I don’t want to shave my fucking beard!
As a conspicuously brown salesman in America, I am sometimes exposed to differential treatment. This treatment is born sometimes out of skepticism, sometimes out of arrogance and sometimes out of pure hate. This treatment is sometimes sub-conscious, sometimes latent and sometimes purposefully made evident. For a country that has championed free markets and has benefitted from it, I find it disappointing that many of its citizens are choosing to react this way when they are on the receiving end of the same economic principles that elevated them to a global superpower.
We spent the last 15 years trying to convince the world that Muslims are not terrorists. Now it seems like we have to spend the next 15 years trying to rationalize that all white people are not skinheads. Amidst all this friction, it is getting harder and harder to concentrate on productive efforts that will benefit humanity at large. And that is the biggest victim.
Where I am from, I am considered a man of “privilege”. No matter how you dissect my society – across lines of religion, economics, gender or any other measure – I am better off than most. Given this context, I would have thought that it would be easy to put myself in the shoes of an angry American and rationalize the need to hate someone who is not like them. But I am not able to.
I am lazy and hate shaving. But I must make sure to shave every time I get on a flight. It is strange to see white men around me walking confidently while wearing long beards while I must be clean shaven and yet, eyed with suspicion. This is all very confusing.
Just to be clear, I am not saying that Americans should be accepting of immigrants. In fact I have gone on record saying that if I were American then I would not support economic immigration at all.
My reason for this opinion is as follows:
A 100 years ago, the population of America was about 30 million. Today it stands at about 350 million. The country’s infrastructure is buckling under the pressure of this large population while their debt continues to increase. So the country cannot support immigration the same way it did in the 20th century. I find it frivolous to say that America is a nation of immigrants and so it should support immigrants. That argument doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t factor in the needs of a growing population – this has to stabilize at some point.
Having established that I do not see the need to support immigration, I am still baffled by the extreme reactions that the country is having to it. The United States is a democracy, or so I am told. They have gone to war to promote this way of life. As a democracy, they have a legislative process where they elect representatives who make policies to protect the citizens’ interests. So where is the room to take matters into their own hands and kill people who violate their beliefs? Is there room for dialogue anymore? Is America still a democracy?
At the risk of sounding repetitive – I am very confused. I don’t stand a chance in my own country which is overrun by American brands like McDonalds, Ford, GAP and Walmart. A lot of entrepreneurial opportunities have been nipped in the bud by the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon. So I cannot build my business in my own country which has been taken over by America. And I am not allowed to practice my business in America because I am not American. So what is the expectation?
Again, to clarify, I am not a supporter of the contemporary Indian ecosystem in America. It has trivialized our talent and short-sold our capabilities while putting people in positions they do not deserve and creating an air of skepticism around the concept of “talent from India”. We have been boxed and stereotyped so much that it is hard to imagine that an Indian is capable of anything except “fixing computers”. As the champions of democracy, I hope Americans resolve this issue through legislation not by turning into a jungle state.
It had never crossed my mind, until now that my perfectly harmless beard could be a trigger for so much confusion and existential angst! And as I stare at the mirror trying to shave in the wee hours of the morning, I wonder what my life has come to – I can’t even keep a beard because I am brown and am flying to America!