Very healthy representation in the highest levels of government and corporate leadership
Highest income level, even higher than Jewish and Chinese people
High levels of capital ownership
All stereotypes against Indian Americans are similar to the ones against white Americans, not really that bad (rich, smart, business savvy)
Less hate crimes than POC, probably less than Jewish people too
Racism against Indian Americans specifically is pretty low, lower than Jewish people. Obviously the attitude towards those from the motherland and commonwealth countries are a different matter
Identity very homogenized and white Americanized like Irish, Italians, Jewish people, east Asians to an extent
Nobody in my parents’ generation realized that Freddie Mercury was Indian so, insofar as that happens, I guess?
Okay but more seriously:
There really aren’t that many Indians in the US, so most people do not get any use out of a stereotype about them. If a lone family of whatever ethnicity move into Racismville, USA, they’re probably not going to be met with that much hostility (with exceptions for ethnicities that have special places in the mythology of racist bullshit (Black, Jewish, Native American)). If more families move there and form their own sub-culture, a Little Wherever community, that’s when the opportunity to have an opinion about them as a group comes in. ie: when the racism kicks in.
People who work in tech and other white-collar jobs often have some very racially coded hostilities towards outsourced work in India! These people have more exposure to Indians, and it’s in a context where it’s convenient to hate them, so they often find a way.
“rich, smart, business savvy” is the model minority myth, a different form of racism than what, say, Black people face, but still racism.
“rich, smart, business savvy” requires that someone is rich! A poor Indian person must experience a different form of racism than this.
Although whiteness is socially constructed and flexible, it is still tied to skin color. Groups with lighter skin have historically had an easier time becoming “white” than groups with darker skin, and the darkest group that’s been let in are Italians.
Although whiteness has expanded over time, it’s been like 100 years since the last time someone was let in. Attempts to count Hispanic and Arab people as white have failed as the whims of the US empire have flopped around faster than new ideas about who counts as white could normalize.
Weren’t Italians and Greeks not white until like the 90s when Muslims started being really feared and racism shifted away from those 2 groups long enough that they overtime just became white
Jewish people have lots of racism along the same lines. Italians have racism, Greeks have racism
I mean it’s the same with other white people isn’t it. People hate the French more than French Americans. People hate Greeks more than Greco Americans
I feel like specifically in America whiteness has taken on a more xenophobic and national chauvinistic form, but I can totally see it still being too strongly tied to skin tone