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The Karma of Brown Folk Vijay Prashad |
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$57.00 Cloth/jacket |
What does it mean to be a model minority? "How does it feel to be a problem?" asked W. E. B. Du Bois of black Americans in his classic The Souls of Black Folk. A hundred years later, Vijay Prashad asks South Asians "How does it feel to be a solution?" In this kaleidoscopic critique, Prashad looks into the complexities faced by the members of a "model minority"—one, he claims, that is consistently deployed as "a weapon in the war against black America." On a vast canvas, The Karma of Brown Folk attacks the two pillars of the "model minority" image, that South Asians are both inherently successful and pliant, and analyzes the ways in which U.S. immigration policy and American Orientalism have perpetuated these stereotypes. Prashad uses irony, humor, razor-sharp criticism, personal reflections, and historical research to challenge the arguments made by Dinesh D'Souza, who heralds South Asian success in the U.S., and to question the quiet accommodation to racism made by many South Asians. A look at Deepak Chopra and others whom Prashad terms "Godmen" shows us how some South Asians exploit the stereotype of inherent spirituality, much to the chagrin of other South Asians. Following the long engagement of American culture with South Asia, Prashad traces India's effect on thinkers like Cotton Mather and Henry David Thoreau, Ravi Shankar's influence on John Coltrane, and such essential issues as race versus caste and the connection between antiracism activism and anticolonial resistance. The Karma of Brown Folk locates the birth of the "model minority" myth, placing it firmly in the context of reaction to the struggle for Black Liberation. Prashad reclaims the long history of black and South Asian solidarity, discussing joint struggles in the U.S., the Caribbean, South Africa, and elsewhere, and exposes how these powerful moments of alliance faded from historical memory and were replaced by Indian support for antiblack racism. Ultimately, Prashad writes not just about South Asians in America but about America itself, in the tradition of Tocqueville, Du Bois, Richard Wright, and others. He explores the place of collective struggle and multiracial alliances in the transformation of self and community—in short, how Americans define themselves. "Prashad's book is a sharp, often witty attack on fellow Indians, who, knowingly or unknowingly, ally with the whites against African Americans and other disadvantaged minorities. Readable and thought-provoking." —India Today International "Intellectually feisty and wry. Prashad describes various American misunderstandings of India, cherished as much by Emerson as by Walt Disney: the often quite harmless, when not interesting, exaggerations and omissions that the easy pejorative 'Orientalism' swallows up these days. Prashad's considerable book is part of a clear-sighted assessment of a fast-changing people and world." —Times Literary Supplement "Vijay Prashad's book The Karma of Brown Folk is a protest against what might be called offshore nationalism. Very few books written in the West by Indian scholars living here have conveyed the level of political energy and exuberance that The Karma of Brown Folk does. I do not know of any other book of its kind that is as generous in noting the labor of desis. Nor have I read another book that is a hopeful." —Amitava Kumar in Little India “Prashad begins by tracing the evolution of an American strain of Orientalism in the early 19th century. The Karma of Brown Folk is fascinating reading because of the very ‘experiential’ knowledge that the author explicitly wishes to submit to more ‘theoretical’ bases of understanding. He is a keen eye-witness of South Asian American (desi) life in America, especially when interpolating snatches of conversation or reporting events. He has a genius for selecting the precise detail that makes observations spring to life. For example, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s pet name for his wife was ‘Mine Asia,’ and Dizzy Gillespie sometimes wore a turban to pose as South Asian in order to escape the restrictions of American apartheid.” —A. Magazine: Inside Asian America "A welcome breeze from the overheated rhetoric of some of the post-colonial literature. Defying genres, and using scholarship at service of a much-needed polemic, Prashad serves up a heady brew." —Chicago South Asia Newsletter "This book is well documented and biting, if not bitter, in its assessment of a narrow aspect of the lives of a newer immigrant group to the United States." —MultiCultural Review “The Karma of Brown Folk is arguably a bold foray in dismantling the stereotypes about the Indian subcontinent and South Asians in general. The aura of an inherent Eastern spirituality, the unexplored flexibility of accomodation to the ideals of white supremacy, is replaced with an argument for the start correlations between Wester racism and the Indian caste system, and between Civil Rights activism and anit-colonial resistance. I highly recommend this book for believers in justice for all” —Amy Dadichandji Laly, Pacific Reader Vijay Prashad is associate professor and director of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Chosen as one of Village Voice Literary Supplement's 25 Best books of the Year 248 pages | 21 black-and-white photos | 5-7/8 x 9 | cloth: 2000, paper: 2001 |
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$18.95 Paper