Heiße Aufnahme, aber mir ist etwas aufgefallen, das mir nicht gefällt.
Ich bin in Sri Lanka geboren und im Vereinigten Königreich aufgewachsen. Kürzlich besuchte ich Lettland für den Junggesellenabschied eines Freundes. In sehr kurzer Zeit wurde ich dort mit dem N-Wort beschimpft und immer wieder als Inder abgestempelt.
Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass es in Lettland oft die Tendenz gibt, Menschen aufgrund ihrer Hautfarbe unterschiedlich zu behandeln und alle braunhäutigen Menschen in die gleiche „indische“ Kategorie einzuteilen. Beispielsweise werden Menschen aus Sri Lanka oder Menschen aus völlig unterschiedlichen Kulturen und südasiatischen Ländern als Inder abgestempelt, nur weil sie ähnlich aussehen.
Was noch frustrierender ist, ist, dass ich, wenn ich versuche, den Unterschied zu erklären, oft die Antwort bekomme: „Es ist egal, dass du Inder bist, was ist der Unterschied?“
Genau diese Denkweise ist das Problem.
Und ehrlich gesagt ergibt selbst diese Annahme keinen Sinn. Nicht einmal jeder Inder ist gleich. Indien ist ein riesiges Land mit Hunderten von Sprachregionen und Kulturen. Die Menschen dort können sich hinsichtlich der Traditionen, der Essenssprache und der Identität völlig unterscheiden. Umso falscher ist es, völlig unterschiedliche Länder und Kulturen nur aufgrund der Hautfarbe zusammenzufassen.
Ich möchte auch deutlich sagen, dass ich die lettische Kultur und Sprache wirklich schätze. Lettisch ist eine wunderschöne Sprache, die sehr alte indogermanische Merkmale mit Ähnlichkeiten zu alten Sprachen wie Sanskrit bewahrt hat. Diese Einzigartigkeit muss respektiert und geschätzt werden.
Im Grunde ist es dasselbe, als würde man einen Letten als Russen bezeichnen, nur weil er weiß ist. Die meisten Letten würden das als frustrierend oder beleidigend empfinden, weil Identität, Sprache und Kultur wichtig sind. Warum ist es also umgekehrt akzeptabel?
Die Hautfarbe definiert nicht die Kultur und Kulturen sind nicht austauschbar, nur weil jemand ähnlich aussieht.
Danke schön! 🙂 🙂
https://i.redd.it/nvapdkb3j0qg1.png
Von saycheesekraft
14 Kommentare
Why do you assume that all Latvians assume something?
Crazy assumption from you…
Sorry you experienced a really dumb crowd. It really depends, there certainly are ppl like that (in every country) and I also feel like I personally don’t know or at least am not in contact with anyone who would hold such views
Well, it’s kinda easy to guess – look at the population numbers of India – and then compare to Sri Lanka, lol. Also, you guessed it – westerners, at least Americans, tend to see us as Russians.
In any case, we as a nation have had the privilege to not be exposed to this multi kulti bs, so naturally overwhelming majority isn’t particularly knowledgable on this topic nor does care. When we had Indian [I guess, lol] living in our village, one of my colleagues were referring to him with word „nēģeris“ [„black“] – I had to explain to him that what he sees isn’t actually black, lol.
Are they different than roma?
I am more puzzled, why for most part when I watch India media, cinema or news, almost all the actors or news presenters seem to look like light skinned from Northern India, but when it comes to Indian migrants here they look mostly like from Southern India or from Penjab. It all could just assumption, don’t take it as offence.
One word: ignorance
Latvians don’t know much about people outside of Europe so it comes with racist stereotypes. Anti-Indian sentiment is very popular right now, so the „average“ Latvian will just parrot that without thinking.
Unfortunately we still have a long way to go to become less racist, which is extra hard in today’s media landscape.
>I’m Sri Lankan born and raised in the UK and I recently visited Latvia for a friend’s bachelor party. In a really short time there I got called the N word and was repeatedly labeled as Indian.
First of all, if that’s your only point of reference, you should be bringing up this topic with the people who called you that. I wasn’t at that party, nor do I label all non-fair-skin-tone people as Indians.
In general though I agree that there definitely people in Latvia that generalise ethnicity based on skin color to offensive levels. But that’s not unique to us, and mostly has to do with lack of education and / or experience in that matter. Taking your example of „calling a Latvian person Russian“, I can recall a Scottish person hearing I’m from Latvia and saying „*wow you must be fluent in Russian right*“, and a German saying „*Latvia, that’s an island in Russia, right?*“ In both cases I write it down to them just being ignorant and dumb, and there is no shortage of such people everywhere in the world, including Latvia.
Well, Sri Lanka is near the Indian ocean, so if Im guessing that you are Indian, then it’s not that bad guess.
But if you tell you are actually not Indian, but Sri Lankian, and someone keeps telling that you are Indian, then he is just dumb. And that is not „Latvian thing“ but general dumbness. There are people who think we are Russian but I don’t generalize what nationality they are – that does not really matter because dump people are in all nationalities.
Because Latvians up until now were not exposed to different ethnic groups from that region as well as Schools don’t go in any of the details about it.
LoL, pls. It ain’t just Latvians, but most of the world.
Nope, he is not Indian.
Then again Koreans are bitching about being lumped in with Chinese or Japanese.
To be fair, it’s not like Sri Lanka is far off of India. Sri Lankans and South Indians look practically identical, hence why people assumed that you’re just Indian.
In addition, many Latvians just don’t know about Sri Lanka, just like how many Sri Lankans don’t know about Latvia. Don’t assume that it’s always malicious ignorance.
Bro. You come to our country and get upset we can’t read your culture by looking at you. Can you tell difference between a Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian or Estonian by looking at them? The Estonian will be slow and the Russian won’t be able to speak Latvian ofcourse, but that’s another topic. By the way, you should be an expert on citizen class due castes. You should understand that immigrants will always be looked down upon, everywhere until a generational assimilation happens.