u/YVR009

I'm the only abd I know with divorced parents. I know that like in general we have lower than average divorce rates for a variety of reasons, but there's gotta be at least some of you in this sub with divorced parents.

How did that go? Did your parents remarry? How did it affect you? How does it impact your family now?

To sum up a very long story, my parents divorced when I was 7. I don't know if their marriage was arranged or not and neither of them remarried afterwards. Initially I was tossed between them each week for a couple years, then my abusive mom got custody and I lived with her for about 5 years, one of them in India. I eventually got my mom to stop slapping me in the face by slapping her back.

I now live with my dad and I sided with him throughout the divorce. When I eventually learned that I was gonna move back in with my dad I definitely romanticized it. I definitely feel let down now. Part of it is his idea that respect equals servitude and that he always knows best because he's older, among other things. Also for some reason whenever he yells at me it affects me a lot. If anybody else yells at me my reaction is always "who tf are you and what authority do you think you have?"

Anyway, all this left me with ongoing mental health issues. I'm still tryna figure myself out because all this made me feel like I'm not in control of my life.

Sorry, I didn’t have an example screenshot off the top of my head. Bear with me, this is going to be a little messily written.

I am ethnically Indian (though I was born and raised in the United States). I’m kinda sick of how much anti-South Asian racism there is on the internet. I say “South Asian” and not “Indian” because every brown person is usually treated the same - we all get called Indian regardless of what country we’re actually from.

I’ve seen so, so much racism leveled against me and people who look like me on the internet - it’s become one of the internet’s favorite jokes. It feels like every time I see a video of a brown person doing anything on the internet, there’s bound to be at least one comment that:

a. calls them a jeet (okay, fair)

b. mentions Indian street food (many Indian street food videos are AI-generated - and lots countries have their fair share of bad street food. Yeah, a ton of Indian street food vendors have gross food - but I’m a whole ocean away! Why do people have to yell at me for it?)

c. mentions poor sanitation or poor Indian hygiene (yeah, India has a large percentage of people that are in poverty and have limited access to good sanitation systems. So do many other countries. What makes India any different? It’s a populous country, I guess, so the failings of Indian infrastructure are more obvious. Your guess is as good as mine.)

d. mentions scam call centers/DO NOT REDEEM IT!!!!! etc (dude this one’s just gotten old. it was funny the first time yeah haha whatever but now… do you guys really not have any better material? maybe the real reason why I hate indian racism so much is because nobody can think of any better jokes)

e. mentions the fact that indians eat with our hands (obviously we wash them first, and plenty of other countries do the same thing. I’m a picky eater so i eat my rice specifically with a spoon but I will always defend my fellow desis that don’t! I promise you it is not any less hygienic than anything you guys eat)

f. bobs and vagene (admittedly many indian men need some work. you guys win that one. guys being weird and horny is hardly exclusive to india though)

g. loads more stereotypes that I can’t really think of right now but you get the point. except the one about us being better at spelling bees. that one’s true. sorry! (/j just in case)

I dunno. I’ve been to India so many times in my life, and it’s nothing short of awesome. I love my family, I love my culture, and I love being in India. Living in the U.S. is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know where people get the idea that India is a complete shithole with no redeeming qualities from. I’m far from patriotic about the Indian government - India has many, many flaws. But I don’t understand why that justifies hating ALL of us, categorically, just for the color of our skin! I promise you I, some random girl from the States, have nothing to do with the current socioeconomic state of India.
(yeah yeah racism 101 it’s the internet whatever. i get it. but sometimes I just want to get in my fix of brainrot without catching a microaggression)

I was very lucky to grow up in a very racially diverse community where racism and bigotry were frowned upon. I’m also happy that I live in a city with a similar atmosphere today. I have tons of South Asian friends whom I love to bits, and the desi community is strong here!

So, realistically, I actually could just get offline. Maybe this is my sign…

But I’ve been on the internet for a while and I’m very confident in my culture, so this racism doesn’t really have an effect on me besides just being exasperating enough for me to make a Reddit post about it. I’m afraid that some brown iPad kid younger and more impressionable than me sees all this hatred on social media and feels ashamed for being brown, an aspect about themselves that they can’t change even if they wanted to. That really fucks up a kid. I’d hate for someone to grow up hating who they are.

(also, yes, I find the caste system deplorable and I know that systemic caste discrimination is the reason for a lot of India’s poverty. please don’t bring up indians and pakistanis hating each other either because that has nothing to do with South Asian racism from non-South Asian groups. i love my pakistani friends like my own siblings - hate will never solve hate!)

Rant over. You should try our mangos sometime when they’re in season! They’re really good!

Title. U can give more than 2 if u want