• A statue of Mahatma Gandhi was toppled in New York City’s Richmond Hill this past August by someone who is himself South Asian. For Gothamist, Arun Venugopal investigates whether the case qualifies as a hate crime:

For some observers, the Richmond Hill case is made more challenging by the alleged assailant identifying himself to police as South Asian American, according to court papers. Jagpreet Singh, the political director of DRUM, or Desis Rising Up and Moving, a group that serves poor and working-class South Asians in Queens, said what happens on the subcontinent increasingly filters into what happens in the diaspora. There have been other recent incidents of note, some connected to mass protests against contentious agrarian laws passed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and others tied directly to the statements and stances of Gandhi himself.’

“As folks are immigrating and growing their communities in places like New York, in places like Toronto and places like London, we’re definitely going to see incidents that are connected to homeland politics in these places,” Jagpreet Singh said.

• M. Neelika Jayawardane writes about the limits of “awareness” politics for ArtReview:

Whenever there is legitimate critique, artworld pearl-clutchers fall back on alarmist claims about freedom of expression being lost and artists being cancelled. But institutions’ repetitive dependance on co-option and violation in order to ‘decolonise’ or educate the public about injustices – then writhing about like affronted saints when the obvious is pointed out – is a farcical cycle.

Η συνέχεια εδώ.