Two white guys destroyed my high school experience. One white guy destroyed my college experience. Some white guys tried to destroy my New York City experience.
I left you an entire country. I left you a state, an entire region. There is nowhere to go after New York. In New York you have my back against the wall. You don't want to corner a cat. That is a bad idea. I feel an enormous itch to create, to fight.
They built a white-Pahadi coalition against me in Kathmandu. They built a white-black coalition against me in Kentucky. They tried to build a white-black coalition against me in New York City.
Charlie Rangel thinks he is going to live for 10 more years. I wish every of those years upon him. I want the motherfucker to watch.
I am stateless. I am stateless like Bin Laden and Assange. I am not evil, but I am stateless. Assange I have mixed feelings about, many of them positive.
After Charlie Rangel did what he did in June 2008, he made a point to attend an event of the Indians of Caribbean origin in Brooklyn. This motherfucker who has the dirtiest black skin of anyone in the western hemisphere, humans and non humans alike, actually felt the need to suggest he was not acting racist towards this Indian guy, or anything like that. Can you fucking believe?
In New York City I am going to build the mother of all coalitions.
They messed with me in New York City in 2008. All sorts of motherfuckers in town were feeling like I dashed their federal ambitions. They gave me so much credit. They gave me more credit than people in my own camp.
They messed with me in Kentucky about a decade before that. They messed with me in Kathmandu a decade before that. If you extrapolate that, I should be dead in 2016. Every time it has gone from bad to worse. 2008 was a near death experience for me. I came back from the dead.
But I am not going to be dead in 2016. I have too much work to do. And the way to not end up dead in 2016 is by hitting back extremely fucking hard this very time. The way to not end up dead in 2016 is by going back a decade and hitting back hard, going back another decade, and hitting hard.
I was a stereotypically good student at high school. This was the top school in Nepal. You had to sit through nationwide entrance exams to get in. I met three princes there. I was the top student in class year in, year out. Students from that school routinely end up at the top schools across America. I excelled at studies. I was no rebel who liked to break school rules. I played by the rules. Teachers liked me until they didn't.
You can do well academically. That does not bother people. What bothers people is when you challenge their power. You don't even have to actively challenge. All you have to do is notice the obvious injustice.
I understand power like Bill Gates understands software.
They made me House Captain in Class 5, and again in Class 10. I did so well as House Captain a few years before finishing high school they started talking of me as a future Prime Minister of Nepal. Bad idea. No Madhesi has ever been Prime Minister of Nepal. The record holds. Madhesis are 35-40% of Nepal's population. There are 50,000 Nepalis in New York City, a little over 50 are Madhesi. Most Nepalis in Delhi are not Madhesi either.
Precisely because I had a super duper year in group dynamics, they came after me. The same thing happened in Kentucky in 1997, you could argue the same thing happened in New York City in 2008. In Kentucky within six months of landing as an international student I got myself elected student body president, broke all college records. This was the number one liberal arts college in the South, Bible Belt territory. I obviously shook many hands, said hello to many people.
I was expecting a red carpet treatment, but instead I got the enemy treatment. The racist bitch people, motherfuckers, their attitude was, how dare you take offense at racism!
I humiliated the college president on stage at the graduation ceremony, 5,000 people watching, threw the college degree into the Mississippi, never donated a dime to the college. I don't go to reunions.
"This racist bitch just cost Berea a billion dollars!" was a thought I had in 1997.
I have had to drop high school like stone into cold water. I have had to drop college into cold water. I am both a high school and college drop out. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard because he felt he had "an idea whose time had come."
Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. I never went to Harvard. I have tried to make lemonade. I have acquired an edge in large scale group dynamics. I am the top talent on the planet in that domain. When you are stateless and digital, you can do some major damage. You can ignite political revolutions. I ignited a few in Nepal a few years ago. I employed the butterfly effect.
Reunions are not for me.
I have my family. I have New York City. I have my company. I don't got no country. India is heritage.
The ethnic prejudice people I met at high school, they are right here in Queens, larger in number, their ethnic prejudice venom even stronger. It is not like you are the only one who moved to New York, the racist people you might have met in the Midwest moved too: one of them runs the DL21C. So what makes New York City special? In New York you can avoid them and still hope to live a full life. Or so you hope. You create, you fight. You struggle. You feel your back against the wall.
Biharis end up in Mumbai like Mexicans end up in America. I draw my Indian heritage from the state of Bihar. I have met a total of five Biharis in America so far. A maternal uncle of mine was Education Minister for Bihar in the 1990s.
I have never been to Mumbai. Some day. I went to Delhi once. Agra. Saw the Taj Mahal. There is North India, and there is South India. My people are in the north. Most Indians in America are from the South.
I grew up in Nepal. They absolutely hate Indians in Nepal. The Tamils in Sri Lanka also have had it tough. The Tamils are considered Indian origin.
The first Americans fled Europe. I am a refugee into New York City. The Internet is where you go in this day and age. When you have to flee, you go online.
They had me in jail for six months. They had Mandela in jail for much longer, for similar reasons. The racist apartheid laws in South Africa are long gone, but the racist immigration laws in America are very much intact. At least they called him a political prisoner. Some day they will call me one too. They will also award me the Nobel Peace Prize. I did the work for it years ago.
Marlon Brando saw common cause with Native Americans and later gays. You could argue he was a good white guy, or you could argue he was the ultimate minority. Marlon Brando was borderline genius. The Godfather is the best movie ever made. But during the making of that movie, the movie house bosses put him through the worst treatment. It was like the dumb ganging up on the one smart guy. Perhaps Marlon Brando was seeking common cause for himself. Borderline geniuses, Native Americans, and gays have a lot in common.
One good outcome of going through ethnic prejudice in Nepal, and racism in Kentucky, and political warfare in New York is you get much better at seeing sexism. Sexism is like gravity, it is everywhere.
In microfinance you are going to end up with more than 70% women customers. And you might want to build a corporate team that is majority women.
You ride the internet and globalization waves to create an identity you never really had, the Blac identity, Black Latino Asian Coalition. You go build a company. In terms of the kind of positive impact you can hope to have, the sky is the limit.
When I first experienced racism in Kentucky, after years I thought maybe the UN is the answer, the UN needs to be reorganized. And I no longer feel the UN is the answer. The UN is not the answer. The US is not the answer. The Internet is the answer. The best, largest, most impactful institutions of globalization will not get built by the UN or the US: they will get built on the Internet by tech entrepreneurs.
When you complain of ethnic prejudice and racism, you are in essence hoping to hobnob with the post-ISMs individuals. When you embrace the Internet as the new country, as the only country you have, you are hoping to meet netizens, citizens of the internet. The New Human is in the process of being created. Someone can be a white guy and can be a post-ISMs individual. It is not about your background, it is about your political consciousness level. It is not about where you are coming from, it is about where you are going.
But it is not a given. I was at General Assembly on Friday, I had a great time, but I did notice, like I am wont to, that most people there were guys and most were white. Technology can magnify what already exists. But through use of technology we can perhaps hope to create the New Human.
There has to be hope. There is plentiful hope. There is boundless hope.
Last night I was at a State Of The Union watch party. I love the guy as much as ever. But I noticed I was not connecting with him like I did when I was on the campaign trail, he was on the campaign trail. And I am not some political illiterate who had outlandish expectations that got dashed.
The reason is I have been obsessed with tech news to the point I have not been reading much political news. And also I am not done hitting back. I have to work my way through. I have to hit back at my political enemies some more. Because I do intend to contribute to his re-election bid. I am going to make the effort to connect.
The worst experience of my life - a near death experience - came to me for being an Obama volunteer. Everyone who was responsible I am going to hold responsible. And I am going to hold 20 random people responsible on top of that.
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