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1. Is Authentic a Fair Question? « Rotten English on 29 Oct 2008 at 9:05 pm

   […] Why M.I.A. is a typical desi […]

Comments

1. Kai wrote:

   lol, good one, Manish…

   ;-D

   Posted 18 Sep 2007 at 10:29 am ¶

2. Wendi Muse wrote:

   um…bedstuy is not the ghetto
   i live on the border of bedstuy and clinton hill in brooklyn and it’s very much one of the “up-and-coming” neighborhoods (sigh)

   it was even listed by nymag (with MIA’s pic featured lol) as “the next hipster enclave”

   Posted 18 Sep 2007 at 11:13 am ¶

3. al wrote:

   well, a ghetto doesn’t have to be poor or black. so maybe it’s a hipster ghetto.

   Posted 18 Sep 2007 at 11:45 am ¶

4. this justin wrote:

   Quite frankly, I think she’s the best thing to happen to music in a long time!

   Posted 18 Sep 2007 at 1:23 pm ¶

5. deb wrote:

   I grew up in a pre-gentrified “Do-or-Die” BedStuy during the 70s. In retrospect, it was ghetto–And I LOVED it! My best childhood memories are my experiences in that neighborhood. My aunt still lives there, so nowadays I find myself riding the bus there alongside white people. The only white people I remember in the neighborhood back then were the police and sanitation guys. Oh, we had an Italian doctor, Dr. Ferranti, who made house calls! The good ol’ days!

   I’m old school, but not ashamed to admit that I have M.I.A.’s “Sholay” remix of “Galang” on my mp3 player.

   Posted 18 Sep 2007 at 3:33 pm ¶

6. Mike wrote:

   I can’t help but like M.I.A. But still feel guilty for it and dont know why. I grew up in east new york gentrification is a mutha.

   Posted 18 Sep 2007 at 7:09 pm ¶

7. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

   “She hates being hit on by geeks speaking her native language” - yeah, like a lot of South Asian women raised in the west, Maya Arulpragasam is into White guys (so Aziz Ansari never had a shot).

   Don’t get me wrong - I’m a big M.I.A. fan - but we gotta keep it real here!

   Posted 19 Sep 2007 at 12:19 am ¶

8. Eun-jung wrote:

   All I know is that she rocked out at Virgin Fest.

   Go M.I.A.!!

   Posted 19 Sep 2007 at 9:03 am ¶

9. gatamala wrote:

   like a lot of South Asian women raised in the west, Maya Arulpragasam is into White guys (so Aziz Ansari never had a shot).

   *dingdingding*

   7 comments! Does this have a name like Godwin’s Law?

   Posted 19 Sep 2007 at 3:44 pm ¶

10. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

    gatamala, this is no “Godwin’s law” thing here - the fact is, M.I.A.s ex boyfriend/producer DJ Diplo was a White man (just go to You-Tube - Diplo posted a video of them in the studio together, back when they were still an “item”).

    And, to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge (that is, the gossip I read on the indie hip hop blogs) the men that M.I.A. have been linked to before, and since, were all White guys.

    Beyond that, you’ve gotta admit - there are an awful lot of educated, professional South Asian women (at least here in the Eastern US) who pretty much exclusively date White men - and Ms Arulpragasam does kinda fit in with that demographic, at least IMHO.

    Sorry if my observation offended you!

    Posted 19 Sep 2007 at 3:59 pm ¶

11. Michelle wrote:

    She hates being hit on by geeks speaking her native language

    lol poor aziz

    what’s with all this talk of her exclusively dating whiteys?

    Posted 19 Sep 2007 at 8:25 pm ¶

12. JC wrote:

    I guess some white guys just love to point out the fact that many minority women love to date them as trophies.

    Too bad, I kinda liked her music, but her pale dude fetish sadly made her all too generic for me. Oh well.

    Posted 20 Sep 2007 at 9:52 am ¶

13. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

    Michelle - From what I know (which basically comes from the gossip I read on the indie hip hop blogs - and from what I read from M.I.A’s own blog on her myspace page, myspace.com/mia )M.I.A.’s former boyfriend/producer, DJ Diplo, is a White man from London, England (the city where M.I.A. grew up) .

    He also claims to be the architect of her hip hop career (she now disputes that - but they had a messy breakup - Diplo was going to go spend a year in Brazil hanging out with strippers to “make a documentary” on them - M.I.A. didn’t buy it, and dumped him).

    To my admittedly limited knowledge, all of her boyfriends before and since have been White guys.

    And, for the record, I don’t think Aziz Ansari is “geeky” at all - he’s a very talented comedian, originally from the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy troupe and now of MTV’s Human Giant.

    He’s also South Asian, and, like M.I.A. he’s a Tamil with roots in Sri Lanka.

    Apparently, she diesn’t date guys her own race.

    JC - for the record, I’m African American (or, if you want to get supertechnical, biracial - I had a White father - but I have always identified as African American).

    I wasn’t writing about M.I.A’s romantic preference for White men to brag - how could I brag about something that benefits another race, rather than my own?

    Actually, it’s always kind of bothered me that so many educated South Asian women date White guys, as opposed to men of their own race (and, as opposed to African American and Latino men as well).

    Posted 20 Sep 2007 at 1:06 pm ¶

14. Wendi Muse wrote:

    gregory, diplo is a white american names wesley pentz, born in florida, who moved to philadelphia as an adult. he’s not british.

    also, he doesn’t claim to have founded her career in hip hop or her career at all for that matter, esp considering she is not considered a hip hop artist, nor has he ever said anything about launching her career…

    and his documentary is about funk carioca, known as baile funk in the states, a dance and music form from the favelas (ghettos) in brazil. the documentary is not about strippers…unless u assume that all brazilian women who dance are strippers…

    and seriously, who cares if MIA dates white guys? that’s her business. she and diplo worked together for a long time (as he helped with the remixing of her underground album, pre-Arular), so it makes sense that they would date…not so weird, right?

    also who knows if she has a white guy preference? maybe she just dates guys she likes and they happen to be white…this argument about IRs is like beating a dead horse.

    Posted 20 Sep 2007 at 2:13 pm ¶

15. Wendi Muse wrote:

    named*

    Posted 20 Sep 2007 at 2:18 pm ¶

16. Michelle wrote:

    I don’t want to be judgmental and assume the negative about M.I.A because it’s reported that her preference of men be on the pale side but if thats the case I do find it a shame to not date or find attractive men of your own race. I can’t really understand that tbh how can you expect someone of another race to find you attractive when you aren’t attracted to your own either.

    Posted 20 Sep 2007 at 2:24 pm ¶

17. Michelle wrote:

    but then again I don’t know her or the environment she grew up in or the people for me to assume the reasons behind her preferences and as wendi said up above it’s her business

    Posted 20 Sep 2007 at 2:34 pm ¶

18. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

    Wendi -

    I stand corrected about Diplo’s nationality - he’s a White American guy, not a White English guy.

    But, as for the documentary about strippers, my source for that is M.I.A. herself - just go to her myspace page http://myspace.com/mia and check out her blog.

    She seemed quite upset about him spending a year hanging out with Brazilian strippers - the doubts about his pretext for spending 12 months with said exotic dancers (”making a documentary”) are Ms Arulpragasam’s, not mine (and she’d be in a better position to know than either of us!)

    As for the racial thing - I’ve always had my suspicions about why a certain class of Asian woman prefers White men. Here’s a hint - it’s not just because “she just dates guys she likes and they happen to be white”

    Posted 20 Sep 2007 at 8:35 pm ¶

19. Wendi Muse wrote:

    mia’s blog says the following (i actually remembered having read it before when i was checking out her blog to see progress on her album before it came out). the section about diplo in brazil reads as follows:

    “I DID ALL THE PRINCESS DIANA THINGS. WENT TO SCHOOLS ,HOMES THAT WERE EMPTY BOMBED OUT BUILDINGS , VILLAGES WITH NO WATER ELECTRICITY, SAW THE MOST RAWEST THINGS SINCE MY HEAD AND HEART GOT SHAT ON BY MY EX BOYFRIEND WHO WAS GONE TO SAVE STRIPPERS IN BRAZIL (COZ they ALWAYS NEED MUSIC TO DANCE TO). ”

    she’s referring to her trip to liberia. meanwhile, she says nothing about a documentary on strippers….instead jokingly laments her ex-boyfriend hanging out with them, so to speak. unless you’re reading something i’m not, her blog on her myspace page said nothing of the sort.

    however….he IS working on a documentary, but like i said before, it’s about baile funk. i wrote an article for racialicious about diplo (questioning whether or not he exploits musicians from the global south) which can be found here around the world in 180 beats per minute that discusses the documentary in question. if you need more background

    Posted 20 Sep 2007 at 9:11 pm ¶

20. JC wrote:

    George, sorry about assuming you’re white. My apologies. As for your suspicion, it’s absolutely true, and it’s across the board - if they grew up in the West or immigrated there. It has to do with “marrying up”, that white men represented power and status; and we know that is true in the West. I don’t blame them or hate them, I just find them typical and uninteresting if I knew they’ve fallen into that self-hating (or self-elevating) racist trap.

    There are even groups of women like this in all Asian countries, but they’re definitely a tony, ostracized minority. Girls born or raised here, well, that’s another story. For this very reason I have decided that if I have a daughter I will not raise her in the US.

    Posted 21 Sep 2007 at 3:51 am ¶

21. Wendi Muse wrote:

    also, i find that it’s important to assert that just because you are dating x type of person/people doesn’t mean you don’t like your respective group. whatever happened to variables? maybe she found those men attractive…not because they are white but because they are cute. maybe they approached her with the best “game.” maybe they had more in common (p.s. being the same race/ethnicity doesn’t mean you share the same morals, interests, style, etc etc etc). maybe they find HER more attractive (i can think of plenty of WOC who are never approached by men of their own racial background for various reasons, including that they may not fit what is *usually* more physically appealing to said group of men).

    just because you are involved in interracial relationships doesn’t mean u hate yourself or your group. i find that assertion to be incredibly insulting, not only because it’s close minded, but because it’s an insult to human intelligence and one’s ability to choose.

    not to mention, what exactly are multiracial people supposed to do? only date multiracial people of the same racial mix?

    would MIA be restricted to dating on sri lankans? if so, that would be her nationality and not her race, as sri lankan is not a race…and to be more specific, lots of south asians are multiracial, mixed with black african, european (british and even portuguese), and indigenous (to asia) groups. so…. where does that leave them? are we going to have to pull out a dna test every time soneome says they like us to make sure we match before we date?

    Posted 21 Sep 2007 at 5:31 am ¶

22. Vox wrote:

    Thank you, Wendi. I’m so tired of seeing Asian women get attacked for dating non-Asian men while their actions and political stances get completely ignored. I’m sure it happens to other women of color, too.

    Women’s politics aren’t defined by their relationships any more than men’s are. Yeah, sometimes there are some deeper issues around interracial relationships, but that shouldn’t be an excuse to negate everything else a person has done. We are not our boyfriends (or girlfriends).

    Posted 21 Sep 2007 at 3:04 pm ¶

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