A Brown Man in Corvallis

What I'm about to write will hopefully adhere to the title, and to your satisfaction or dissatisfaction, that brown man I mention isn't me, this isn't the intro to my autobiography just yet. What inspired me to create this blog other than the fact that I lost hope in studying for finals of classes that I 100% sure am not going to pass this term, is because of a "brown" man that used to live as an Oregon State University (OSU) grad student in Corvallis. Let me give you why my blog is titled as it is. Observe this post of his on www.usmessageboard.com:


I am a grad student from India studying at OSU, Corvallis. I have never felt more lonely in my life than the time I spent in Corvallis. People here, at best, smile at me and move on. Even if I go to a bar, people never look at me as another human being and speak spontaneously the way they do with other fellow Americans. I tried to find a girl, to date, using Match.com, Eharmony, Yahoo, OKCupid etc. Let alone dating me, they didn't even respond to my emails. I tried for like 2 years and they'd just not speak to me. I am 6'3" tall and I am not fat/unattractive. The American people in my lab, who are predominantly Caucasian, never talk to non-white immigrants and they have their own group into which, they carefully manage to exclude others. They speak with me ONLY if they NEED something from me. Otherwise, they'd N_ever go personal with me.

I have been to SF, Sand Diego, LA, Bakersfield, San Jose, Austin,.......White people spoke to me as though they were blind to my skin color. They spoke to me the way my Indian peers in India would. The story is different in Oregon and especially in Corvallis. I asked white people in the psychological counseling department and I asked white people who work in shops that I usually go to: They just won't admit that people here are racists. 

I wish to know from people who know about Corvallis, Oregon, as to why this is happening to me. Please do not advise me the way you'd to a Fresh Off the Boat Indian. I do N_ot smell bad. I have an accent but people here can easily understand me without having to ask me to repeat what I said. I dress well. I do not pick my nose. I can go on with this list but the point is that from my side, there is nothing that could possibly repel an American. I know this for a fact because I hired a dating consultant and payed him to tell me if I was repulsive and on the contrary, he said I have quite an attractive personality.

Please help me with your honest opinion. I have absolutely nobody else to ask for help.


Now, I've never had the dishonor to meet this person, but I will assume that he is Indian, and that his skin pigmentation is the generic "brown", similar to that guy in the awesome profile picture with Benny the Beaver. Back to the task at hand--I can relate to his dilemma!! I might not be Indian or have an Indian accent, but I do seem to look like a brown Indian to the white denizens of Corvallis, Oregon! Trust me, if you were brown (and maybe you are) you would know when you look like a brown Indian when a REAL Indian comes up to you and strikes a conversation in one of their many dialects.


Let's begin by having the reader, you, catch up on how I was placed here in Corvallis via the very predictable strings of fate; I say this because my fate truly is very predictable. *Getting contact lenses from the nearby eye care center next to the local 7/11. What nonsense self-dictated dares to perform: flirt with old lady at counter, ask her about the epic soundtrack CD which has instrumental Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Lionel Richie songs.**Back, dare fulfilled =D* When I was in elementary school in Klamath Falls, my family and I would head over to the mosque in Corvallis (look it up, the one that has recently been assaulted by a local arson) and a friend a couple of times a year in sparing frequencies. The town didn't interest me that much, because my family and I would go there ever so often. However, when I was granted a scholarship and had a choice to go to a selected list of universities, I chose OSU. Well, originally I wanted to attend the same university my father went to for most of his undergraduate years, Oregon Institute of Technology, but it wasn't on the list of universities. So, I chose the closest university that has a "good" Computer Engineering program, that university, regrettably (I'll inevitably explain why later, even if I forget to), is OSU. Story of my life.


Now, from what I can decipher off the brown man's first paragraph, is him simply being upset from the fact that he can't feel empathy from white people when they are in his presence, and like he frankly typed away, "they'd never go personal with me". Oh, and also the fact that he's upset because he can't hook up with a white woman. Hmmmm. . . why do I feel as though all this commotion being kindled revolves around a matter that collaborates one with the opposite sex? Because many times, the opposite sex is the reason for paranoia anomalies like brown man's, and mine that I will enlighten you about as we progress.


Despite how much I hate people who are full of themselves and whom brown man exemplifies, I will still give my honest opinion from what I experienced. You see, brown man here takes the threshold of the word "racist" a bit too shallow, my definition of "racist" is much more aggressive and extreme. FACT #1: In my 2 years of stay in Corvallis, I realize that there is a subconscious tension that kicks in the minds of white people when they are in the presence of a brown man. Meaning, their first impression of a brown man will be stigmatic, the white people do not realize that they are being racist in any way. This, in my hypothesis, is due to the unfamiliarity of the white people towards the brown man. Apparently, information conveyed through today's mainstream media also has a drastic effect on amplifying this stigma, even to people mildly exposed to the media.