Anyone who posts dance content online has to have thick skin.
But for South Asian dancers in North Texas, bots and trolls aren’t just dissing the choreography; they’re repeating racist stereotypes and spouting off accusations about visa fraud.
Sushruth Manchikatla started dancing when he was five. He taught himself Kuthu, a folk dance featured in many South Indian films. He describes his style as “hip-hop with a South Indian flair.”
Manchikatla lives in Dallas and posts his dances on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. His comments section used to be filled with encouraging words and flame, heart and thumbs up emojis.
But early this year, he and other dancers started getting comments that were homophobic, sexist or racist, using descriptors like “curry munchers,” “visa fraud clowns” and “greasy H1B cliques.”
The shift was jarring.
“I honestly have no idea why they're starting to do this out of nowhere,” Manchikatla said. “Are we taking your jobs? No. The funny part is every single time they say, ‘Oh, this H1B curry muncher’ or whatever, they're citizens. I'm a citizen.”
‘It’s a long history we’re seeing again and again’
The comments reflect the language that is becoming increasingly common in local and national politics.
In February, YouTuber Alex Stein spoke in a fake Indian accent and mocked residents at a Plano City Council meeting. Around the same time, Frisco residents described an “Indian Invasion” in their own council chambers. At the state level, former attorney general candidate Aaron Reitz wrote on X, the social media website, that “Collin, Dallas, & Harris Counties may soon be renamed Calcutta, Delhi, & Hyderabad Counties.”
Prominent national Republicans like FBI director Kash Patel, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and former presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy saw racism and xenophobia fill their replies on X after posting about Diwali, or the Hindu festival of lights.
The Center for the Study of Organized Hate reported on the surge of Anti-Indian posts on X last year.
The nonpartisan think tank noted that even though the language was largely directed at Indians, the posters made “no distinction” between Indians and other South Asians; Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs; Indian American citizens or immigrants.
Pawan Dhingra is author of the forthcoming book Success Won’t Save Us: How Asian Americans Can Fight White Supremacy and professor at Amherst College. He studies immigration and grew up in North Texas in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
He said the resentment and Anti-Asian racism we're seeing aren't new. Across the metro, the population is booming. When that happens, immigrants - and people perceived to be immigrants - are often blamed for the growing pains and cultural changes a region experiences.
“It's a long history that we're seeing again and again, and it's coming out in ways that you may not expect,” he said. “So now even in the arts, you're not safe.”
‘It’s how I express myself’
Swathi Jaisankar is another North Texas dancer who didn’t anticipate the wave of hatred that came her way.
Jaisankar specializes in Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian style where the dancer uses precise hand gestures, dramatic facial expressions and bent knees to tell a story.
Three years ago, she made a video in Washington D.C. She danced in front of the reflecting pool and you can see the Washington Monument in the background.
Millions of people saw the video, and the response was mostly positive.
But just recently, someone she didn’t know reposted her video on X. This time, the response was different.
“That repost had led to a lot of racist comments, false claims about my citizenship, attempts to dox me, which was pretty scary,” she said.
She called the police to seek advice on how to stay safe and temporarily made her social media accounts private.
“It's how I express myself, connect with others, so it does hurt to see people in the country that I grew up in speak to me in this way,” Jaisankar said.
Manchikatla has taken precautions too. He briefly paused his social media presence and moved a recent dance shoot indoors. He’s assembled a new dance crew and is excited to share what they’ve been working on. However, that excitement is tinged with anxiety.
“I really want to do a flash mob and show ourselves to the world, but I don't think we can,” he said.
“I'm scared. It might go the right way, but there's a small amount of chance that it might not, and that scares me.”
Stronger together
As trolls and bot accounts targeted more local dancers, Manchikatla turned to his friends Ashwin Suresh and Charlie Hooper. They founded XO Collective, a creative agency in Dallas.
They produce music and dance videos, and many of them feature artists they met through the National Desi Dance League. It’s a college competition circuit for dance teams that specialize in folk, classical and modern fusion styles like Bhangra, hip-hop and Bollywood.
They posted a video on social media calling out the racism and hate they saw spreading online.
Hooper worries that the lines around what is socially and politically acceptable are shifting.
“When you see all the comments online that are so hateful get a bunch of likes that normalizes, ‘OK so we can be racist towards Indians now,’ at least in the minds of someone who would call our friend an H1B,” Hooper said.
Suresh worries that the climate could lead to violence.
“It's just verbal altercations now. Where does this go next? And that's the scary part,” Suresh said.
In the interim, the videographers and dancers say some of their friends have stopped dancing or sharing their choreography online.
“These guys love dancing. This is their form of expression, so to have the idea of dance be also associated with the idea of hatred, I think really tangles it up in people's creative spirit,” Hooper said. “I think it goes really deep, even beyond social media and posting, but how they move through the world.”
Dhingra, the professor, understands why some people might step back from dancing in this climate.
“I'm not judging that. I get that," he said.
"But when people are able to feel confident enough to double down on this kind of work, it does remind us that art is not just there for some kind of aesthetic pleasure. It really is an educational force, and it can really change our understanding of the people in our society."
The dancers know that one video isn’t going to end racism, but they say it has helped create a sense of solidarity among dancers – which is exactly what they hoped to do.
Got a tip? Email Marcheta Fornoff at mfornoff@kera.org.
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