melanin and lips
Indra Dugar, Woman Series II
India 1985, Harry Gruyaert.
The Black American community has always contributed valuable help and solidarity to Asian people around the world. That report on caste in the US that I just reblogged was crafted by South Asian groups in conjunction with Black Lives Matter groups. I know that Black Americans have historically been in solidarity with Dalit-Bahujan and Adivasis from South Asia (Dr. Ambedkar, the Dalit revolutionary and the writer of the Indian Constitution, and W. E. B. Du Bois had written letters to each other). Black Americans have also always been in solidarity with Palestinians, campaigning against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Black Americans such as Muhammad Ali were against the Vietnam War. Black Americans supported the anti-colonial movements in India and Southeast Asia.
A lot of focus on Black/Asian solidarity spotlights the history of coalition building between Black American and East Asian-American groups in the US, but this history is actually incredibly diverse, and isn’t limited to Asian-Americans.
And what’s worth noting too is that despite pervasive antiblackness in Asian countries and within the Asian diaspora (with Asian immigrants importing their antiblack ideals to wherever they settle in the West), Black Americans have continued to act in solidarity with both Asian-American activists and oppressed, marginalized groups throughout the Asian continent.
Asian-American activism must make solidarity with Black Americans and Black Lives Matter an important priority. This history must be taught.
Syed Ahmed Jamal was ripped from his home and family by ICE agents last week. He has lived in this country for 30 years and has three children born here. If he is returned to Bangladesh he may face lethal violence. But none of this matters to immigration agents. Trump’s immigration policies have written a blank check to institutions like ICE to exert violence and act unjustly, often tearing families apart. This is racism. This is Islamophobia. This is xenophobia.
How does the 1980s British cult classic My Beautiful Laundrette translate into 2018's America? Nooreen and Aziz explore the bounds of this cross-racial queer drama and what a Kumail Nanjiani revamp might look like. On the site now.
1960s Bengali book covers of Sree Parabat’s novels
Pakistani travel poster from Karachi, dated 1963.
A flower market in Bangladesh captured by photographer Sunil Subramanian.
“I am devoted to the feeling of home, I pray on that feeling.”
Negine Jasmine and Suraiya Ali take us to their Browntown, home among the bazaars of Little India in Southeast LA. Read more.
Shriya Samavai takes on a journey of emotion and feeling as she returns to her South Indian home.
Water lily harvesting in Bangladesh. August 5, 2016. Zakir Hossain Chowdhury
My parents have a vegetable garden at home, so during the summer they go to the nursery to find plants to grow.
This is them at the nursery with new plants to grow.
Woman playing a drum, Mughal era