What you need to understand is that India has a rigid caste system based on inheritance just like the US does; there was one already there in a lot of places and the britishers codified the hell out of it.
Many upper class Indian people don’t see a conflict with white supremacy because they come from, and benefit from, the exact same system.
Somebody like Vivek Ramaswamy, for example. He looks like a dude with dark skin to a generic American. But that combination of names is a giveaway that he’s a Tamil Brahmin; once you see his nose and forehead you have a pretty good guess of what his ancestral temple allegiance is; this all happens automatically for people from India (I am not but was married into a Tam-Bram family for 20 years and I picked it up myself).
I’m not saying that this is determinative of political stances; I know plenty of democratic voting upper crust Indians. But somebody like Usha Vance or Vivek Ramaswamy looks in the mirror and sees a Brahmin, which is the equivalent of me looking in the mirror and seeing a white person. They do not perceive themselves as a “minority”.
Oh, I very much get that it’s probably related in some way to the caste system. I also think that the higher-caste/lighter-skinned Indians don’t really understand white supremacy if they think they’re gonna get a pass just because they’re wealthy and not quite as dark-skinned as other castes.
You’re right, that’s exactly how race supremacists see themselves relative to other people. However, these things are a fragile and temporary alliance till they deal with the “undesirables”. Funny thing, the status of “undesirable” is ever shifting. Many white people and white immigrants of Italian or Irish descent were considered “undesirable” in early U.S. history. There’s never any rational to race supremacy other than protecting the “in-group”, and that changes with the changing tides of power
What you need to understand is that India has a rigid caste system based on inheritance just like the US does; there was one already there in a lot of places and the britishers codified the hell out of it.
Many upper class Indian people don’t see a conflict with white supremacy because they come from, and benefit from, the exact same system.
Somebody like Vivek Ramaswamy, for example. He looks like a dude with dark skin to a generic American. But that combination of names is a giveaway that he’s a Tamil Brahmin; once you see his nose and forehead you have a pretty good guess of what his ancestral temple allegiance is; this all happens automatically for people from India (I am not but was married into a Tam-Bram family for 20 years and I picked it up myself).
I’m not saying that this is determinative of political stances; I know plenty of democratic voting upper crust Indians. But somebody like Usha Vance or Vivek Ramaswamy looks in the mirror and sees a Brahmin, which is the equivalent of me looking in the mirror and seeing a white person. They do not perceive themselves as a “minority”.
Oh, I very much get that it’s probably related in some way to the caste system. I also think that the higher-caste/lighter-skinned Indians don’t really understand white supremacy if they think they’re gonna get a pass just because they’re wealthy and not quite as dark-skinned as other castes.
They did under the Raj, though, (still just barely) in living memory.
You’re right, that’s exactly how race supremacists see themselves relative to other people. However, these things are a fragile and temporary alliance till they deal with the “undesirables”. Funny thing, the status of “undesirable” is ever shifting. Many white people and white immigrants of Italian or Irish descent were considered “undesirable” in early U.S. history. There’s never any rational to race supremacy other than protecting the “in-group”, and that changes with the changing tides of power
Edit Vance is Scot-Irish, and sadly his people have this in their ancestral history https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Irish_sentiment
I’m not saying people like Ramaswamy understand how America works…