SUBMISSION: Abdul Karim Anon
I am so sorry. I was the one who submitted the Abdul post, and I promise you, I did not mean to offend you in any way. I came across the post, then I saw you had re-blogged certain posts from the tumblr in question, so I thought you had seen it. Sorry for the confusion. I didn’t think i would be able to point out the obvious racism and ignorance to the people who reblogged/liked because they were repeating the same remarks as the Royal Household/Royal family members. They don’t see this behaviour as racism, which is sad, but I guess that’s the way it goes. Sorry again for the confusion. I have now seen that they still do not understand the points being made - I will leave it at that. To clarify, member’s of the Royal household thought Abdul was getting too big for his boots, they didn’t believe he deserved the affection and gifts the Queen was lavishing on him, so they thought it would be a good idea to send him packing and put him in his place. They thought this because he was a lowly commoner Indian in their eyes. There was racism at play with the Royals when it came to Abdul Karim. The people re-blogging the story obviously didn’t understand the implications of what the Royal family members were doing, and because you are a different type of blog which calls out the BS in the fandom, I thought you would explain it better than me.
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Hi,
Thank you so much for the explanation. Because of the tone, I assumed you were considering me guilty by association, which I now see is not the case. :)
Unfortunately there are many types of royal blogs, and it really is hard to keep track of what everyone posts, specially if you check in only sporadically, and only check your timeline and your notifications.
I have seen articles in the past that I’ve considered racist, or xenophobic, or bigoted, or prejudicial in some way. I generally PM the person who made the offensive post (if I come across it), and try to politely explain why I think it should be removed or edited. Most of the time it’s met with a positive response. I did respond publicly in this case, because it was an ask, and an important one.
There are two kinds of racist remarks - one that was intended to be racist, the other that was used without understanding the racist implications of the term. In my experience, if the intention was to be racist, they will push back with aggression. If it was the second kind, it’s much easier to have a dialogue. Unfortunately, I only find out which it is, once I’m in the discussion already.
As you say, it is very disheartening to see this reaction. I think it’s harder to prove the prejudice when it’s implicit and contextual, rather than explicit; but sometimes it just boils down to the unwillingness to examine one’s own prejudices. Well we tried.
“because you are a different type of blog which calls out the BS in the fandom”
Thank you for saying that. Certainly that was my aim. I know it is a tricky position to be in - on one hand I’m criticising the sugars for calling everything racist, on the other I’m calling out racism in the fandom. There are no affiliations to anything except for the truth. Sometimes there aren’t answers, but questions. I wouldn’t have it any other way, honestly. :)
I will have to research the story of Abdul Karim and Queen Victoria before I form an opinion about what really was going on. He could have been taking advantage of her, or they simply could have been friends. Queen Victoria wanted to be generous towards her friend, but her friends, family and court were distrustful of him and assumed he didn’t deserve her generosity because he was a foreigner, or a PoC, not a noble, etc. It could have been both. It could have been something else entirely.
I would love to read some material on the subject before I offer my opinion, so readers, please do submit reading material on the subject. :)
Being a nerd, I’m going to tack on a brief introduction to Cognitive Buoyancy here. It’s a method of forming infomed opnions that avoid cognitive biases. I might go into this in detail later, but for now here is a great summation from…. the internet.
“Explore, with as open and non-judgmental a mind as possible, a diverse set of others’ opinions. Do this in a way that an investigative reporter would, for example. Try to imagine who (generically, what types) of people would have potentially different, variable, and even conflicting perspectives on the subject at hand. The key here is to get as thorough a range of stakeholders – and their collective values, interests, and needs – as you can, without “going overboard.” You don’t need to get every single perspective, but a reasonably balanced opinion is one in which you authentically include the majority of that diversity that exists in the relevant population.
Understand what cognitive biases are. Know them, and know that we are all subject to them. To say that you’ve appropriately monitored yourself regarding cognitive biases (which would, unchecked, potentially drive your opinion toward an inadequately informed state) is to be able to claim that you’ve thought openly and holistically about the subject at hand.
Ask yourself and others as many “probing” questions as possible. This is as much an art as it is a science. Don’t just ask “what…” – ask also “what else?” even if the answer to the original “what…” seems logical and acceptable. Continuing to ask “what else,” “who else,” “where else,” “how else,” etc. will give you more and more alternatives to help contribute toward forming your ideas and opinions, and be prepared to discuss yours in relation to others’ opinions…in a meaningful way.”
