Thangaraj & Puar
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South Asian American men often utilize aspects of Black American aesthetics, like slang, clothing, and stylized body movements, to construct a sense of “coolness" and masculinity, as stated by professor Stanley Thangaraj via Zoom.
An interesting thing I remark is in Thangaraj’s study was when a white woman ob found it inauthentic when white men adopt Black aesthetics and, on the contrary, finds it authentic when South Asian men in the Indo-Pak league do the same. This perception of authenticity is rooted in the idea that South Asian Americans, being racially non-white, can legitimately lay claim to a Black aesthetic, unlike white men.
Thangaraj notes that this embrace of Black cultural style is a way for South Asian American men to explode the binary categories of “American" and “South Asian," allowing them to assert their “American-ness" without resorting to whiteness. However, this appropriation of Black aesthetics also has its limitations, relying on the de-racialized version of Black masculinity, as someone in class stated today. “Black style moves freely and moves border in ways black bodies cannot.”
Puar recounts how the turban, particularly after 9/11, has become a marker of the dangerous, foreign Muslim terrorist. This association forces Sikh men to navigate a complex terrain of racialization and sexualization. They are simultaneously seen as hypermasculine, threatening patriarchs and feminized, submissive “sissies" in comparison to white hegemonic masculinities.
The pressure to assimilate to American norms leads many Sikh men to remove their turbans, a practice Puar refers to as “deturbaning". Deturbaning, while a way to avoid racist attacks, is also a form of emasculation, forcing Sikh men to conform to dominant expectations of American masculinity.