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Well said, I wasn't quite sure what about my comment made him feel discomfort, but this seems like a good explanation.
I'd be genuinely perplexed if the Brits managed to give me any trauma, given that they fled the place about 50 years before I was born. They didn't really bother my grandpa, and sure my dad suffered greatly as a consequence of the half-assed Partition and ensuing civil war in Bangladesh, that was also far before my time.
I wonder if the people who claim to value lived experience uber alles would accept mine, or consider me to have mysteriously internalized something something.
Indians and most other "brown" people are race realists when it's convenient to them. They'll happily look down on Africans, for example, but most would throw a fit if you claimed they were as a group worse than Whites or East Asians.
I prefer my worldview be honest and coherent, so I don't bother. So what if the average Indian is dumber than the average White person? No skin off my back, I know my intelligence and that it runs in the family, why ought I particularly care?
At the end of the day, as long as talented individuals of an underperforming group have a way to demonstrate their qualities and be judged on their individual merit, I'm content. You could be black and score super well on the SAT, at which point coarse discrimination on the basis of race ceases to be relevant for the most part. Or you could be a Jew whose mother was too fond of the wine while pregnant, and be SOL regardless of the expectations others have of your group.
Most Westerners have their opinions of Indians informed by the fact that they usually only meet the tiny fraction that was talented/lucky/hard working enough to move away. I got to live with ~everyone else, and while I think they're perfectly fine people, they're not in the same class. Skimming off the top of a billion and change will get you incredible talent no matter how the average fares.
Indeed. Of course, it's also conveniently ignored that places that started out poorer than dirt, like Hong Kong and Singapore have sprinted ahead and might be better off than much of the West, while other areas languish no matter how much money you throw at them. I wonder who they're supposed to have ripped off, or what they've had stolen from them when there was little to steal.
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