Changing Hearts and Minds
The United Nations "Free & Equal" campaign presents the first-ever Bollywood music video for equal QUILTBAG rights, featuring Bollywood star and Miss India winner Celina Jaitly. Like and share if you believe everyone should be welcomed into their family's hearts, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
In an article posted to Next Magazine's Web site last week, an uncredited write-up of the upcoming 2014 Black Party was described as a "mysterious look at the beautiful corners of India."
The article in Next Magazine never seemed to interview people connected with the Black Party promoter, The Saint at Large, which has stirred controversy with the South Asian and Hindu communities in New York over the planned theme for this year's Black Party. Some South Asians and Hindus have expressed concerns that the theme of this year's Black Party "fetishizes several cultural icons, including Hindu deities, which we see as a larger phenomenon of exotification of South Asian symbols and dress in writing, art, henna, yoga, and other art forms and practices."
A South Asian group named SALGA NY has organized a Facebook event calling for an open dialogue with The Saint at Large to resolve issues over the Black Party's controversial theme, but people connected with The Saint at Large have thus far turned down entreating requests from SALGA NY members. Furthermore, it's been reported on Facebook that the administrator of The Saint at Large's Facebook page has been deleting comments that question the wisdom of this year's Black Party's theme.
Representatives with The Saint and Large and The Task Force have not yet responded to e-mails requesting their comments to the controversy.
In the interim, members of SALGA NY have announced plans to host a rival party with their own authentic South Asian theme on the same evening as the Black Party.
Exotification, Fetishization, and Misappropriation of South Asian and Hindu Cultures
This year's Black Party on March 22 in New York City promises to be a scandal.
In a bid to give the annual gay circuit party some oomph, Black Party organizers have adopted a theme of "Passage to India or Holika Dahan with performances and aesthetics inspired by the ancient Hindu religious festival of Holi," according to Time Out magazine. The chosen theme has created a backlash amongst some South Asian communities, who say they see the Black Party's theme as offensive.
Invoking what could be described as controversial South Asian and Hindu images, the Black Party 2014 trailer posted to YouTube is titled, "A Ruined Paradise." The video, by Leo Herrara, features several images that seem to cross the line : It features a skull being blessed with a sacred ash across its forehead, what appears to be a funeral pyre along a body of water, a man smoking a pipe with an apparent subversive connotation, the colorful celebration of Holi, and, superimposed against a backdrop of a large crowd of people, who appear to be South Asians, the bold phrase "A Ruined Paradise" appears. Black Party organizers have been asked by e-mail to comment about how the South Asian culture is a "ruined paradise," along with a few other questions. Once Black Party organizers have provided a response, this post will be updated.
On Facebook, a group called SALGA NYC has created a call-to-action event against the Black Party organizer, The Saint at Large. Members of SALGA NYC have reached out to The Saint at Large to express their concerns, but the circuit party organizers refuse to back down, justifying their use of South Asian and Hindu imagery as "necessary for fetishization," according to an e-mail newsletter from SALGA NYC.
"The annual dance/performance/kink party this year has a South Asian/Hindu theme, and fetishizes several cultural icons, including Hindu deities, which we see as a larger phenomenon of exotification of South Asian symbols and dress in writing, art, henna, yoga, and other art forms and practices. While the views in our community are as diverse as our members and as such there is no singular position that reflects even the members of our board, many of us are offended at the appropriation of South Asian symbols by largely non-South Asian event-planners," members of SALGA NYC wrote on the Facebook event page.
The Black Party is an important part of the gay social calendar in New York. It's an annual celebration that takes place during an all-night binge of music, dancing, and other hedonistic activities, appealing to party-goers, who are free-thinking and uninhibited, and the atmosphere can be described as a cross between an underground disco party and the backroom of a gay club. But subculture aspects that make the Black Party so exciting is no excuse for organizers to appropriate South Asian and Hindu cultures, according to members of SALGA NYC. As a group, SALGA NYC "fully support the idea behind fetish parties, queer parties, and other forms of kink," but the group "are troubled when other queer groups marginalize, exotify and offend our community in pursuit of queering spaces."
SALGA NYC members urged The Saint at Large to "engage in active dialogue" with the South Asian community, to resolve these issues, but thus far the Black Party organizers have refused to acknowledge the cultural incompetencies of this year's theme.
The offending 2014 trailer video is currently "unlisted" on YouTube, meaning, one must have a link to it, in order to view it. But the video has been being passed around amongst activists and other concerned members of the South Asian community. A tamer, much more generic promotional video for the Black Party, this one made by BunnyZ of last year's event, is also "unlisted," but it is embedded on the Web site of The Saint at Large.
Last year, Katy Perry sparked controversy and accusations of cultural appropriation when she sang one of her songs in a geisha-inspired performance on the American Music Awards. After the discussion that followed that scandal, it's not known why Black Party organizers would move forward with a Black Party theme that obviously appropriates aspects of South Asian cultures and Hindu religious rites. And the fact that there's been prior controversy in the New York gay scene about appropriation of Asian culture that some observed bordered on racism. In 2011, gay planners were organizing a theme party called "Mr. Wong's Dong Emporium," but after the New York gay Asian community expressed their concerns, "promoters apologized and changed the name and theme of the party."
If you care to contact The Saint at Large to express your opinions about the cultural misappropriation in this year's Black Party, please send an e-mail to : thesaintatlarge@gmail.com
Following below are some screen shots of the scandalous 2014 trailer video. A still of the funeral pyre was rejected by Photo Bucket.
Here is a screen capture showing a skull being blessed with sacred ashes across its forehead.
In this still, the colorful powder of Holi celebrations are thrown in the air.
Here, a man wearing dark sunglasses smokes a pipe in a segment that may have subversive suggestions.
It remains unexplained or unqualified why "A Ruined Paradise" would be the title of this video, or why it would be superimposed against a backdrop of a crowd of people assumed to be South Asians.
The Black Party is using a controversial video to promote its South Asian/Hindu-themed event on March 22.
India has almost no choice but to over-ride drug patents. $18,000 for one course of breast cancer-fighting treatment is like 10 Lakh Rupees. Even when some drugs are priced at $140 per month, that still comes out to over Rps 8,000. These are astronomical sums for poor people.
Alka Kudesia's story is heart-breaking, and it's no surprise that pharmaceutical companies are worried by an Indian drug company's plan to begin manufacturing a generic version of Herceptin.
As it stands now, about 23,000 Indian women need Herceptin, but they cannot get it.
Dr. Peter Bach's comment is smug, insensitive, and not entirely true. There's always been pressure on highly profitable pharmaceutical companies to stop exploiting the sick and frail. Among African countries, there have been pressures for Big Pharma to lower drug prices. That India forsakes begging for lower drug prices and opts instead to over-ride patents reflects how pharmaceutical companies wrongly put profits over people.
Maybe India can over-ride many other patents and set up new drug factories -- and be the change we need to see in revolutionizing global access to live-saving medications ? Crowd source it, maybe you might find helpers.
Protest in Union Square NYC Against Section 377 Indian Supreme Court Ruling
On December 11, 2013, the Supreme Court of India reinstated the British Raj era law known as Section 377, which criminalises homosexuality. This Judgment has inspired anger across different sections of society around the world. While the legal battle continues, it is important that we make our voices heard.
Activists organized protests in approximately 40 cities around the world on Sunday, December 15, 2013. This video depicts some of the activists, who gathered in Union Square in New York City, to denounce the Indian Supreme Court ruling as unfair, unjust, and discriminatory.
India's Supreme Court Ruling Continues British Raj Era's LGBT Discrimination ; American Reaction Turns Ugly
Following today's controversial Indian Supreme Court's ruling to recriminalise homosexuality, the reaction on some American-based Web sites has revealed cultural and historical incompetencies by the West of the East.
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises homosexuality, was enacted in 1860 by the British Raj, the former colonial rulers of India. "Enacted" is a relative term, because the law was basically imposed on India the way British colonists imposed everything else on Indians. Because British rule lasted from 1858 to 1947, and the culture and values of modern India are still informed by the shadow of injustice and discrimination that marked British colonial rule, including lingering laws on India's books. Also note that the inception of the epoch of British Raj overlapped with British Victorian Era, a period of extremely conservative moral values.
When news broke about the Indian Supreme Court's ruling on Section 377, people with no knowledge of India's history instantly reached for charicatured generalisations of Indian culture based on stereotypes of IT tech support and call centers.
"India's Supreme Court rules Gay Sex illegal ... it's time to pull out of that shithole .. bring Tech Support back on-shore," wrote one prominent LGBT activist on Facebook.
On the popular LGBT blog named Joe My God, one commenter wrote, "we need to get a list of all companies using call centers based in india. and boycott indian restaurants. they use a lot of products coming straight from their homeland." (India Court Recriminalizes Homosexuality * Joe My God)
A Facebook follower of Joe Jervis, the author of the Joe My God blog, commented on Facebook that, "The tech companies and the Queen of England should weigh in on this." Never mind that there are companies in India other than "tech," and India endured a violent partition once it was liberated from British rule. Even though the Queen of England has no more power or authority over India's governance, this one comment had attracted four Facebook "likes."
Another commenter on the Joe My God blog wrote, "I wonder how many of the corporate sponsors of the Sochi Olympics have call centers in India?" While presumably the author of this comment was trying to find an intersectional-political pressure point between the violent crackdown against LGBT Russians and the Indian Supreme Court's disappointing ruling, it's notable that the commenter's focus was, again, a call center.
On another popular LGBT blog, Towleroad, the very first commenter posted this reaction to the Indian Supreme Court's ruling : "If you use a call center that is based in India then contact the company that subcontracts their call center to India and ask to use a non-Indian call-center." Another commenter on Towleroad posted, "Does anyone have a list of US companies who subcontract their helpdesks and call centers to India." (In Shocking Ruling, India's Supreme Court Restores Criminalisation of Gay Sex * Towleroad)
These harmful, divisive stereotypes contrast with an article posted by Cathy Kristofferson on OBlogDeeOBlogDa, where she wrote : "India is one of the many countries in the world still suffering with a left over British colonial penal code criminalizing homosexuality."
And the hurtful generalisations about India also ignore the very visible and organized opposition and protests taking place in India against the Supreme Court's "retrograde" ruling.
Another indication of uninformed reaction to the Indian Supreme Court's decision was that in the long string of organising, litigation, and politicking for LGBT civil rights right here at home, American LGBT's were dealt a major setback in 1986 with the SCOTUS decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, which upheld the constitutionality of anti-sodomy laws in the state of Georgia. It took 17 years before the SCOTUS overturned Bowers with the Lawrence v. Texas decision. During that time, were Indians calling for a boycott of McDonalds ?
Many prominent Indians are even denouncing their own Supreme Court's adversarial decision, including famous Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, but Americans, who are uninformed of Indian culture, would not know the full spectrum of debate taking place in India right now, sometimes highly conflicted. How can one have a meaningful debate to change the hearts and minds of people, to ask them to make room for equal rights for everybody, when one first resorts to unfairly categorizing Indians as a way to assign blame for a Supreme Court ruling that frustrates the march to equality ?
Post a comment below -- let me know what you think about naming the plaza along 37th Road in Jackson Heights after Mahatma Gandhi ? Around the world, many people name roads and other structures after Mahatma Gandhi. In India, many roads are named after Mahatma Gandhi, and even in Paris, there is an avenue named after the famous leader in the area between l'arc de Triomphe and La Défénse. Let me know what you think about naming the Jackson Heights plaza after Mahatma Gandhi ?
