Both Edges of the Margin: Blacks and Asians in Mississippi Masala, Barriers to Coalition Building

Asians often take the middle position between White privilege and Black subordination and therefore participate in what Professor Banks calls "simultaneous racism," where one racially subordinated group subordinates another. She observes that the experience of Asian Indian immigrants in Mira Nair's film parallels a much earlier Chinese immigrant experience in Mississippi, indicating a pattern of how the dominant power uses law to enforce insularity among and thereby control different groups in a pluralistic society. However, Banks argues that the mere existence of such legal constraints does not excuse the behavior of White appeasement or group insularity among both Asians and Blacks. Instead, she makes an appeal for engaging in the difficult task of coalition-building on political, economic, social and personal levels among minority groups.