Tag Archive | "race"
Categories, Generalizations, and Stereotypes: Talking About Cultural Differences
We talk about cultural differences a lot on this blog: "Indian parents tend to worry about X, Y, and Z when their children are getting married." "My husband grew up in a culture where it wasn't okay to do A, B, or C." "Lego people of South Pacific descent enjoy conga lines and grass miniskirts." This is a pretty sensitive topic. In talking about cultural differences, I'm careful to not make too strict generalizations - I'll hedge what I say by emphasizing I'm talking about my own, personal experiences, or suggest that a group seems to act in a certain way, or that some (but not all!) people from a particular culture do a particular thing. But it's impossible to avoid making any generalizations at all about cultures or to keep from categorizing people - and silly to even try.
Continue reading...Why the Gori of Gori Girl?
Friday, April 18, 2008
There's been some talk in the comments about the word gori, which, given the blog name, is probably a term you'll hear thrown around here from time to time. So I thought I'd explain what it means, some of the connotations it can carry, and why I chose it for the name of this blog - as well as my pen name. What does gori mean? The following was derived from Aditya’s lengthy comments on the etymology of the word gori – be thankful that I’m sparing you all of the tangential diatribes that developed during our conversation. Gori is a Hindi adjective that literally means “fair” or “light-complexioned”. The i at the end of the word is a feminine conjugation, so gori is often used as a noun, with the subject being understood without explicit reference. In this slightly looser interpretation of the word, gori can mean “pale female”, “fair woman”, or even “white girl”. The masculine version of gori is gora, which can be translated as white man. Since I’m awfully pale-skinned, at least in the winter, gori can be rightly used as an adjective to describe me, or as a noun in reference me.
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Tuesday, May 27, 2008
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