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Bangalore-based Rashmi Vasudeva's journalism has appeared in many Indian and international publications over the past decade. A features writer with over nine years of experience heading a health and fitness supplement in a mainstream Indian newspaper, her niche areas include health, wellness, fitness, food, nutrition and Indian classical Arts.
Her articles have appeared in various publications including Mint-Wall Street Journal, The Hindu, Deccan Herald (mainstream South Indian newspaper), Smart Life (Health magazine from the Malayala Manorama Group of publications), YourStory (India's media technology platform for entrepreneurs), Avantika (a noir arts and theatre magazine), ZDF (a German public broadcasting company) and others.
In 2006, she was awarded the British Print-Chevening scholarship to pursue a short-term course in new-age journalism at the University of Westminster, U.K. With a double Masters in Globalisation and Media Studies from Aarhus Universitet (Denmark), University of Amsterdam and Swansea University in Wales, U.K., she has also dabbled in academics, travel writing and socio-cultural studies. Mother to a frisky toddler, she hums 'wheels on the bus' while working and keeps a beady eye on the aforementioned toddler's antics.
Alt-Right Antics: An Ice-Cold Glass Of Milk Supremacy, Anyone?
Who knew ordinary dairy milk could whip up such passions and hatred? Out there, there is a battle going on between dairy and soy milk and what each ostensibly represents.
Dairy milk, it seems, is a symbol of “white superiority” and masculinity, while soy milk apparently stands for anti-fascist, politically correct (read: weak) feminists.
No, this is not occurring in any alternate universe but on YouTube, Twitter and on the streets of America.
This fascinating story that expertly weaves together videos, tweets, history and philosophy is a must-read (and see) for more than one reason.
Members of the so-called alt-right are apparently employing cartons of dairy milk as a symbol for their explicit racism, sexism and anti-Semitism. So much so that the #milktwitter hashtag went viral after a large group of bare-chested ‘milk men’ protested near an anti-Trump art installation a few days after he became president. They took swigs from their cartons while ranting into the camera. Soon, pro-Trump supporters began carrying milk cartons to rallies, and some public figures of the ‘alt-right’ movement like Richard Spencer added milk emojis to their Twitter profiles. Soon enough, the #SoyBoy hashtag came up in a further attempt to ridicule diversity and inclusivity.
But what is really intriguing about this article is how the authors go back in time to explain the long association between dairy milk and white supremacy. They quote official US documents that wax eloquent about milk drinking and the ‘superior intellect’ of white people. Sociologist Melanie DuPuis talks about how milk was “central to the construction of the modern Western nation state” with its symbolic link to white ‘healthy’ skin as opposed to ‘sickly’ dark skin.
The authors warn against dismissing the milk supremacy movement as the ironic antics of the racist. For, as they rightly say, irony allows fascism and extremism to hide in plain sight. Now that’s neither milk-white nor chocolate-dark. Only deathly grey.
