Standing at the empty plinth, he gave the Black Power salute, and called for the recognition of African heroes rather than a man who had once referred to black South Africans by a highly offensive racist slur - and had said that Indians were "infinitely superior" to black people.
He later came to publicly support African rights and gave many more speeches which asked Indians to draw inspiration from Africans.
Even Mandela forgave him:
> Mandela was well aware of the racist statements made by Gandhi when he was young. He wrote in an article in 1995, “Gandhi must be forgiven those prejudices and judged in the context of the time and circumstances. We are looking here at the young Gandhi, still to become Mahatma, when he was without any human prejudice save that in favour of truth and justice.”
The US built its industrial base on the backs first of slaves then of the freed slaves, poor immigrants (particularly from China) and dispossessed Latinos whose land claims were not recognized post-annexation. Until we understand that racism in the US is a tool of classism and we address the underlying economic injustices, there will be no social justice. But there is no political party willing to take that on and no real hope for the foreseeable future.
Even though I don’t know of any history of SE Asian slaves in the USA, I can easily believe that a specific individual Indian with dark skin and Muslim religion might find America unwelcoming both on religious and racial grounds — if that person was rich enough to even try to move to America, I’m going to guess they’re probably not one of the untouchables. Other people’s pain doesn’t invalidate theirs; it only becomes hypocrisy if they turn a blind eye to it after experiencing it, and I have no evidence of that here.
I love how people come up with racist justifications for structural racism. Classy.....
My wife's country (Indonesia) also had a caste system and some parts still do, but even poor people have better security in access to food and shelter than poor people do in the US. The economic problems are not so deep.
What "helps" in such a situation is to move to a foreign country (rather then staying in your native environment) since there one doesn't understand all the little messages, cues and things people throw at you - so maybe that's what might actually explain part of what you experience.
