'You're not like other Indians': Woman opens up about subtle racism faced abroad, internet reacts
A Reddit post by an Indian woman living abroad has struck a chord with many around the world, especially those who have faced the exhausting, often demeaning, experience of subtle or 'casual' racism.
The anonymous user took to the subreddit r/nri to share her recent encounter at a spa that left her feeling stunned and unsure how to react. A white woman asked where she was from. When the poster replied 'India', the woman followed up with, 'Did you learn English after coming here? Your English is exactly like mine.' The Redditor responded calmly, saying she had spoken English all her life, but was met with an uncomfortable silence and a blank stare.
'It wasn't aggressive,' she wrote, 'but it was so ignorant… Stuff like this happens too often, and it's exhausting.'
The post has triggered a wider conversation online about how Indians, and people of colour more broadly, are expected to tolerate microaggression, a term used to describe the subtle, often unintentional acts of racism or bias that chip away at one's identity and dignity.
From getting ID-checked twice at concerts to being warned 'it's expensive' at salons, the woman listed incidents that many immigrants and non-white people will find painfully familiar. She also touched upon colourism, recounting how people often say, 'You're not like other Indians,' presumably because she is fair-skinned, a comment she rightly questioned: 'How is that even a compliment?'
The post has since received hundreds of responses, with many Indian-origin users, as well as other people of colour, sharing their own stories and coping mechanisms.
"It's expensive" is absolutely best upselling skill that sales folks have learned to make someone feel "less than" and hope they fall in the trap to buy more. It does get directed more towards immigrants.
Another user wrote, "If you want to push them into the corner, just ask them very politely that you don't understand, 'I don't understand, could you please elaborate". And if they move forward, just enjoy them digging their own racist hole.
Several users pointed out how such interactions often stem from a narrow or stereotypical view of India — that it's a poor, underdeveloped country where English isn't widely spoken. 'I get frustrated whenever I go in to eat alone and while I wait to get seated, I get asked "Doordash?". Has happened with me couple of times now. This flips me over. I wait to see if a white guy who walks up alone gets asked the same way. This definitely is racial profiling. May not be intentional but I tend to lose it whenever this happens," a user wrote.
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