May 28, 2003: Vijay Singh, American Media and the Indian culture
	While discussing Annika Sorenstam's participation in a PGA Tour event in Texas, Vijay Singh (born to Indian parents in Fiji) was claimed to have said "If women want to play the men's tour they should qualify to play like everybody else". BBC report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/golf/3026451.stm After his comments entire USA media made a big hue and cry for Vijay Singh's comments calling him "Sexist" "Chauvinist" etc. According to one mail received, Chris Core of WMAL called Vijay Singh a "PIG" (Chris is said to have apologized later) While reporting on this story 'USA Today' columnist went far too off to make a baseless comments on India and Indian culture. This is not only meaningless, but also racial when it was not at all called for. USA Today's Jon Saraceno says in his column: "I doubt she (Annika) possesses the same traditional male-female notions of Singh, born in Fiji to Indian parents. I don't know how much Singh was influenced by his ancestry, if at all, but this much I do know: The institutionalized subordination, exploitation and brutalization of women remains ingrained in that society. ("Bride burning" still occurs. From 1999-2001, a total of 6,347 Indian women were murdered by fire, according to Indian government statistics)." http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/saraceno/2003-05-13-saraceno_x.htm --------------- For those willing to write to USA Today: Here are the email addresses and the Sample letter - editor@usatoday.com, allstars@usatoday.com, jons@usatoday.com  TO: Editor, USA Today Dear Carol Stevens, I strongly protest the baseless comments about Indian culture by Jon Saraceno in his column about Vijay Singh. Are your columnists/editors aware that one of India's Prime Ministers was a Lady? Mrs.Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister of India for 16 years in 50+ years of the Indian Democracy. Has America ever produced any Lady President in 200 years and out of 43 Presidents? The answer is 'BIG NO.' Therefore, do we call Americans as 'Sexist', 'Ignorant' and 'Backward'? Do you ever blame British culture for the killings happening in American schools frequently? Do you ever blame American ancestry for the child abuse being done in the American churches? Would your newspaper dare to make such stupid comments about other minorities in USA? I wish you had educated journalists having common sense. Probably you need to rename your newspaper as 'USA - 1700 th Century'. Sincerely, Your Name --------------- Letter to USA Today, by N Ram http://www.indiacause.com/OL_030522.htm Subject: Vijay Singh is Indian as you are Roman (or Neanderthal) Mr. Jon Saraceno: In your vitriolic about Vijay Singh and his comments on Sorenstam's participation in the Colonial, you have veered way off the track to comment on India. You might have shown off your great knowledge to a people who are generally not so well-informed about India but by taking things out of context and showing an insensitivity, you not only look like a loose cannon but a base rogue (hiding behind your journalistic privilege), no better than the men that brutalize women. If all this had to come out of Vijay Singh's comment, well, perhaps we ought to talk about Caligula's madness, Nero's despotism, Mussolini's terror, and Berlusconi's corruption so as to understand where YOU are coming from. Literally! Or perhaps we ought to wonder if you share a gene or two with Dahmer or Al Capone or Senator McCarthy or David Duke or other recent child molesters/kidnappers (did you know that the USA has one of the highest child murders in the world, even more than a billion-peopled India or China?!). [If you do some digging, you'll find that Duke has said similar things but he was quite right in the sense that he was talking IN CONTEXT!!] Has the writer looked at any online editions of the numerous Indian newspapers during his research to see what THEY are saying? Has he scoured any Fijian papers? Has he asked other India golfers (or Fijian) their feelings about Mr. Singh's comments? Does he know about Indians' feelings about Mr. Singh? Or, for that matter, golf?! About 50% Indians are illiterate and eke out a miserable daily existence, forget following golf or Mr. Singh's foolishness, sexism, brutality, or pride thousands of miles away. What about Americans with origins in India, like me? Do I have to live under the cloud of fear that I'm destined to live with a wife-brutalizing gene? Forever? How CAN I spin away from this karma? Is that what American society, creed, and ethos offers me: that I can be whatever I want to be but then I have to carry a lead ball of my ancestry around my ankles?! I wish he had talked with some of us. I encourage that he do that. We are the "new Juice", the new "wogs", the new boat people with lips like melons...we are indeed the stupid bumbling people in turbans, driving NY City cabs, that Hollywood shows....and the ones that ER doesn't show in its hospitals, StarTrek forgot, CBS news won't have as anchors (since white men rather prefer "Asian" women).... Would this writer have dared say anything as extreme about other minorities in our country...forget Jews.....forget the "wogs (sic!) ...but, let's say about African Americans? I'd ask the editors and this writer if you'd would attribute anything Tyson does to African cannibalism or wayward ways (including murders) of numerous American sports stars to their Anglo-saxon or Crusader or Colonialist or Neanderthal or squaw-raper or other such legacy/ancestry? What IS your time frame of measure in these matters? 50 years? 100 years? 1,000? Is that your paper's policy? Rather, WHAT IS your paper's policy? Please also answer this for me: what is the exact purpose of the writer in making these comments? [Not I don't want that blah about "poetic" license, writer prerogative...I heard that] Naturalich, I expect a response and I intend to publish it over the Internet. I aim, rather ambitiously, to target 500 million people (the literate Indians, of course) and then some more here at home in the USA. Thank you. "Listen, how many holes should I play before we talk about my golf?" N Ram An American of Indian origin Quote of the day: "I didn't know he was qualified to make that determination. Maybe he knows more about football than I thought." Jon Saraceno, in reference to Rev. Jesse Jackson in "Keeping Score", USA TODAY, May 16, 2003 ---------------- Also read: Times of India: Vijay Singh's 'sexism' invites infamy on India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=46580993