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unpublished writings as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.
