what do you feel about Lord Tebbit’s cricket test? Both now and at the time.
At the time it was, fuck this guy!
Now, I can understand where he’s coming from and I think that there’s nothing wrong with what he said. The thing is, if you’re a British Asian kid, and you know that India and Pakistan are good cricket teams, then you probably will back them. Opportunities to support a world class Asian sports team are very small, so of course they will go for the opportunity.
In my experience British-Pakistanis like cricket a lot more than British-Indians. Indians prefer football.
What he fails to recognise, is that many British-Asians are huge fans of the England football team, and travel to World Cups and European Championships to watch them. They also love athletes in other sports, like Steve Redgrave, Lewis Hamilton and Andy Murray.
**Do you like Bally Sagoo and if you do, what similar artists would you recommend? **
No. He’s crap. All he does is sample old songs and add an extra beat to them. I don’t actually like Bhangra music very much.:eek:
How have your experiences of the US differed from those of the UK, with particular relation to your race?
Different races perceive me in the different ways:
White-Americans who know me well consider me British. They look past the Indian thing and don’t bring it up. White-Americans who don’t know me are often confused. I’ve been called middle eastern and Iraqi in the past.
Black Americans love me for some reason, but I think that’s cos I grew up listening to hip-hop, R&B and Motown. A black friend of mine introduced me to a black friend of his as an honourary brother.
Hispanic people think I’m one of them half the time. I get people walking up to me and talking in Spanish all the time. The only Spanish I regularly speak is “No Habla Espanol”.
Asian-Americans don’t consider me British at all. The fact that I was born in UK, lived there all of my life. I remember a Korean guy saying to me that I “don’t look British”.
Indian-Americans think I’m Indian. They need to know my religion, what part of India my roots are in etc. They just have to know and can’t let that go.
I have been on dates with a few women who turned out to have “Indian fever”. I run a mile from those kind of women. I’ve also met women who are total Anglophiles too.
It seems to me that the average person in the street knows nothing about Indians. I’ve noticed that there’s an “Apu” or “IT” or “7-11” stereotype here. That’s all a bit of a mystery to me cos I simply don’t relate to any of that. Nearly every British Asian has a British accent. The British government stopped immigration from India in the late 60s/early 70s, and they don’t let people bring siblings and their kids over like the US. As a result, almost every Asian under 40 has a British accent. It’s rare to find a Indian guy with an Indian accent in UK who’s under 40, unless he’s a foreign worker.
Does anyone in your family run a cornershop?
No. Actually the number of Indians running cornershops has gone down a lot. The shopkeepers’ kids refuse to work in shops anymore. The kids are doctors, lawyers, IT people. They’ve no interest in working in a shop.
Coventry City last won the English football cup in what year?
1987! I missed that game, there was a bloody wedding on the same day!
**Ancient joke alert **:
Q. Why are Indians no good at football?
.
.
.
A. Every time there’s a corner, they build a shop!
Hello!
Don’t listen to modern Bhangra, then. I listen to uber-traditional stuff, myself.
(No meaning)