It is believed that the first forced migration from the African continent to the New World took place around the 1530s with the Spanish hunting for labor to tend to their plantations in the Caribbean and American territories of modern day Texas, Florida and South Carolina. Four and a quarter centuries later, the black color from Africa and its consequences tend to dominate the political events of this nation. African Americans constitute roughly 12% of the US population and yet their impact on the national conscience is much more disproportionate. The fact that race continues to be an uncomfortable issue in the United States has been borne out by two recent incidents.

The first was the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Gates by the local police. Trying to force the jammed front door of his house, Professor Gates appeared to a neighbor as someone trying to break into the house. She did what any normal American would do – call 911. By the time the police arrived, Prof Gates was in his house. This is where the story gets fuzzy. The police claim that the academic started a confrontation and hurled racist invective and abuse against the Police sergeant who came to the house. The professor claimed that despite proving his identity he was harassed and ultimately arrested. Adding color to the situation (pardon the pun) is the fact that Prof Gates is black, Sgt. Cowley of the Cambridge police is white, as was the concerned neighbor who dialed 911. The Massachusetts Governor (also black), criticized the police, saying that such discrimination was a fact of daily routine for blacks. What really gave fan to the fire was President Obama’s reaction to the situation. Speaking at the White House press conference on Health care, Obama was asked to comment on the situation and instead of side stepping the question in a way any normal politician would have done, he took it on and called the conduct of the police as ‘stupid’. Republicans, Police Unions and right wing commentators jumped on him. Accused of commenting without knowing the full facts, he was called irresponsible and asked by the Police Unions for an apology.

I guess there are natural fallouts of speaking your mind openly as a politician. Obama is discovering that slowly. He is a front on talker, someone who likes to engage issues rather than side step them. A few weeks back he spoke at the convocation ceremony of the Notre Dame University in Indiana. A university run by the Catholic Church, Notre Dame is anti-abortion while Obama is pro. Students protested against the invite to the President and he was heckled during his speech by a tiny section of the crowd. Obama trod on, talked of listening to voices of disagreement, talked of how sensitive abortion as an issue was to the Americans and how reconciliation would only be achieved by listening to the other side and finding a middle ground. In the incident of Prof Gates, he was quick to realize that he had overstepped the line of tactful distance that a Chief Executive must often maintain. To his credit, instead of hiding in the White House, he came out in the open, confessed that his comment was inappropriate and has now tried to reach out and attempt reconciliation by inviting both the academic and the policeman in question to the White House for a round of drinks.

The second incident is related to Sonia Sotomayor, Obama’s pick for a Supreme Court seat that goes vacant soon. Since Supreme Court judges in US hold office for life, very rarely does a President get an opportunity to appoint one (The most famous Judge in US history, John Marshall presided as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for 34 years and swore in more Presidents than any other). The appointment of any Justice has to be confirmed by the Congress and each candidate is summoned by the Judiciary committee to a hard round of grilling. Old verdicts, opinions and stray comments are dug up and questioning is challenging (depending upon which party is in opposition). Sotomayor, a Hispanic, has been questioned for some of her own comments from a few years back (she had remarked once that a wise Latina woman can deliver a better judgment that a White man) but almost in parallel, one of her most influential judgments was reversed by the Supreme Court this summer in a narrow 5-4 verdict. The ruling related to the Fire Department of New Haven city that had cancelled the results of a promotion test after the black candidates were found to have scored too low a score to merit promotion. The city feared a lawsuit by the minority candidates due to its impact on the minority (there have been such lawsuits in the US before where courts have struck down such tests). The city’s concern lay in the principle of ‘disparate impact’ enshrined in the US employment law that prevents employers from adopting practices that are neutral on the face but discriminatory in application or effect on a protected community. It includes within its purview, a substantially different rate of selection for promotion or hiring that works to the disadvantage of any sex, race or other group.

17 White and 1 Hispanic firefighter, who were denied promotion, protested through a suit against the city Mayor alleging reverse discrimination. The district court upheld the cancellation of the test and so did the appeals court where Sotomayor was Chief Justice. The US Supreme Court though struck the ruling down stating that city had no ‘strong basis in evidence’ to show that it would have attracted lawsuits had the results been certified. The Court walked a fine thin line in the judgment and acknowledged that discrimination prevention can also lead to discrimination.

Sotomayor of course would go on to be confirmed. Obama enjoys a comfortable majority of Democrats in the Congress. But the fact that America still faces questions of race and how to overcome its historical and potential future impacts is a sign of how despite the economic advancements, social borders remain fuzzy. While attitudes may have warmed and black and white walls of discrimination may have been tore down, at its edges, along the greys America still finds the question of race standing at the corner, and mostly finds it terribly uncomfortable to reach out and address it.

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This is a bit late in the day but I wanted to draw attention to the Delhi High Court’s landmark judgment on Sec 377 of IPC. For all the abuse that modern India throws at Jawaharlal Nehru it is worthwhile to ponder that the court invoked Nehru and the Objectives Resolution that he moved in the Constituent Assembly in 1946, as India’s wisest men sat to frame a Constitution for the country. Quoting Nehru, that ‘words are magic things; often enough, even the magic of words sometimes cannot convey magic of human spirit and of a nation's passion’, it turned the wheel back to  clause 5 of the resolution that stated the following as the foundation stone of this country –

“WHEREIN shall be guaranteed and secured to all the people of India justice, social economic and political : equality of status, of opportunity, and before the law; freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith, worship, vocation, association and action, subject to law and public morality;”

These words would go on to transform into the fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution. While in India, we may not remember him enough, it took a Pakistani blogger across the border to put the issue in perspective by claiming that ‘Nehru’s glorious legacy had brought another freedom to India’. In the India of 1950s, Nehru was called as the country’s friend, philosopher and guide. To this day, his words and actions stand as guardian angels of the democratic spirit he wanted his country to so dearly possess and embrace.

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Deep down perhaps every Indian middle class young boy harbors a dream of visiting America. It is shaped in many cases by a desire to replicate relatives in the family who have been to the land or in most others by the exposure to soft culture of Archies, Hollywood and Mcdonalds. If you are a graduate techie being turned out of those myriad engineering colleges of India, then the US of A is your ultimate onsite destination.

Unlike the previous occasion, this time my journey to the airport from my house is smooth. That’s because my flight is before the mad rush hour at midnight and beyond and also because the day is dry and there aint any rain to clog Delhi roads. Check in is slow and it takes me 15 mins for reach the counter from the end of the line. It takes another 10 for the check in counter official to weigh my baggage and get my boarding pass out between his chuckles and jokes with a colleague.  There are somethings even a swanky modern airport cannot change.

The immigration officer is interested to know what Accenture (my employer) does. By now I am tired of giving this explanation – despite the huge sums that we spend on television advertising, people still do not know us. Or well at least the average common man doesn’t. Even the urbane ones who might be watching English news channels where our advertisements are a regular feature are clueless when the name is mentioned. Neither have past full page ads in newspapers been of any help. I am also tired of referring to the firm as the one with Tiger Woods ads. No one seems to have a clue about Woods. So now, I just let it be – I politely inform the immigration officer of our scope of services. He asks whether we are still recruiting. I sense this as an inquiry of an interested father for his kid than that of a customs official. He says the outlook is improving and that things shall change in the next few months. As evidence he points to the upward movement in the ‘market’. I want to believe him, I am flying to the States – someone must be needing my services.

Emirates has an in-flight entertainment system that simply captivates me. There is a good variety to choose from amongst movies, TV shows and songs (the 13 hour flight from Dubai to JFK had about 20 new movies on the menu along with countless older ones, including Hindi classics such as ‘Golmaal’ and ‘Chupke Chupke’). There is an informative section that tells you about the movement of the flight and metrics such as altitude, speed, time at the destination and the distance travelled. What takes the cake are the two cameras installed on the exterior of the plane whose live feed can be seen on the screen by passengers – the first camera is on the nose and the second on the underbelly. It’s a treat to switch either of those on during take off and landing. I didn’t miss my window seat on both the flights courtesy the cameras.

New York is cloudy and damp when I land. The last few minutes of the flight witness my attention being captured by an engaging conversation on the seats to my right between a US national of Somali descent and an white American lady from Florida. The Somali is bemoaning the state of his nation, his inability to meet with his Syrian wife and kids and the plight of his family back home. Conversation turns then to the scourge of piracy affecting the seas of the coast of Somalia and the lack of action by the international community to correct the state of affairs in the nation. It is difficult to escape the passion of the Somali as he stresses the failures of his nation and more so of those who could have prevented them from occurring.

‘Khanna as in Vinod Khanna?’ asks the woman at the prepaid taxi service counter at JFK upon seeing my passport. She is of Thai origin and finally helps me with a reservation after two of her colleagues tell me that their cabs don’t travel to the town where I am staying (Parsipanny in Jersey, an hours’ drive from NY). She informs me that she met Shatrughan SIngha at the JFK once and is aware how actively both the above mentioned actors are involved in politics.

There is a debate going on in America after President Obama subtly switched his stand on torture investigation and stated that Justice Department officials who approved of torture techniques may be investigated. It’s the first indication that the Bush administrationmay be hauled for its brave efforts to ‘change the world’. The Republicans of course are up in indignation and Dick Cheney has issued a war cry. On my cab drive, we are listening to a radio station which is blatantly Republican. The radio jockey after interviewing a dumb bimbette who claims she made her two daughters to run up and down a mile long road on a cliff so as to stop them from fighting each other, then proceeds to take calls. A caller says that torture is not what is done to Al-Qeda but what was done to victims of 9/11, that watching people jump from burning high rises is torture. This jockey then in a grave somber tone that sounds straight out of a campaign race proceeds to tell ‘American people’ that they are not safer than they were pre 9/11, that the current President has no stomach to fight enemies of the nation and that torture is done with the aim to achieve the ultimate good of ‘extracting information’. Next morning at breakfast I watch a Fox news telecast that is debating the same – it has three panelists on the show, two of whom are blatant republicans while one tries to strike a middle ground. The anchor again reminds us that torture yields information that is essential to save the country. The President is castigated by the Republican leaning panelists of succumbing to left wing liberals while deciding to investigate tortures. Listening to this debate, you wouldn’t be surprised that Americans are so reviled in the countries which are the worst sufferers of Islamic extremism. You would also not be surprised that despite 8 years of ‘war on terror’, the US still has no clue about the root causes of the threats faced by it.

 

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