Black, Brown, and Between: A Study of Interminority Relations Between African Americans and South Asians, written with Pinak Joshi

In 1999, Farook Batcha did the unthinkable. Fed up with her newlywed husband, Syed Fathima, repeatedly calling her “black,” Farook wrote a suicide note, poured kerosene all over her body, and lit herself on fire (Mahapatra, 2008). In 2008, a 68 year old South Asian hired a hitman to murder his daughter in-law just because she was African American (Joe, 2008). The 300-pound hitman strangled the woman and stabbed her 12 times within earshot of her 6 month old daughter (Joe, 2008). Cases like these highlight the intense ethnic disparity between South Asians and African Americans. How did this come to be? South Asians and African Americans share a convoluted history with many points of convergence. Research on intergroup minority interactions has two major models in characterizing the distribution of power and status in the context of race relations: the Common Intergroup Identity Model (CIIM) and the Social Identity Threat Model (SITM). Independently, these theories are satisfactory in depicting both how South Asians commingle with African Americans and how they develop animosity toward one another (Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994). However, as America becomes an increasingly transnational country, it becomes increasingly apparent that CIIM and SITM give incomplete answers about the dynamics of South Asians and African American interaction.

Although the Common Identity Intergroup Model and Social Identity Threat Model provide useful means for characterizing interactions between African Americans and South Asians, their approach, which is centered on a majority/minority context, leaves them blind to important contexts for understanding interminority race relations such as sex,  location, religion, cultural history, immigration status and socioeconomic standing.

The Historical Context of Race Relations between South Asians and African Americans

South Asians have a complex historical relationship with African Americans. Over time, Desis (South Asians) and Blacks have had multiple crossovers in philosophical, racial, and ethnic identity, the most obvious being Indian independence and how it related to the Civil Rights Movement. African American leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. openly drew inspiration from Hindu philosophy by mirroring the foundations of nonviolent resistance shown by Mahatma Gandhi (Lakshmi, 2009). In addition, Malcolm X took solace in Islam, saying “I don’t believe in any form of discrimination or segregation. I believe in Islam” (Haley, 1996). The actions of these leaders bridged a cultural gap between Desis (South Asians) and African Americans. Although both cultures were still segregated by many other contextual forces, for a short period of time they had shared a common moral identity (Lakshmi, 2009).

As a result of the Civil Rights Movement, the passage of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 allowed for increased immigration from non-Western nations (Keely, 1971). The INS act incentivized scientists, professors, physicians, and other professionals to immigrate to the US during the Cold War (Keely, 1971). Subsequently, it was amended in 1986 so that the families of these immigrants could live as permanent legal residents (Linder, 2011). The high socioeconomic status of these early waves of immigrants, combined with their ambitions to integrate and prosper into the “the land of opportunity” created the perfect storm for Desis to generate animosity toward Blacks. Although colorism was always endogenously prevalent in South Asia, it was more important to assimilate with prejudices that whites had regarding African Americans in order to create a commonality from which to form an intergroup identity.

            At the turn of the 21st century, this pattern of discrimination has a more checkered history. After the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, African Americans were among the first groups that outcasted all South Asians as terrorists. By contrast, many Muslim African Americans formed coalitions with Desi Muslims shortly after the attacks to combat the harsh discrimination that was engulfing the greater New York area (Elliott, 2007). Similarly, other examples show that while these rare cataclysmic events are only brief cross sections of cooperation between intergroups, their lasting influence of suffering together, prospering together, and being characterized as a greater whole significantly deviates from interminority identity models that were so influential in the past.

            Common Intergroup Identity Model

Common Intergroup Identity Model (CIIM) is particularly relevant and useful for analyzing African American-South Asian relations in the United States. This model assumes that race remains key to understanding society and that people of color remain hindered by common experience with race, suggesting that there is a white/nonwhite divide (Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994). The common experiences with race will push people of color together and in conflict with whites, resulting in a common interminority identity (Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994). Predicated on the notion of people of color coalitions as the population of the United States shifts to majority-minority, CIIM has explanatory use as the likelihood for these coalitions appears more likely in the overwhelming support for Democrats like Obama among people of color in the 2012 election (Sharma, 2012). As the right sells itself further by employing the Southern Strategy, their sway among non-whites is further diminished, especially as subsequent generations of Asian-Americans and Latinos have demonstrated such in terms of their voting record (Cox, 2012). In addition to not offering political support to the losing game strategy of the Republican’s white male tendencies, extrapolating assertions made by CIIM show that people of color will likely band together in coalitions to push for policy that is mutually beneficial. This could translate into increased political representation for people of color in Congress, additional presidents of color after Obama, and perhaps redistributive policies for African Americans, Native Americans, and others.

Common Intergroup Identity Discussion 

Furthermore, CIIM is more plausible as the changing demographics make it clear that this country will be majority-minority before 2050 (Roberts 2008). Identities are more fluid and transnational, thereby problematizing notions of static difference or eternal conflict between different racial groups. Although intermarriage rates are low between Desis and African Americans, increased exposure to one another and growing numbers of interracial children show that this trend will likely grow. Culturally, the seeds for increased collaboration and interaction among Americans of South Asian descent and Blacks have been sown through cultural miscegenation in music, speech, and, to a certain degree, shared political values pertaining to mutual experiences of discrimination.

            In addition, numerous instances of interracial parallel experiences with influences from both groups continue to operate. From the Civil Rights Movement and decolonization in India to the influence of hip-hop and African-American popular culture on American Desi communities, African Americans and South Asian groups in the United States have and will likely continue to impact each other’s identity. According to one study from Al-Jazeera, when it comes to support among Asian-Americans, for “Indian-Americans, democratic support is even stronger: Obama 68 per cent, Romney 5 per cent and undecided 25 per cent, despite Obama's rhetorical attacks on outsourcing; his job approval rating is at 81 per cent among Indian-Americans” (Sharma, 2012).  Indian-Americans even support Obama more than that of other Asian-American groups, not that Asian-American support for Obama can be correlated with favorable views of African Americans (Sharma, 2012). The broader implications of this trend may reflect the Arab, Asian-American, African American, and Latino Democratic and left-wing coalition within American politics, showing aspects of people of color identifying with each other through common political goals.

As mentioned previously, this could mark the incipient formation of a people of color consciousness as national demographics shift to majority-minority within the United States. Since the first half of the 20th century, Black newspapers also project a common intergroup model for South Asians as well, with one article from 1961 in the New York Amsterdam News stressing the fact that a troupe of Indian dancers cancelled their tour in Louisiana and North Carolina after being refused service at Southern restaurants (New York Amsterdam News 1961).

            Political solidarity among South Asian-Americans and African Americans also has a rational basis due to shared experiences of racism. The well-known “driving While Black” and other forms of profiling, such as “Stop and Frisk” in New York City, are also applied to many South Asians (Staples, 2009). For instance, South Asians stopped by Transportation and Security Administration officers at airports for having Muslim names or “looking Muslim” experience racial profiling (Sen, 2009). Similarly, Latinos stopped and asked for their papers through legislation like Arizona’s SB1070 reflects another area of shared interest among African Americans, South Asians, and other racial minorities. Some Indian-Americans have noted this sense of collaboration and mutually beneficial aspect of Indian-Black relations by emphasizing the debt racial minorities in the US owe to the NAACP and other Black civil rights groups (Sen 2009). Rinku Sen, from Colorlines, a news site devoted to racial justice and Indian-American, likewise sees the need for coalitions based on racial profiling as well as ongoing disparities between people of color and whites (Sen 2009). Predicting that US race relations will not be strictly seen in a black-white binary, Sen best exemplifies the possibility of the common intergroup model as the best way for “dismantling the racial hierarchy as thoroughly as we can over the next 100 years” (Sen, 2009). Yet, she also argues for Blacks needing separate spaces still, instead of subsuming African Americans into a broad people of color status that may homogenize and blur differences along racial and class lines (Sen, 2009).

            In addition to facing the common obstacle of white supremacy, South Asians and African Americans can and do find solidarity and positive relations along cultural and religious lines. Islam, for instance, provides one example of greater interactions between Arab, African American, and South Asian Muslims in the United States. Elliott’s piece from The New York Times frames the relationship as an uneasy alliance due to class differences between South Asian and African American Muslim communities as well as South Asians perceiving Blacks as not “real” Muslims (Elliott, 2007). But she also highlights several ways an alliance can arise (Elliott, 2007). For instance, African Americans have cultural and historical fluency in the United States and a long history of mobilization while immigrant Muslims provide a crucial link to the Islamic world and its tradition of scholarship and wisdom (Elliott 2007). Of the entire Muslim population in the United States, 25% are African American and 34% are South Asian, so they constitute the majority of Muslims domestically (Elliott, 2007). By bridging the gap between the two groups, African Americans gain access to the Muslim world and, to a certain degree, the wealth of immigrant Muslim communities while South Asian Muslims can learn from the history of activism and mobilization among African Americans, especially when it comes to mutual experiences of racial profiling or Islamophobia.

            In addition to religious contexts, opportunities for South Asian and African American to engage in CIIM can arise among Indo-Caribbean immigrants and Afro-Caribbean communities in New York City. Although the groups do not live in the same neighborhoods and may not appear to mix, Cotto’s piece in the Times describes racially-mixed spectators of the live music (Cotto, 2012).  Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Caribbean, young and old, black and brown, coming from a similar Caribbean cultural background, illustrate the common intergroup model in a cultural context. Another article examining Indo-Guyanese communities in New York City, found that the Indian communities of Flushing and Elmhurst in Queens have not embraced Indo-Caribbeans in Richmond Hill, Queens (Berger, 2004). The same article goes on to state that the majority of Afro-Guyanese in New York reside in Brooklyn’s West Indian neighborhoods, suggesting that Indo-Caribbean communities are not mixing with Afro-Caribbean communities beyond what may occur at live shows of Trinidadian or Guyanese music.

A largely unknown historical example, South Asian Muslims integrated into Black and Puerto-Rican urban communities prior to the 1960s display another example of South Asian-Americans identifying with other people of color (Bald, 2006). Unfortunately, as dark-skinned, lower-class immigrants, African American and Puerto-Rican communities, these early immigrants may have quickly discovered that their skin forever barred them from entry to white America before the educated South Asian professionals came in the 1970s. Marriage and integration with African Americans may have only reflected limited social mobility due to class and color (Bald, 2006).

            CIIM is reflected in the media and blogs that focus on generation and skin color. The issue of colorism and the targeting of South Asian and African American women by skin lightener advertisements present one instance of potential solidarity. One newspaper analysis of skin whitener Fair and Lovely products suggests that the products aimed at young urban women in India are sold to African American under the label of anti-blemish cream (Timmons, 2007). Although it acknowledges India’s long history of colorism and obsession with fair skin, the potential for increased pride in one’s darker skin may lead to some coalitions among African American and South Asian women in response to potentially dangerous products damaging to one’s self-esteem as well as reinforcing Eurocentric standards of beauty. African American bloggers also link the consumption of such products to class, since young, urban women having more access to Fair and Lovely (Chambers, 2009).

Dark-skinned South Asian-American bloggers and writers are quick to, like many darker-hued African-Americans, find a space for decolonial self-love and develop literature that combats colorism within Desi communities. Entire blogs devoted to developing positive identification as dark-skinned people has appeared among South Asians in the United States, some of it alluding to African American experiences and literature relevant to race and color, explicitly calling on the legacy of Audre Lorde, the Black Panthers, or the Civil Rights Movement (Thenmozhi Soundarajan, “The Black Indians,” blindianlove.com, darklovelyandsouthasian.tumblr.com, and Shadeism). Soundararajan’s “The Black Indians” centers her identity as a “Black Indian” by focusing on the conditions of Untouchables, or Dalits, and the relocation of caste stigmatization in the Desi diaspora. She compares her own experience from a Dalit background to African American “passing” in order to avoid caste discrimination as well as the powerful impact of the writings of Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael on her decision to embrace her identity (Soundararajan, 2012). One also embraces African American thinkers, quoting Audre Lorde and providing several images and reflective pieces on colorism within India and the diaspora, usually related to the common experiences of dark-skinned women (darklovelyandsouthasian.tumblr.com). The video, Shadeism, made by a Tamil Sri Lankan, also highlights the importance of community for dark-skinned women of all races and its effect on self-esteem. By exploring the experiences of colorism with African, African American, Afro-Caribbean, and South Asians women, the documentary, aimed at raising awareness of shadeism and pigmentocracy, exemplifies a feminist and sisterly camaraderie among dark-skinned women that reinforces common intergroup identity model’s theory of coalitions among people of color.

            Generational and age differences among the South Asian community likely reflect CIIM, too. An examination of the 1990 Census found that 90% of Indian-headed households identified as Indian when in 1970 nearly 75% identified as white (Morning, 2001). The first wave of South Asian immigrants in the 1960s and 1970s were largely educated professionals, and because of their educational background and the facts that immigrants usually avoid association with Blacks, so some identified as white (Morning, 2001). The latest wave of South Asian immigrants however, has been working-class and more likely to interact with African Americans and other people of color in urban centers (Mampily, 2000). The younger generation also adopts African American musical styles and culture while also being more open to racial mixing and interactions with others, which may be a factor in the high rates of multiracial identification among Indian-Americans at almost 12% in the 2000 Census (Sepia Mutiny, 2006). The Census revealed that nearly 40,000 of the biracial Indians identified themselves with one other Asian category, another 120,000 with whites, and the rest with African American or Hispanics (Melwani, 2006). African-American/Indian-American mixes, marginal compared to the number of Indian-white or Indian-other Asian multiracial people, nevertheless evinces signs of increasing interactions between both groups.

            Although not always evident in some of the media and blogs, increasing consciousness of belonging to a broader people of color group appears to be the trend. South Asians are less likely to identify as white and are becoming more visible in public spheres, from television to national politics. However, several sources indicate problems with CIIM because of the maintenance of “uneasy alliances” in which unequal power relations and class differences perpetuate racial divides between South Asian and African American Muslim communities in metropolitan New York (Elliott, 2007). Likewise, Indo-Caribbean communities live in separate neighborhoods from Afro-Caribbean communities in New York (Berger, 2004) and Black-Indian rates of multiracial individuals remain low (Melwani, 2006). The issue of class and colorism will likely continue to impact relations between the two groups while South Asians become increasingly incorporated into mainstream culture as well as membership in a broad category of people of color that is inclusive of Asian-American and Latinos. Indeed, some have termed this gradually increasing demographic “Latinindian” and focus on Latino and Desis in popular culture as collective brown-skinned Americans facing racism and often mistaken for one another (Yang 2011). Yang’s discussion with Indian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu and his brother Ashok, member of an Indian-American and Latino hip-hop group Das Racist, highlights CIIM as a powerful explanatory tool for pan-brown interaction since Latinos and Indian-Americans in places like Queens, New York and California are often caught between Black and white social groups (Yang, 2011). Although not an example of interracial solidarity along African American and South Asian lines, the potential for similar developments may occur in some regions that feature large Afro-Latino populations, like New York City or other regions with large numbers of Blacks. Given the increasing trends of South Asians in the US identifying as people of color, their interactions with African Americans may also reflect a pan-brown and black collective identity among dark-skinned people of color.

            Ultimately, local factors play an enormous role in the potential for cross-racial solidarity. Local factors such as racial demographics of neighborhoods and cities, class dynamics, and what types of schools attended by African Americans and South Asians, just as the case with Indian-Americans and Latinos in New York and California shows, may lead to increased rates of relationships and CIIM’s relevance for the majority-minority future (Appadurai, 2003). Some blogs and newspaper accounts already predict this relationship through mutual experiences of colorism, racial profiling, religious and cultural parallels, and membership in broad center-left political parties, such as overwhelming support for Obama among people of color (Sharma, 2012). The relevance of local issues remains central to understanding relations between South Asians and African Americans also due to the vast experiences of the South Asian diaspora in time and space.

Social Identity Threat Model

            Another intergroup minority theory, Social Identity Threat Model (SITM), picks up where CIIM left off by showing how intergroups clash with one another for social supremacy (Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994). While SITM does not relate how individual psychology relates to group sociology, such as in the case of Social Identity Theory, it does demonstrate some of the underlying reasons why there may be conflicting values between intergroups (Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994). Similar to Social Identity Theory, the origins of SITM begins with the formation of a group of people who share the same race, ethnicity, gender, language, or religion (Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994). These commonalities constitute the formation of a social intergroup. Secondly, SITM suggests that there is a divide between blacks and non blacks, and any minority will strive to deviate from the lowest social order, most aptly characterized in America by African Americans. For many intergroup minorities, the act of exclusively embracing their own ethnic identity rather than a Caucasian one still constitutes subscribing to this “divide” that is created between Blacks and non-blacks.

Competing intergroup minorities establish social superiority over one another by several means. First, intergroup minorities do this by reinforcing the positive aspects of their identity while marginalizing and demeaning that of competing intergroups (Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994). Stereotypes that label competing intergroups are embraced and reiterated regardless of their legitimacy in order to morally and ethically belittle them. In this way, SITM shows that intergroups intentionally isolate one another in their constant elbowing for social supremacy (Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994).

Almost identically to CIIM, SITM only recognizes race as the driving factor in this process of social segregation. Although there is a wide range of variability, most intergroups identify Blacks as socially outcast (Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994). Because of that, SITM crudely assumes that Blacks are the only “other” that minority intergroups compare themselves with (Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994). Although this model holds true for many instances of interminority race relations, it ignores several crucial factors such as how sex, socioeconomic class, and immigration status contribute to social identity threat (Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994). Furthermore it provides almost nothing by way of explaining how in certain contexts intergroup minorities deviate from the pattern (such as in the case of the post Civil Rights and September 11th eras).

        Social Identity Threat Model Discussion

SITM accurately characterizes the interactions that some Desis have with African Americans. In South Asia alone, there is significant prejudice against people with darker skin tones because of the Hindu caste system (Deshpande, 2010). In this social power pyramid, upper castes are usually lighter in skin tone compared to the lower classes (Deshpande, 2010). There is complicated intra-caste segregation in Hindu society where it is encouraged that the female “marry up” into a higher caste family (Deshpande, 2010). This is unique to Hindu brides because culturally, getting married is akin to starting a new life for a woman – in essence being reborn. It is believed that this process of rebirth to a higher caste elevates the individual’s moral standings (Deshpande, 2010). In this way, Hindu society is particularly prejudiced to discriminate against African Americans solely on the basis of their skin color. These prejudices that are so ingrained and intertwined into Hindu society, are easily superimposed onto African Americans by diasporic South Asians. In response to this discrimination, many African Americans preserve their ingroup loyalty by labeling all South Asians as racist.

            While it’s true that SITM addresses these social clashes that occur because of cultural misconceptions, it ignores how these prejudices can be “learned” in American society. An article by The New York Times shows how many South Asian cabbies in New York City do not have strong prejudice against African Americans, but develop them after commingling with other cab drivers (Sengupta, 1999). Many of these cabbies were Hispanic or Middle Eastern, and their cultural and political prejudices transposed onto Desi cabbies (Sengupta, 1999). More remarkably however, is that these cabbies deliberately avoided picking up African Americans because it posed a significant risk to their health (Sengupta, 1999). Also, many cabbies are disincentivized  to pick up blacks because they may have to drive further away from downtown, increasing their probability of not making a profit. Many cabbies are verbally abused, threatened, and even beaten while on duty, and many of these crimes happen in poor neighborhoods where African Americans are the dominant majority (Sengupta, 1999). While it may seem like this “learned prejudice” serves only to support the premise of SITM, it poses the question: if prejudice like this has been shown to be a learned characteristic in specific localities, can there be a way to “unlearn” it? Leading sociologist, Arjun Appadurai believes that in an increasingly global economy in America with more and more transnationals, the “ethnoscape” (the shifting local landscape of people who constitute the world) is completely different (Appadurai, 2003). In this dynamic ethnoscape, certain commonalities that people have with one another have the potential to trump the separation caused by ethnicity, colorism, and race (Appadurai, 2003). For example, in the late 19th and early 20th century, a large population of South Asians defected from British merchant vessels in American port cities in an effort to escape British high colonialism (Bald, 2006). These diasporic South Asians lived and assimilated in communities like Spanish Harlem, where socioeconomic status was so paramount in society that it overrode race and ethnicity (both of which were more diverse in Spanish Harlem compared to other parts of the nation at the time) as primary markers of identity (Bald, 2006). More recently, in present day United States, the vast majority of Indian Americans supported the reelection of President Barack Obama (Sharma, 2012). Although It’s true that Obama’s election strategy marginalized race in order to win, it’s also true that Indian Americans purposefully did the same with their own conceptions of race (Sharma, 2012). Hence, these events show, however temporarily, that diasporic Indians are able to “unlearn”the cultural prejudice that they brought with them to the United States and embrace an identity that collectively stood apart from the oppressive Caucasian majority. While these crossovers in identity invariably relapse, they do so to a lesser extent, as is more apparent with examples from Muslim South Asians.

            Interactions between Muslim South Asians and Muslim African Americans epitomize some of the loopholes present in SITM. Religion, one of the sources of social identity, trumps skin color with respect to identity in a country with fiercely segregated religious populations such India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In the United States, mosques are segregated by fundamental differences in race, class, culture, and history. Researcher, Dr. Ihsan Bagby found that nearly 75% of mosques were dominated by a single ethnic group, but 81% were African-American regulars (Bagby, 2011). This shows that there is some degree of ethnic segregation in mosques; however, Bagby also discovered that 16% of mosques have 90% of their congregation stemming from a single race, showing that most mosques do host a heterogeneous ethnic population (Bagby, 2011). Moreover, the presence of certain ethnic subgroups such as West African and Somali Muslims further complicate these statistics since they are more receptive to mixing with one another in religious contexts. The dynamics of interaction shift, however, with a catastrophic event that affects the population. After the September 11 attacks, for example, there was a large amount of discrimination against the Islamic Center of Long Island (ICLI), which consists mainly of immigrant Pakistani and Indian Muslims (Elliott, 2007). The largely African American mosque, led by Imam Talib in Harlem, had little to no contact with the ICLI prior to the September 11 attacks (Elliott, 2007). With the extreme discrimination that was overwhelming the New York area following the attacks however, Islam transcended ethnocentric racial boundaries to encompass a broader political movement to combat the discriminatory actions of outgroups (Elliott, 2007). Surprisingly, six years later, the prejudices that divided these Islamic communities in the past did not relapse to the same extent. The two communities had indeed grown closer together (Elliott, 2007). When Imam Talib spoke at ICLI to raise money for his Harlem mosque, he was able to raise $10,000 from his Desi brothers - more than he had ever raised before in that Long Island community (Elliott, 2007). By contrast, surrounding the Islamic community in nearby suburban cities, however, did not take so kindly to Imam Talib (Elliott, 2007). These largely liberal, upper middle class, second and third generation transnational Desis labeled Imam Talib as a radical for pushing for expansion of his mosque although they funded the expansion of local mosques following September 11th (Elliott, 2007). This shows that although Imam Talib and suburban Muslims may be unified in a global sense by religion, they are dramatically segregated by socioeconomic status, political aspirations, and as SITM suggests, a need to assimilate with the majority population in order to gain more power and influence in society. In this way, the differences in race, culture, history and class are still distinct determinants of a power dynamic between different social identities, but they weaken over time as other factors in society promote the homogeneity of global transnational populations.

            African Americans also engage in SITM by alienating South Asians. African Americans, being the most discriminated minority group, have a lot to gain in terms of identity formation by alienating South Asians. For example, the historical background of the 1992 movie Mississippi Masala shows how discrimination done by African Americans on South Asians led to more animosity between the two cultures (Nair, 1992). During British rule, many Indians were forced to move to Uganda in order to build the national railroads there. Indians who moved to Uganda truly thought of it as home and quickly surpassed native Ugandans in socioeconomic status (Nair, 1992). When the new Ugandan government came into power in the 1970’s, all Indians were exiled in order to create a “Black Africa.” This example supports the SITM, but in an incomplete way. While Blacks have so much in common with Desis with regard to suffering under British rule, the mere fact that diasporic Indians were able to gain higher socioeconomic status was enough to generate enough outgroup hate in the Ugandan government elite to eviscerate all Indians living in the nation. It begs the question: would this event have occurred if Desis and Blacks were the same with respect to socioeconomic status?

            While it is true that many aspects of race relations are addressed by SITM, the theory remains incomplete because of the assumptions it makes about interactions within minorities. SITM was constructed in order to examine interminority race relations in a way that augmented the traditional majority - minority context (Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994). SITM assumes that minorities are constantly striving to achieve equilibrium with the racial majority (in the case of America, the Caucasian majority). The analysis shown here with these articles demonstrate that factors that are distinct from the canonical definition of race such as socioeconomic status, ethnic history, philosophical congruence, and more have the capacity to somewhat eclipse race as primary motivators for social identity threat. Studies are increasingly showing that second and third generation South Asians identify more closely with minority populations rather than Caucasians for precisely these same reasons (Dhingra, 2003). In an increasingly global society, the racial and ethnocentric categories presented by SITM need to be amended to include determining factors such as education, personal values, and lifestyle - which in turn lead to similarities in class structure and awareness of parallels in ethnic history and similarities in cultural philosophy (Appadurai, 2003). 

Conclusion

Social Identity Threat Model and Common Identity Intergroup Model both provide some explanation of the interactions between African Americans and South Asians. However, they both ignore greater contexts of intergroup formation that come as accessories to the overall effects of globalization. As these articles show, there have been multiple instances in history where the identities of African Americans and South Asians came together, and subsequently relapsed. Furthermore, these stories demonstrate that common intergroup identity and social identity threat arise because of intergroup identities - but identity formation is not simply limited to race and ethnicity in a “black and white” context. These models ignore the historical context of race relations because they distort the dynamic nature of how race relations changes over time over time, and they distort normative relations in order to highlight the extremes of conflict. However, these forms of symbolic relations in terms of Gandhi’s influence on the African American Civil Rights Movement or mutual experiences with racial profiling such as driving while black or “looking Muslim”  are distinct cross-sections of interminority relations that do not root into African American and South Asian society.   In order to resolve these blind spots within intergroup theories, CIIM and SITM require amendments to include how sex, religion, location, immigration status, socioeconomic status and even issues dealing with intracultural colorism affect race relations between people of color in the United States.

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