"Brown People"

Ahhh. I was having a discussion with a friend recently and it dawned on my how much people tend to generalize. Even about the smallest of things. Now, when people generalize, their intention may not be to cause harm and what they say may not necessarily be offensive, but it is still wrong. And I do take offense to it, for the simple reason that I don’t want others to come in and inform me about what my people are like. What I am like. That just comes off as plain ignorance. 

The discussion that I had with a friend revolved around “brown people” and the fact that she thought that we can easily be differentiated from the crowd, but how that’s not the case with Arabs who can easily be mistaken for white folks at times. Now, at the outset, this doesn’t seem to be mean and it’s not, but I was just annoyed at the fact that my friend was convinced that all brown people are literally brown with similar features and attitudes. I have used the term “brown people” myself many times but it was not up till now that I realized the damage the term has done to my identity. I tried to convince my friend that South Asia is a HUGE place and that brown people come in all shapes and sizes and colours and I know many fair skinned brown folks, who can be mistaken for Caucasians, and I know many dark skinned people also, but she would not buy it.

I guess what really bothered me was the fact that people can be so easily ignorant about foreign cultures. I am from Pakistan, you see, and in spite of being a small country, we have quite a few sub-cultures and languages. From the Pashtuns of the north to the Kashmiris, and the Hazaras of Balochistan; from the Makranis in Karachi who are said to be descendants of Africans to the Sindhis; from the Punjabis to the Mahajir, who form the migrant population from India, Pakistan is filled with a wide variety of people. A beautiful variety. A variety that has made me proud to be who I am. In my elementary school in Karachi, I grew up learning Sindhi. My grand parents were Mahajir or migrants from India and several of my aunts and uncles married into Punjabis and some of my cousins can speak Punjabi also. I am a product of all these different sub cultural influences, and therefore know that each is quite distinct from the other. So, how can an outsider come in and tell me that we all look the same; that we are all the same? 

Now I know I can only speak on behalf of Pakistanis but even within India, there’s a HUGE diversity of people. Travelling from the north to the south is a completely different experience of cultures, languages, tastes and traditions. 

How can anyone define what an Indian or Pakistani is? It can’t be done! So, next time you use the term “brown people,” think twice. Do not take it in literal terms and do not form preconceived notions about an entire population. Do not be ignorant.