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Aa Safianna mentioned, it was a really insightful paper and I personally did enjoy reading it. I'd like to talk a bit about the instances the Desi ballers take in relation to blackness, I believe that they actually navigate complex relationships with Blackness, queerness, and the model minority stereotype through basketball. They appropriate elements of cultural Blackness, such as urban aesthetics and stylized expressions, to assert their masculinity and "American-ness" but distance themselves from stereotypes of hypermasculinity, often excluding African Americans from their leagues. These spaces reinforce heteronormative, patriarchal masculinity through homosocial bonding while marginalizing queer identities and relegating women to spectator roles. Although they resist the asexual "model minority" trope by constructing an assertive masculinity, their practices often depend on class privilege and selectively commodify Black aesthetics, reproducing other racial and gender hierarchies.

To add on to your discussion post, I found Asal’s explanation of the immigrant criteria very similar to France and their views of assimilation rather than acceptance largely due to their concept of “laicite”

Additionally, the three barriers to Syrian migration identified by Asal were the “continuous journey” policy of 1908 which required that immigrants arrive in Canada directly without stopovers from their country of origin. Second the PC 926 of 1910 which required immigrants to possess $200 on arrival to Canada. And third, PC 2115 of 1930 which prohibited entry to all migrants of “asiatic race” except the wives and minor children of Canadian citizens who could support them financially. My previous education about immigration barriers to minority groups had only been centered around Chinese immigrants so I found this read on Canadian border to nationalism enlightening.

To your point about “asiatic”, Asal directly poses the question “what is an asiatic race if such race exists” I thought this was very interesting because much like America and the Guialderi reading, without a clear definition, every judge is free to interpret the law as they wish. Also because “Asiatic” is so broad it directly necessitates comparison to what it means to be white. The white race being the standard and the other, which is broad, and defined as “asiatic” in this case.

This is a really interesting question, and in general the post shows critical thinking at its best in not simply celebrating the presence of these men. Indeed, Bald is vague. In most cases he does mean non-marital families, but non-consensual polygamy happened, and caused trouble, as we’ll see in our class on the West Coast Punjabis.