Re. Black and Bright and Beautiful

[Vanbakkam Vijayaraghavan]

On Mon, 13 Nov 2000 00:53:44 GMT, Maran Kathirchelvan
<maran_kathirchelvan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

>Vanbakkam Vijayaraghavan wrote:
>
>>I seem to have touched a raw nerve in you and you make
>>unwarranted statements about the lengths of my posts,
>>knowledge,etc.
>
>It is tiresome to read seemingly authoritative posts from people who have
no
>knowledge of the Tamil language nor its culture.  All you have to backup
>your statements is your recollection of two posters in thirty-five years.


Is it not good enough for what I am saying? After all, I am speaking from
the standpoint of a single individual with limited experience who only
notices what strikes his eye as something very odd. If you find wall
posters with well known politicians being given a skin colour slur , it
sticks to the mind. Why should there be even one incident of this sort , if
Tamils are not averse to black colour and why should it be  relevant at all
to public offices?


>Since you haven't demonstrated even basic competence in the Tamil language,
>it is doubtful if you can even read Tamil.


You keep on spewing so many insults, illogical and unsubstantiated charges
it is difficult to keep track of them or even worth answering them. This
list is not meant for bickering and trading personal insults and that is
what you are bent on. You made a 316 line long post to a query I made and
for which I received satisfactory replies, but you thought it was your
business to enlighten me further and in the process accused me of long
posts. From that momemnt you keep trading one unsubstantiated allegation
after another

  That makes your allegation even
>less credible and completely irrelevant to an Indological discussion.


I am not alleging anything but a social observation. IT IS RELEVANT to the
Indological discussion to the extent of comparing social reality with
textual ideals. I hardly spent few lines by way of doing that, but you seem
to have too many bees in your bonnet and vehemenatly deny my conclusions



>>However, you don't deny that Tamils use the word 'karuppargal'
>>for Africans. Collectively, they don't use the term for
>>themselves, even though some people are named 'karuppan', etc.
>
>True.  And they don't identify themselves as "veLLaiyarkaL" (whites) either
>and the use that name to refer to people of European ancestry.


I did not say that. You are reading imaginary lines in my post. If A calls
B black (either pejoratively ot not) and does not refer to himself as
black, the simplest conclusion is he does not consider himself to be black.
Here A and B stand for collections, not individuals. When I pointed this
out, you fly off the handle.



 The use of
>those two terms are roughly comparable to the use of the words "Whites" and
>"Blacks" in any American newspaper.  One cannot infer anything else from
>that.  But that does not stop you, even though you seem to lack basic
>literacy in Tamil language.


Above is a typical incoherant statement made by you. How does it impinge on
my basic literacy in Tamil?



>>I have seen an election poster attacking Kamaraj as Apprikka
>>azhage in front of Mambalam station when he was alive in 1965.
>>Who was fighting to defeat Kamaraj in 65 and putting up
>>poters [sic] against him ?
>
>There was no election in 1965. And Mr. Kamaraj never contested any
elections
>in the Mambalam area.  1965 is a tumultuous year in the history of Tamil
>Nadu.  It is hard to forget what happened in that year if one had really
>lived in Tamil Nadu. Nor can one forget when the elections were really held
>considering that after that election, the Congress party never came to
power
>in the Tamil Nadu state.


I stand corrected. IN fact as soon as sending my last post, I realised
that, but waiting for you to jump on that mistake



>>I have heard Tamil people use this word in a snide way.
>
>Based on the mistakes you continue to make in your posts, this statement of
>yours has even less credibility.



Your argument is based on making character imputations for reasoning. I
have heard Tamil people say "Appirikka Azhage" in a snide way and I stand
by the evident of my senses, your foaming and frothing notwithstanding



>>>That there is a complexion consciousness in modern India is
>>>undeniable
>>
>>This is your backhanded way of accepting what I am saying !!
>
>Not really.  If you read it carefully, I had stated that this modern
>complexion consciousness is not unique to Tamil Nadu but is seen all over
>India.  You are alleging that only Dravidian political parties in Tamil
Nadu
>are guilty of using a racist slur.


I never implied only Dravidian parties are guilty of using racist slur.
Again you are reading imaginary lines in my post.




>>But we don't know the social reality of Kamban's days.
>
>Well, we can surmise them from Vasco da Gama's descriptions of the later
>Pandiyan kingdom.  And we can see if the Tamil literature of that period
>equates black with evil.  Kamban's verse makes it clear that it doesn't.

You cannot take Kamban's verse as a social statement. If you go by a
Christian text viz Bible, all people are to love each other. Are you going
to say all christians do nothing but love each other and others?




>>Under the cloak of "scholarly insight" i.e. texts or to be
>>precise the involved interpretation of the texts, you somehow
>>want to push the everyday reality under the rug. When I expose
>>the anti-black sentiments in the Tamil society, you think we
>>should read only texts and nothing beyond it
>
>I didn't know that this thread was concerned with sociology of modern Tamil
>Nadu or its politics.


Sure .It is not. But small statements of the descrepency between textual
ideals and social realities does not make it less of Indology. It is you by
intemperate posts make it longer and longer

I am tired of replying to your foaming and frothing. This is my last reply
to you