'Indian' Identity

I tried to refrain, more than once, gritting my teeth and nails digging into the palm of my hand. I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE so here goes...

My fellow Indian/Brown/South-Asian folk. In all social blog sites, some of you, well most of you outside the North-American Continent, have listed yourself as 'ASIAN'.  Asian ethnical classification is for the 'Chinese'  folk specifically. South Asians, especially Indians belong to another category 'East-Indian'.

Now for those of you who are wondering why the prefix 'east'. Blame that on Columbus and his discovery of 'India'. Over the centuries the Caribbean came to be known as the West Indies. Now this you should know since most of you are rabid cricket fans. You DO see the 'West-Indian' players. So for the rest of the world, 'Indians' from 'India' are termed as the 'East-Indians'. In the Americas, both North and South, there is the presence of another sort of 'Indian'. No, you DONT call them 'Red Indians'. That's a derogatory term. They are the First Nation people (up north) or 'Native Indians'.

At this point, my fellow Indians, who love a good debate and senseless arguments to prove the validity of their statement, will state that India is also a part of 'Asia' hence, they are Asians too. Look at the geography books again lads and lassies, we come from the 'SUB CONTINENT'. It is a very significant lanf feature and section of Asia, like 'Indo-China' or South East Asia. There is a sub category available for you folks specifically called 'South-Asian' or in some cases for those of you Pakistanis who do get offended for being classified as 'East-Indian' a more generic classification would be more suitable.

This post was purely for information sake, and lads – lassies, please look-listen-learn-inculcate. We all learn something new every day.

Post Scriptum:

For those Pakistanis who were offended by being called 'Indians' now you know how we feel for being called pakis all our lives! (Just kidding, we are all in the same boat in the wide world, South Asian it is.)