Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Atul's Quest (Chapter 7)


Atul's Quest
Nader Habibi



Chapter Seven

Atul’s Findings


During September and October Atul visited me regularly. He spent most of this time preparing his literature review report. The fact that I did not give him a chance to talk about what he had found over the summer, during our first meeting of the term, had not dampened his spirit. He was as enthusiastic as ever. Our first communication after the approval of his inde- pendent study by the department took place on Monday, September 21st. I had already told him that I preferred to meet with him on Mondays and Thursdays.

That Monday was also the day that I received a formal letter from the department about my tenure evaluation. I had till October 31 to submit my performance file. In addition to several questionnaires I had to fill out, I also had to submit copies of all my published and unpublished writings as well as my teaching and peer evaluations. Ever since the rejection of my paper in August, I had tried my best not to think about the hurdle of tenure. I knew my chances for tenure were very small and thinking about it was    very



painful. The departmental notice, however, reminded me that there was no escape.
So, when Atul knocked at my door that afternoon, I was in a depressed mood. Atul, on the other hand, was full of energy. ‘Hi Dr. H. Do you have a few minutes?’ he asked, while poised in the doorway. He had a stack of papers and photocopies in his left had and was holding the doorknob with the other. His large black backpack was hanging from his left shoulder.
‘Sure. Sure. What’s up?’ I said as I signaled him to enter. Atul was breathing heavily. “I wish they’d given you... ahhhh…. an office on the second floor,” he said while trying to catch his breath. “Maybe you must spend more time at the gym.” We both laughed and he continued: “If you have time I’d like to discuss briefly the literature that I was able to find over the summer.”
“Go right ahead. I have plenty of time. Tell me about the mysterious world of whitening,” I said with a reassuring smile. I wanted to make up for my cold response during his previous visit.
“My literature search during summer was very fruitful. To be honest, last spring I was doubtful if I could find any written material that could in any way relate to the idea of whitening and racial improvement. But when I started looking, I found so many articles and books that deal with this issue. I also never expected to find any direct reference to the whitening, but I actually found several.
“What do you mean by direct reference to whitening?
“What I mean is that there are historical cases where an intellectual or even a social institution has invited a group of people to engage in interracial marriage with whites for sake of racial improvement. As I remember, you gave me five questions in June to use as guidelines



for my literature search, and one of them was to search for evidence that others have also paid attention to whitening. You also mentioned that this was the most important topic that I should search the literature for. Well! I searched for it and I found a lot of evidence,” said Atul with confidence.
Atul was referring to the letter that I sent him in June in response to his ‘Appeal to Non-European People.’ I did ask him to search for historical evidence of support for whitening. But I didn’t really expect him to find anything. “I’m glad your search has been fruitful. I hope you have written down the full references to the sources that you have read.
“Yes, I have. This is only a small portion of my notes and photocopies,” said Atul as he pointed to the large stack of papers that he had brought along. “Indeed, I have a separate folder for each of the five questions and some of these folders are very thick.
“So looks like you have done a lot of work. Why don’t we discuss each question separately?”
“Fine, which one would you like me to discuss first?” Since he had already aroused my curiosity about evidence of historical support for whitening, I suggested we start with that one.
“As you had recommended, I began my search by concentrating on eugenics. I looked especially for indications of eugenic interest in developing countries. Apparently, during the first half of the 20th century, when eugenics reached its peak of popularity in Western Europe and North America, it also became very popular in Latin America. There were eugenic societies in Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, and Brazil. Initially, the eugenic movement in these countries was influenced more by eugenic thinking in Europe than in the U.S. As you well know, the basic argument of eugenics is that the human race can (and should) be im- proved through selective reproduction and improved healthcare. With this objective in mind, eugenics in early 20th century took two parallel directions. Positive eugenics called for improving health and educational conditions as a way of creating a better gene pool and healthier future generations. Negative eugenics, on the other hand, called for sterilization of those persons or groups of people who were considered genetically unfit. The negative eugenics had two important policy implications in the first half of this century. One was the forceful sterilization of individuals with mental illness, retardation or genetically transmittable diseases. The other recommendation was for so-called racial hygiene. This later direction provided intellectual support for opposition to interracial marriage by con- sidering non-whites as genetically inferior to whites. In its extreme form, it contributed to the genocide of Jews and Gypsies by Nazi Germans.” Atul stopped  for a couple of seconds, pulled out one of the photocopied articles, opened it and flipped a few pages until he found a page that he had marked earlier. Then he con- tinued his monologue. So far, his comments were general, and I was waiting for some link between eu- genics and whitening. He continued.
“Now! What is interesting is that, while in Western countries the eugenic movement was strongly opposed to interracial marriage and called for preserving the purity of the white race, in Brazil it called for toleration of interracial marriage as a strategy for racial improvement.” Atul paused and looked down at the page in search of something. His finger stopped under a word in the middle of the page, and he continued with excitement: “They even coined a term for it: “Branqueamento,” which literary means  “whitening.”’



He raised his face and looked at me with a victorious and confident look. I had asked him for evidence of whitening believing that there wouldn’t be any, and he had found it. Or so he thought.
“Interesting. Go on.” I urged him. “I’d like to hear the details.”
“Well. As you probably know, Brazil is a multi- racial society. Like the United States, the Europeans who settled there brought a large population of black slaves into the country to work on plantations. However, in contrast to the scenario in the U.S., there were no restrictions in Brazil on interracial marriage between whites, blacks and native Indians. As a result, in early 20th century, when Brazilian intellectuals showed interest in eugenics, there was already a large mulatto or biracial population in Brazil. In that period, the Europeans who opposed interracial marriage and believed in white superiority pointed to Brazil as an example of the degeneracy and decline that would result from uncontrolled race mixing.
The European Brazilians, who dominated the political and economic life of Brazil, were very resentful of this image, and this sensitivity affected their approach to eugenics. Since they already had a large non-white population, which was highly multiracial, it was impractical for them to call for the extermination and expulsion of non-whites. Slavery had ended in Brazil in 1888 but, as in the U.S., there was a large gap between the economic status of whites and non-whites. The blacks and mulattos were in poor shape.”
I was still waiting for Atul to concentrate on whitening: “So, how does this relate to whitening?”
“I was just about to get to that. You see, the Brazilian whites believed in white superiority and were embarrassed by  the  presence of  non-whites. They



wanted to improve the racial image of Brazil by making its population whiter over time. They believed this goal could be achieved by allowing each generation of blacks and mulattos to produce lighter-skinned (whiter) offspring. They also imposed severe restrictions on the immigration of blacks and other colored people into Brazil.
“Let’s focus on the whitening of blacks and mulattos. How did they propose to achieve this goal? Were they advocating forced marriage between blacks and non-blacks?”
“No. Based on what I have found, they argued that whitening would take place naturally. The argument was that, since black and dark-skinned men in general are attracted to lighter-skinned women, they would prefer to marry females with complexions lighter than their own. The offspring of such unions, they reasoned, would have lighter skins than their fathers. So, they believed that, by tolerating interracial marriage, all they needed was to wait and witness a gradual whitening of the darker ethnic groups.”
I interrupted Atul: “Wait a minute. Could you explain this process again?”
I could say that Atul was pleased with my aroused curiosity. “Sure. The idea of whitening became popular in Brazilian eugenic circles in the 1910s. In 1911, a man named….” Atul searched through the photocopy that he had pulled out earlier until he found the name that he was looking for “…Jaao Batista Lacerda argued that, if successive generations of black and mulatto males marry lighter-skinned females, the black population of Brazil would vanish in about 100 years. He actually did some demographic calculations and predicted that by the year 2012, the black share of the population would diminish to zero while the mulatto



population would decline to 3%. Of course, based on what I have been able to gather about his work, he took higher black and mulatto mortality rates and continuous white migration into account in his analysis. I have tried to learn more about Lacerda’s work, but with no success so far.”
“I guess you could call his analysis ‘the calculus of whitening,’ sort of like James Buchanan’s famous book on the democratic electoral process that is called ‘the calculus of consent.’ “ I made this remark casually, but, to my surprise, Atul jumped on it.
“Wow; what a catchy phrase: ‘The Calculus of Whitening.’ You know, I can use this as the title of one of my reports.
“Then I suggest you try to learn more about Lacerda’s calculations and see if you can come up with a theory of whitening dynamics. However, I’m wondering, what will happen to the black and darker-skinned females. Did Lacerda assume that, in every generation, a percentage of these women would fail to find mates and reproduce?
“I don’t know, as I said I only found a brief reference to his work but I will try to find out more,“ said Atul.
“Something else, I don’t know the exact population mix of Brazil, but I do know that they still have a lot of blacks and mulattos there. So, I guess the calculations of Lacerda were wrong.
Oh, I got Brazil’s demographic data from internet.” Atul searched his stack of printouts and pulled out a page. “Based on their most recent census, the population of Brazil is 54% white, 39.5% mulatto and 5.7% black. I don’t have any comparable census data for 1910 to tell you how the share of blacks and mu- lattos has changed over time. However, it is clear    that



Lacerda’s predictions for racial composition in 2012 can never materialize. There is no way that the share of mulattos and blacks in the Brazilian population could decline to 3% and 0% by 2012.’’
“So, aside from imposing restrictions on the immigration of non-whites, did the supporters of whitening propose any other policies?” I asked.
“Not really. As I mentioned, they assumed that the preference for lighter-skinned females among mulatto and black men would lead to the population automatically becoming whiter over time, as long as interracial marriage was tolerated.”
“Then in a way you could say that they advocated a policy of tolerance for miscegenation. So, have these ideas survived until now?
“Good question. With the rise of fascism in Europe, Brazil’s eugenic society came under the influence of German eugenics, which advocated racial hygiene and the termination of inferior races. These negative eugenic ideas gained support in Brazil in 1930s. After World War II, the notion of European/white superiority, which was at the root of whitening, was replaced with the notion of “Brazilian” as a unique and separate race. In recent years, Brazilians like to portray their country as a racial democracy. So, going back to your question, it seems like the idea of whitening has been all but for- gotten, and they have come to accept the multiracial nature of their society as it is.”
Atul waited for my response. It was time for a little encouragement: “O.K. Looks like I was wrong when I told you that you wouldn’t find any evidence of the desire for whitening in the past.“
“Which also proves that I’m not crazy. Many others before me have thought about it as well,“ said Atul.



Experience plus numerous mistakes in the past had taught me to be skeptical of the answers that I found for any given question and examine the logic carefully. I especially remember the frequent occasions when, as an undergraduate economics student, I would rush to one of my professors’ office to tell him about an idea that had occurred to me the night before, only to have him cool off my excitement by pointing out the flaws and inconsistencies and leading me to the relevant literature. I decided to do the same to Atul’s evidence of whitening in Brazil:
“Now let’s go back and examine your example one more time very carefully. Brazil was a multiracial society, dominated by white European settlers. The political elite promoted miscegenation to transform the black population into mulattos. They believed that miscegenation would lead to the whitening of the entire Brazilian population. Right?”
“Yes.”
“And what was it that you were trying to demonstrate by presenting this example?” I asked this question just to make sure the evidence was relevant for the question that was originally raised.
“What do you mean?” asked Atul, after staring at me for a second.
“You wanted to show that your idea of whitening as a way of improving the physical beauty of a race has been proposed before. Am I right?”
“Yes. And I think the evidence that I found on Brazil proves that others have advocated whitening before me.”
I started thinking about Atul’s ‘Appeal to the non- Euros…’ to recall the details of his logic and his justification for whitening. Suddenly I realized a major difference between his idea and the Brazilian evidence.



“Let me ask you a question. Did any blacks or mulattos in Brazil advocate whitening? This guy that you just mentioned - Lacerda, who calculated the speed of whitening, what was his racial background?’’
“The supporters of whitening in Brazil were all white Europeans.”
“Then I think we have a problem. You are appealing to the non-Euros to engage in multiracial marriage to improve their physical beauty. You yourself are a non- Euro, a non-white. In other words you as a non-Euro are appealing to members of your own group to engage in whitening. In Brazil, it was the white community that had targeted the non-whites for whitening. Unless you show that blacks or mulattos themselves advocated whitening, the case of Brazil is not a historical proof of the quest for whitening from inside a non-white group. “
“Are you saying that I should abandon the case of Brazil altogether?”
“No. Not at all. But you should look for other historical examples that show initiative towards whitening from within a non-European race. Have you been able to find any evidence in this direction?
“I have found a brief reference to a 19th century Japanese intellectual named Suzuki. I think he advocated interracial marriage between Japanese men and white women to improve the Japanese race or something like that. I have to look up my notes for detail. I guess this is a better example than Brazil then.
“Yes. If you can get more information on this guy and his ideas, it would be a perfect example. How much material have you collected on him?”
Not much. Only a paragraph in an article about history of Social Darwinism in Japan.’’



“Then I suggest you contact the author and ask for information on Suzuki’s racial attitudes. Also, see if there have been other Japanese intellectuals with similar ideas.”
Atul nodded his acceptance as he took some notes: “OK. Then I’ll chase after Suzuki and let you know what I come up with.“
He was putting his notes in his backpack and getting ready to leave when there was a knock on the door. It was Elizabeth, my TA. I was expecting her, as I had also told her to stop by that afternoon. As Elizabeth walked in Atul smiled at her and quietly said “Hi.” Elizabeth did not show any reaction. She deliberately tried to avoid any eye contact with Atul. “Dr. H., here are the photocopies that you wanted,” said Elizabeth as she put a large envelope on my desk.
“Thank you. How did the review session go?
“It was OK. Only two students showed up and I was able to answer their questions…”
While listening to Elizabeth, I was also watching the reaction of Atul. Atul was taking short looks at Elizabeth as he was putting his papers in his backpack. Fortunately, she was facing me and did not notice this behavior. It was also clear that Atul was embarrassed by the way Elizabeth had ignored him. He stood by the door and quietly said “Bye,” as if not wanting to  interrupt her. I simply raised my hand and looked at him for a moment without interrupting my conversation with Elizabeth. I was now certain that Atul and Elizabeth must have had some interaction before, and I wanted to find out what it was in a discreet manner.
“Do you have anything else that you want me to photocopy? “ asked Elizabeth.
“No. This is all I needed for today. I’ll have  some for you next Monday. But before you leave, I’d like   to




ask you a question. The student who just left, his name is Atul Divan. He is taking an independent study course with me this semester. I noticed that you two knew each other, and I was wondering if you have ever been in the same class with him?”
“Yes. Why?” asked Elizabeth. She did not appear pleased with the question.
“Nothing important. He took a course with me last year and came across as very smart and attentive. I was wondering if he also stood out as smart in his other classes.
“Oh. He did ask more questions in class than others, but he was not necessarily smarter. He just wanted to attract more attention to himself.
“I see. Well, the reason I asked is that some of his ideas are a bit strange.”
“He is a strange person,” said Elizabeth. “You mean his ideas!”
“No. I mean his behavior. We were in the same math class last year. He must have been starving for affection because, as soon as he had a conversation with a girl about any topic for five minutes, he was asking her out. “ Elizabeth and I both laughed at this remark.
“Didn’t anyone go out with him?” I asked hoping that she would keep talking.
“Well. Actually, I ended up going out with him, but not because I liked him, “ Elizabeth replied.
When a person tells you that she has done something, but immediately rules out the most natural reason for doing so, she obviously is eager to tell you about her unique motive but wants you to ask for it first. I got the hint and confessed my curiosity: “I did not mean to ask you anything personal, but since you brought this up: why, then, did you go out with him? “ I asked, inviting her to sit down.



“Oh, I don’t mind you knowing about this, and I only dated him once. What happened was that one day, during lunch with two of my friends who were also in that class, we were talking about Atul and the latest girl who had turned him down. After a while, we ended up talking about why Atul behaved the way he did. It was obvious that he was lonely and wanted to date. But he did not know how to communicate. We thought he would have had a better chance getting a positive answer if he had asked Indian girl. As you know there are a lot of Indian students at Yale. Instead he keeps targeting the white girls who keep rejecting him.
Elizabeth continued: “As we were talking about him, he suddenly passed by our table and sat at a small table by himself. He was in our view and, as we looked at him, I began to feel sorry for him. I casually said to my friends that I wished someone would go out with him. My friends picked up on my comment and said I should be the one to make this sacrifice. Besides, both of them had already turned him down . First I laughed at this suggestion, but they kept at it. We were all watching Atul as he was eating his food and staring at every girl that passed by his table.
Anyways, the more I looked at him, the more sorry I felt for him. In the meantime, my girlfriends kept making fun of Atul and daring me to do it. They were surprised when I told them that I would. The next day, at the end of the math lecture, I asked Atul if he could help me with a couple of questions. He gladly accepted, and we met that afternoon in the library. I asked him a few simple questions and just as I expected, as soon  as I thanked him for his help, he asked me out. He posed the question as if begging for a favor in return for his help. Atul was totally shocked when I said yes. He must have been so  used to  rejection  that he  did  not  know



how to react to my positive response. He suddenly got nervous and quickly suggested a location and a time and walked away.
The next Saturday, I met Atul in front of my dorm, and we walked to a small Chinese restaurant. I had already told my girlfriends where we were going, because they wanted to see Atul and me with their own eyes. Atul was shy and nervous at the beginning and had a hard time focusing on one topic. If I disagreed with his view on any issue he quickly changed his mind to look agreeable and moved on to a new subject.“
“You should not blame him too much for trying  to be agreeable. I think most people try to avoid dis- agreement on a first date. After all, it’s a date, and each party is trying to make a good impression on the other,” I commented.
Elizabeth continued: “Oh, I agree. But he was overdoing it. However, this was only a minor irritation compared to what happened next. After we ran out of casual topics for conversation, there was a long period of silence - perhaps for a minute. As we were eating the last bites of our food, suddenly Atul raised his head, looked at me and asked a question that I was totally unprepared for. He asked me why I agreed to go out with him. For a moment, I thought perhaps someone had told him that it was just a mercy date. “Why are you asking this? I accepted your invitation because I thought you are an interesting guy. Should I have any other reason?”
“Most white girls don’t date non-whites. You seem to be an exception,,” said Atul. I disagreed with him and told him most girls do not use skin color as a criteria. But he kept insisting that non-whites were not popular. To prove his point, he mentioned something interesting: ‘I   have  an   Indian  friend  who’s   majoring  in



Engineering. He is desperately trying to date at least one white girl. I guess he must have asked at least 200 girls out and he has always been rejected.’ It was clear that Atul’s imaginary friend was a reference to himself.
I told Atul that I did not think they turned his friend down because he was Indian or because of his dark skin. Maybe he didn’t know how to approach girls. Besides, there are many beautiful Indian girls studying at Yale. I asked him why didn’t his friend ask one of them out.
Atul ignored my first comment but addressed my question. “Oh, I asked him this same question once. He just does not think that Indian girls are as attractive. I guess he has always been attracted to white girls. From some other comments that Atul made, I realized that he was still curious about my motives for going out with him. He asked me if I had dated any Indian or Chinese students before. I felt very uncomfortable about the whole subject and came up with an excuse about expecting a phone call from my mother to finish our date early. A few days later, Atul asked me out again. I politely turned him down by telling him I was very busy. He did not get the hint and asked me out again and again. He also kept staring at me in class. It was so annoying that I finally had to get angry with him and ask him to leave me alone. That was the last time that I agreed to go out with a guy out of mercy.”

After Elizabeth left my office, I realized that everything she said about Atul matched his racial attitudes and what Meena had told me about him earlier. For Atul, whitening was a very personal issue. He blamed his dark complexion for his social failure.






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