The Indian subcontinent is home to over 1,000 different mother tongues and hundreds of different cultures and ethnicities, so why does the Western world narrow down South Asians to the stereotypically exotic and shallowly Bollywoodish image to represent us all?

As a diasporic South Asian, I am exhausted and frankly angry with the casual racism and cultural appropriation that my people face on a daily basis. The casual racism has been so normalized that speaking out against it feels like an overreaction.

And by casual, I’m referring to the unending and overexaggerated mockery of South Asian accents in all their stereotypical glory. I refer to the casual uses of slurs such as “Curry Muncher” and “Paki” that have roots in racial violence but get thrown around in an attempted humorous manner. I also refer to the degrading and demeaning references to how “smelly” and “gross” our food is.

Growing up, I never realized how much of this casual racism is instilled in us by Western media. Usually, Hollywood likes to show South Asians as the nerdy awkward friend that is usually a straight-A student with strict parents, or bargaining immigrants with a thick accent who own a corner shop, such as Apu Nahasapeemapetilon from “The Simpsons” or Padma and Parvati Patil from “Harry Potter.”

The women are either hypersexualized as exotic beauties or submissive and overly traditional such as Pinky in “The Namesake” and Jess Bhamra in “Bend It Like Beckham.” Our culture is shown in a way that makes it seem ridiculous and one-dimensional, helping enforce stereotypes against South Asians rather than showing us as human beings with depth and individuality.

This completely limits the views of how the world sees South Asians.

The stories are always the same too — South Asia is portrayed as a backwards, poverty-ridden and dangerous place with the main character wanting to leave. Or it’s shown as overly exotic and outlandish to the point it resembles a circus. The stories always surround the main character struggling with their culture, not allowing South Asians to explore their individuality and complex problems and emotions, reinforcing the fact that South Asians are defined solely by their race and ethnicity.

This racism and misrepresentation tends to be dismissed as harmless, which not only demeans our experience but also proves to actually be extremely harmful. These stereotypes affect how society perceives us; affecting job opportunities, social interactions and even personal identity.

For example, South Asians have a 49% lower rate of being admitted into Ivy League schools than white applicants with the same extracurricular and academic qualifications. And while South Asians have high participation in professional fields, they are rather underrepresented in leadership roles. In 2020, Asian American men account for only 3.8% of leadership positions in the federal sector, while Asian American women account for 3.2%.

Growing up, this casual racism created internalized racism and the feeling of being alienated and even ashamed of being South Asian. As a kid, I hated being brown, especially looking at my peers, and being bullied for my food. Just generally being brown, I would often wish that I was white. I wanted to have white friends, and I started distancing myself from my culture and roots.

It was only when I got more mature and older that I realized how messed up this mindset was, and that it was due to the casual racism I faced and felt so normalized towards.

The same can be said for cultural appropriation of various South Asian cultures and nations other than India and Pakistan.

South Asian cultures like Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi have been commodified by the same society that once ridiculed it. It’s infuriating to see something that I was made fun of for doing as a kid, and many kids of South Asian descent, suddenly become a trend when white people begin doing it, such as oiling my hair which has been a tradition in South Asian culture for centuries. And then the trend gets accredited to white people.

It doesn’t stop there. Yoga has also been capitalized on and marketed as some sort of exotic wellness treatment that strips it of its spiritual, cultural and even religious roots. Golden milk — also known as Haldi Doodh in Urdu/Hindi — is becoming trendy and marketed as healthy and healing without acknowledging that it comes from South Asia and that it has been used in our society for centuries.

Another trend that comes to mind is the Scandinavian scarf trend that took over TikTok this past summer. A white influencer commented on a picture of a white woman wearing a scarf with a dress as very “European” and “Scandinavian.” This “scarf” is a cultural South Asian clothing article that women have worn for centuries called “Shalwar Kameez” and “Dupatta.”

It goes unnoticed when brown women are adorned in this type of attire, but suddenly when a white European woman wears it, it is so chic and cute and becomes trendy. Suddenly they are credited for creating this type of clothing, despite it being in South Asia for centuries.

Simply put, either South Asians aren’t given credit for their culture, or then they are proclaimed as “exotic” and worn in a way that resembles costumes by Western influencers and celebrities.

These appropriations aren’t just minor offenses that irk me; these are examples of how South Asian culture gets stolen, exploited and attributed to white people. These are examples of how there are always double standards in the West: When a brown person does it, they are weird, ridiculed and shamed for it; and when a white person does it, it suddenly becomes trendy and cool.

Let me make one thing clear: Our culture isn’t for you to steal.

Our culture isn’t some exotic commodity for you to take advantage of whenever you feel convenient. Our culture and ethnicity aren’t some jokes to be made fun of and to laugh about. It’s time that Western media began changing their approach to portraying South Asian people. And it’s about time people in the Western world understand that.