved to another cell without delay.

Federal Bureau of Prisons
E-Mail: info@bop.gov
Phone: (202) 307-3198
Fax: (202) 514-6620
Address:  320 1st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20534

Thank you for speedy action.

{ Zinnia Jones’s report on why you should not give to the Salvation Army [*WARNING* — discussion of gay-bashing in video, and all sorts of bigotry in the comments] }

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXcSQ6OW6oA

(found at the TransGriot’s blog, which is awesome)

NOTE: Jones also includes a long list of sources and links to other charities.  i don’t know much about most of them, but i do know that the Red Cross is really not a good one to give to, either.

NOTE 2: yeah i posted this as a link first without thinking that i should put a warning and a cut in because of the talk of vicious gay-bashing.  sorry.

transcript of video under the cut:

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