"Questioning Racism in the India Diaspora: Cultural Perspectives" was a panel convened by the Swedish South Asian Studies Network (SASNET) of Lund University on June 16, 2020. It featured panelists Amrita Ghosh, Rohit K. Dasgupta, Aruni Kashyap and Bhakti Shringarpure. Below is a video recording along with excerpts from the transcript.
As African writers without borders who are connected beyond geography with those who live in the United States of America and other parts of the African diaspora, we state that we condemn the acts of violence on Black people in the United States of America. We note in dismay that what Malcolm X said in Ghana in 1964 that “for the twenty million of us in America who are of African descent, it’s not an American dream; it’s an American nightmare” remains true for 37 million in 2020.
We condemn the murders of:
We find ourselves in a truly challenging moment as this coronavirus pandemic becomes a long and difficult daily reality. Not only are our individual lives feeling severely compromised but the massive structural shifts are beyond despairing -- the shocking death toll, the triumph of surveillance structures, the displacements, the police brutality, curfews, imminent starvation, mass unemployment...the list is long. We know that many of you have survived war, reported on war or lived through intensive periods of violence, scarcity and uncertainty.