107 thoughts on “Here we go again”

1. Being a citizen means enjoying all the privilages and rights the existing community enjoys…

   Sounds like we’re in agreement. Desi Americans want the right to peaceably assemble and celebrate their holidays, not sharia.

2. Sunset, You wrote

   “Yet, at the end of the day my family is still “Indian”, not Indian-American, not American. I am always described as the “little Indian girl.”

   I know my children, who will be three generations removed from India, will still be considered Indian first, American second” This comment of yours raises some very interesting issues. Is it unreasonable to refer to Indians or Chinese as anything other than as Americans ? Should the standard be that all people who are citizens should be referred to as Americans and immigrants as something else. If immigrants are called something else, then how will a person know who is a citizen and who is not ? How will the speaker know whether that particular community is made up of all immigrants, some immigrants, all citizens ? Also going forward with this logic, can any person from any part of the world be referred to as anything but an American if that person happens to be inside the US ? That person very well might be a citizen. So can any person ever be called a foreigner in the US ? Is considering any person to be an immigrant wrong ? I think once we start hyphenating people, they become the ‘other’. They become something less than ‘American’. It gets easier to discriminate against them. It gets easier to treat them different. I think multi-cultural socities have still not developed standards to deal with these issues. If multi-cultural socities are to survive, people need to come up with standards on these issues. I wonder whether it is reasonable to expect the native people to treat everybody as an American. If a person comes from India, would it be wrong to consider him an immigrant or a foreigner ? What happens when he becomes a citizen ? Would calling him Indian now be wrong ? What should be the test ? Accent ?

3. Being a citizen means enjoying all the privilages and rights the existing community enjoys;not enjoying what you think is your own right.

   As I said in my last post, you should educate yourself on exactly what these rights and privileges are….for your comments are incongruous with such an understanding.

   Have you ever been denied a job/house because of racism? Been treated as an ignorant foreigner in school or college?

   Vish it is quite clear that you have NOT spent any of your formtive years in the US. Let me guess…you’re from Bangalore, IIT-somewhere-or-another, here on a H1-B only, as “Systems Analyst”, whatu?

4. I think once we start hyphenating people, they become the ‘other’.

   Interesting questions all, but one thing is for sure, many South Asian Americans (Indian Americans, Pakistani Americans, desi Americans, etc) have the full desire (and right) to maintain and uphold their complicated cultural backgrounds. Nobody should have to whitewash such background to appease the majority. We demand the right to maintain our individuality, without being maligned and treated as the other. Yes it is possible, as easy as walking and chewing gum. All it takes is respect, humility and awareness.

   Furthermore, just as you can deconstruct “Asian American” or any other category, you can easily deconstruct just plain “American.” Are Native Americans American, or are the people who invaded? What about premanent residents? What about people here on temporary visas for years and years? What about people born here accidentally, but living abroad with no allegiance? I could go on. At the end of the day, cultural identity is something that one must be able to define, and the outside world must respect. That is the essence of a truly free society. A society that demands conformity is not free.

   Ok I am getting off the soapbox now…

5. I guess what I am meekly suggesting is that whether the people who immigrate to foreign lands are implicitly ok with being called the ‘other’, because they are THE ‘other’ in the foreign land. This does put their kids in a predicament. They dont want to be the other. I wonder whether the parents were already aware of the fact that they and their progenies would always be the ‘other’ but still decided to immigrate anyway, because it was better to be the ‘other’ in the foreign land, than be the ‘norm’ in the native land.

6. Al, You raise some very interesting questions.

   I wonder whether it is reasonable to expect the native people to treat everybody as an American.

   I think it is reasonable to expect everyone to be treated with respect- American, immigrant, or tourist.

   I have friends who were born in Russia and Finland. They immigrated when they were in grade school. Both have American accents. Although the Finnish friend only recently became a citizen, no one ever wonders if they are anything other than American. People never ask them where they are from. Why? Because they are white. Yet Americans of Chinese descent, whose families have been in the United States for nearly 150 years are still labeled Chinese. The new European immigrant is automatically an American. Obviously, I think my Russian and Finnish friend should be treated like Americans. What makes me mad is that my parents (all of us) deserve the same treatment but they don’t get it. When Europeans open restaurants and stores or buy up property no one complains about immigrants taking over. But when Indians run motels, gas stations, small businesses, or medical practices- somehow “foreigners” are taking over. This makes me mad. And I don’t want my children to be treated like “foreigners” in their own country. This is why I think we, as a community, need to be vocal whenever there is an act of discrimination or racism. This isn’t just about us, it is for future generations as well.

7. a few comments

   a) racism exists

   b) the extent varies by individual, location and race (ie; try being a black guy)

   c) if you set yourself as a “people apart” you will be treated like the “other,” you can’t have it both ways, life is about choices and consequences and sometimes you have to pick between two goods.

   consider jews. there are some jews who live in the traditional hasidic orthodox lifestyle. they are treated like “other” and are happy about that, they want to be set apart. they live apart, eat apart, and many of them don’t speak english fluently. consider the “assimilated jews,” the reform, conservative and “modern orthodox.” except for the modern orthodox all these groups are suffering incredible erosion. many jews tell me that a reform congregation is basically like a protestant service without the jesus so many things have been changed to “assimilate.” reform jews made their choice about their priorities, but they lost something, their “jewishness” tends to be secondary in their day to day life and there are jokes that “there isn’t such a thing as third generation reform.” the modern orthodox aren’t as bad off, but there is a lot of evidence that the group is being absorbed into the hasidic community now. there are inherent difficulties with being modern and being orthodox.

   on the issue of maintaining particularities, i think there are several issues

   1) there are practices which will never be acceptable in the united states. nor should they be. for example, female circumcision. the reasons are pretty obvious in light of common values agreed upon in the united states.

   2) there are practices which are not necessarily obviously in contravention of “standard procedure” in the western englightenment tradition, but if you are out of step you are marking yourself off as deviant. just like the “odd balls” in high school you might be self-confident and happy with yourselves, you can’t expect the “cool kids” to accept you because you aren’t doing what the cool kids are doing.

   myself, i abhor the assertions made by the DJs in question. i support any act to shame/ostracise them. but, when it comes to issues of perspective i also think that the “racism” issue is not a black and white one. i think the reaction of some in the fill-in-the-blank-community is to make equivalent all slights to the experiences that black americans went through in the pre-1964 period, and i think that is ahistorical trivialization. some racism is hateful. some racism is ignorance. some racism is just not enough ignorance. let me offer why….

   like most browns (or asians) i dislike it when people ask me where i’m from. in the above comments i made clear how i responded. nevertheless, i don’t think that it can be interpreted as straight out racism. very few latinos are asked where they’re from. people assume they know where they’re from. very few black people are asked where they’re from. people assume they know. the point is that it isn’t that the people aren’t white, there are non-whites who never get asked that question. the problem with asians is that

   • there are many asian countries

   • 99% of people of asian ancestry live in asia

   with europeans, a large proportion live outside of europe. i had a friend of georgian ancestry once, caucasian georgia, not redneck georgia. born & raised in america, when people found out his last name, their first question was “where’s that from?” that’s not equivalent to “where are you from,” but i think the impulse behind the question isn’t all that far off.

   i guess what i’m trying to say is

   • racism bad! really bad!

   • but how you define racism is a bit complicated i think.

   me, i love amerika. it ain’t perfect, but i really think things have changed even in my short time in the states. there are brown people on TV, america’s best golfer is a cablinasian and people now say, “oh, your family is muslim, are you punjabi by chance?” when they find out my last name. (and no, i’m not punjabi, i wouldn’t want the ladies to think i have back hair thank you very much, but i can understand the name-mistake)

8. i’m not punjabi, i wouldn’t want the ladies to think i have back hair

   means

   i’m not punjabi, i wouldn’t want the ladies to think i have testosterone

   and

   i’m not punjabi, i wouldn’t want the ladies to think i have rhythm

   @:-<)#

   Also, America’s best golfer may be boinking a Swede, but the world’s best golfer is desi.

9. I don’t know what’s worse: the comments or the follow-up “analysis”- little more than a recycled, thinly veiled swipe at Republicans as racist. The simple-minded caricature of Limbaugh as a racist implies that Republicans who listen to him are racist or at very least aid & abet racism. We can beat back racism when we’re united but when we foolishly assume that it’s the province of one political party or the other, we diminish our cause.

   -Bob

10. I find the discussions you are all having really interesting, because they echo so much of the discourse in England too about our place in British society.

    What I find most ironic is that England has only been a large scale immigrant nation for forty or fifty years, but America has been having these debates for much longer because it is the classic immigrants land, Ellis Island and all that. Just reading through books and watching films I know that Italians, Chinese, Jews, Irish, Polish have all gone through the same racist shit. You should assimilate those community’s achievments in making your case and claim their achievments as part of your own case…..show how the discourse echoes that of bigots in the 19th and 20th Century and show that you are part of a noble lineage of the American immigrant and the struggles of the descendants of those immigrants.

    I was reading an essay by Saul Bellow recently and he quoted from a letter or article written by Henry James in which he wrote about how the Jewish immigrants to New York were making it dirty and were corrupting the English language with their Yiddishisms and bringing their ‘dirty’ ‘ghetto’ Jewish culture to America, corrupting the WASP paradise. History and fears repeat themselves, look at the similarity in racial discourse between what Henry James, one of the greatest and most sophisticated American novelists said back then, and what this pair of rednecks are blathering about.

    You also need to link up with other groups, especially East Asian Americans, to at least co-ordinate responses, there is strength in common ground. As I said, you can claim a specifically American history of the immigrant struggle that goes way back in time.

    Just my two cents worth.

11. razib

    I agree with the bulk of what you are saying, but to a certian extent they are truths not applicable to this particular case.

    As sunset and Manish both argue so well, nobody is asking for sharia law to be applied, just the same basic decencies that other people enjoy. That is all.

12. “Vish it is quite clear that you have NOT spent any of your formtive years in the US. Let me guess…you’re from Bangalore, IIT-somewhere-or-another, here on a H1-B only, as “Systems Analyst”, whatu?” I guess this viurdlife(pun intended) dude had ab.lincoln for his dad!!

13. Punjabi Boy, thanks for the thoughtful analysis. I agree with critiques of xenophobia and racism against desis and e. asians (and the links to other “new groups”) in the U.S., but I think that it’s more complicated than solely pointing out the abundant history of how racism has traditionally been deeply ingrained in the American way of life (from discrimination against the Irish to Dotbusters).

    “The left” in American politics (to the extent that i can discern from living in the northeast and reading the news) has been dominated by a divide between identity politics and class politics. That’s being renegotiated right now, because, to be honest, race and particularly symbolic victories on race have been overemphasized while working class people (White, Black, Desi, Korean, etc.) have been uniformly f@#ked by the Democratic Party in the hopes of winning elections, did very little to protect them (i.e. letting the government abandon the social safety net, promoting free trade that led to job loss, etc.)

    The result is that, along with the admitted racism (and homophobia and sexism and…) in the U.S. and the continuing decline of American power worldwide, this has created a space for opportunists like Bush and the rest of his cohorts among the pro-business, pro Christian fundamentalism side to move in and promote divisions among different groups disempowered by different mechanism (i.e. Koreans, immigrants, desis, White working class blue collar New Jerseyites, etc.) while they promote their own agenda, which further f@#ks over these groups.

    To put it most simply, as a middle class professional desi, I think, although I’m not sure about this, that I may have more power in this society in many respects than most working class White people probably do. It’s kind of a vicious cycle that, imo, is going to take more than the kind of righteous and race-focused anger I usually see from desis and others to end it all and restore some sanity to this place.

14. Oh the old race vs. class debate. Hey I’m a marxist too, but there is more at work in society than mere economics. Anyway, Race-based politics and class-based politics are not mutually exclusive. Fairness and harmony is society can be achieved via either approach.

    You say potayto, I say potaato, lets protest 101.5.

15. Race-based politics and class-based politics…fairness and harmony [in] society can be achieved via either approach.

    wow… I guess one man’s garbage really is another man’s treasure.

16. Raj wrote: “You have to arise from this shallow circumcised view point…”

    I think he meant circumscribed, but I’m having a great time imagining thoughts arising from chopped-off genital bits…

17. in 1770, India accounted for 27% of the world GDP…

    Boo…yah – got a source for this? It sounds rather improbable, IMHO. Looks like you’re claiming, for ex., that the Mughals were far better overlords for India than the Brits.

18. While not getting into the fray about whether the 27% statement is true, supposedly Prince Charles made a famous statement a few years ago about how when the Brits landed in India, the wealth ratio was about 2:1. When they left, it was 10:1. Apparently he was saying this as a kind of admittance that perhaps the Brits had really f*&#ed up the country and absconded with most of the valuable resources. So maybe in terms of sheer wealth (gold, jewels, what-have-you) Mughal India represented a big portion of the world at the time? I dunno.

19. wow… I guess one man’s garbage really is another man’s treasure.

    Neither of us claimed either approach is garbage. Poor powers of deduction…

20. verbiphage wrote”I think he meant circumscribed” Circumcised view point:that which occurs when the grey matter ceases to participate. Self-inflicted by a majority of homosapiens longing for delusional introsepction

21. It sounds rather improbable, IMHO. Looks like you’re claiming, for ex., that the Mughals were far better overlords for India than the Brits.

    Vinod, As I mentioned, I was quoting from memory from what I read in David Landes’ book. You might want to check the link below that refers to the world GDP normalized in 1990 dollars. See page 19 of 24. I have summarized for the years 1700 and 1950. Between 1700 and 1820 the former is more representative of the 1770 number since by 1820 the Industrial revolution and colonialism was in full swing. Average per capita in the entire world was about the same in 1750 and it widened significantly afterwards. This is not to say life in Mughal period was good. Also, this does not really tell you the % of world manufacturing output which was further skewed in favor of the Chinese and the Indians. The big industry was textiles and India and China had pretty substantial portion of the world manufacturing. I am just saying, Brits start rule in 1757 – the GDP of India is around 25%, Brits leave in 1947 it falls to less than 4%.

    Tables for GDP

    SM doesn’t allow for posting html, I am summarizing in a table: The first % is for 1700 the second is for 1950

    Western Europe 22% 26% East Europe 3% 3% USSR 4% 10% North America 0% 31% Latin America 2% 8% Japan 4% 3% China 22% 4% India 24% 4% Other 11% 7% Africa 7% 4%

22. c) if you set yourself as a “people apart” you will be treated like the “other,” you can’t have it both ways, life is about choices and consequences and sometimes you have to pick between two goods.

    If you don’t want it both ways, fine. But I can and will have it both ways.

    Fact is, people see desis as the “other” regardless of how we posit ourselves…South Asian, true blue American, South Asian American, Black, Icelandic, whatever. The following quote from the Supreme Court’s Thind decision (1923), which denied citizenship to Indians, illustrates this point…(and as Abhi pointed out, such ideas have a remarkable viability in the US):

    “It is a matter of familiar observation and knowledge that the physical group characteristics of the Hindus render them readily distinguishable from the various groups of persons in this country commonly recognized as white. The children of English, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, and other European parentage, quickly merge into the mass of our population and lose the distinctive hallmarks of their European origin. On the other hand, it cannot be doubted that the children born in this country of Hindu parents would retain indefinitely the clear evidence of their ancestry. It is very far from our thought to suggest the slightest question of racial superiority or inferiority. What we suggest is merely racial difference, and it is of such character and extent that the great body of our people instinctively recognize it and reject the thought of assimilation.”

    Wake up and smell the coffee, you already are the unassimilable “other” in a lot of people’s minds. Not just KKK-style “racist” people…average everyday Joes like the “Jersey Guys”. They see Asians and they think ching-chong-ching-ah-so (quoting Shaq on Yao). Denying the desi aspect of ourselves and our culture just to avoid being the “other” is the worst form of slavering appeasement.

    A much better strategy is to educate the ignorant and fight for our rights to exist as complicated, non-essentialized Americans.

23. Tables for GDP

    way to lay the smackdown…boo yah….

24. Booyah – FASCINATING table – very very good find. Table 8B is particularly wild.

    for ex., (no idea if the table will come through…)

              1700      1820
    

    w. Eur 81(M?) 160(M?) India 90(M?) 111(M?)

    so in 1700, India had slightly higher gross GNP than W. Europe combined (Amazing!). 100 yrs later, W. Eur had doubled while India had only grown by ~15%.

    The power of long run growth rates…

25. The following quote from the Supreme Court’s Thind decision (1923), which denied citizenship to Indians, illustrates this point

    uh, yeah, a quote from 1923. i does illustrate your point, but i don’t think it really supports it. give me something from 2003….

    i’ve lived in 99.5% white small towns that are 75% republican. i know the experience of “other,” and it isn’t all that bad, and it isn’t all that extreme. there are some white people who will never accept that you are really “american” (of various political persuasions!). my attitude is fuck them. and fuck the ones who do accept me as american (the female ones at least 😉 and not to be snide, but racism isn’t the only reason that some people are disliked, they might just be prigs.

26. so in 1700, India had slightly higher gross GNP than W. Europe combined (Amazing!). 100 yrs later, W. Eur had doubled while India had only grown by ~15%.

    The power of long run growth rates…

    I can’t believe your first reaction to this statistic was reverence for macroeconomics 101. Not that you’re wrong about the effect of compounding growth, if the stats are more or less correct (which is a big if…), but you’re basically reducing the colonization of South Asia to an anachronistic lesson about contemporary economies.

    I like counterfactual history though. The “protocapitalism in South Asia” theory really captures my imagination…if anyone knows a good essay, I’d love a source that’s not longer than 20 pages 🙂

27. I can’t believe your first reaction to this statistic was reverence for macroeconomics 101.

    why not? we’re talking about, uh, macroeconomic stats. The point isn’t whether or not India was / has been wronged by the Brits (they were), the point is what are you going to do about it now?

    It’s conceivable, for ex., that these stats harken back to a point when the “economy” was 99.9% agricultural — a relatively linear equation of f(people, land) – India had a LOT of both. by contrast, with the industrial revolution (1800s), the function became (tech, capital, people, land) – and India started doing far worse….

    BUT NOW? Well, a comparative, historical GNP that’s FAR more relevant to 99% of Indian’s today than what whitey did to them back in the day is this graph.

28. You say potayto, I say potaato, lets protest 101.5.

    vurdlife, i’ve realized that my substantive issue with “protesting” 101.5 (as opposed to forcing them to help engage a dialogue among working class white people, indians, koreans, and other disempowered groups in edison) isn’t whether it’s done or not, but how it’s done. I often see approaches that do little to force this wake up call to White working class folks that was posted on my blog: “Isn’t it insulting for the powers that be to just ASSUME that you are stupid and racist, and you’ll blame whoever they want you to for your problems, when in reality they are the ones who are marginalizing you?”

    Instead of calling for the heads of the DJs (which instinctively feels better as a first reaction), it would probably be better to force the DJs and the radio station to help create a real, substantive dialogue about the issues they raised and the issues that Indian and Korean people in Edison care about. i was being lazy before and probably slipped into race vs. class, but what’s really at stake is engagement by parts of the left with all the different kinds of people who are being frech connection uked, don’t always agree, and periodically actively hate on each other vs. symbolic victories and solutions that don’t build towards something long term. it’s kind of like the difference between becoming a good social worker with an organizing mentality or going to law school for no reason because you “want to help people.”

    sadly, i haven’t mustered the gumption to really explore marxism, let alone call myself a marxist. ah…to be a coward in america 🙂

    anyway, and there all kinds of nice labels like social democrat or anarchist or liberatiran socialist or “left” that feel not-as-scary, are not as reductive, and let me not deal with my class privilege. i like marcuse more than marx anyway…he encourages laziness, arts, and creativity, and, well, i am bangali 🙂

29. why not? we’re talking about, uh, macroeconomic stats. The point isn’t whether or not India was / has been wronged by the Brits (they were), the point is what are you going to do about it now?

    well, for one thing, i think it’s impossible to function and think effectively about the world without understanding how we got here. to talk about colonialism is not just a moral indictment, but also a way of understanding a significant component in social and economic change. different analyses, methodologies, scopes, data lead to different conclusions.

    It’s conceivable, for ex., that these stats harken back to a point when the “economy” was 99.9% agricultural — a relatively linear equation of f(people, land) – India had a LOT of both. by contrast, with the industrial revolution (1800s), the function became (tech, capital, people, land) – and India started doing far worse….

    case in point. They had this argument in the late 19th century when desi nationalists talked about the “Drain of wealth” and even then, from what i gather, it was impossible to verify (although i’m open to being corrected by someone with more thorough readings of the lit from the period).

    without even having numbers, though, i would guess that your premises are pretty oversimplified and maybe inaccurate–but again, like i said, i need a good primer on the idea of “protocapitalism in india”. you leave out entirely: culture; political organization; where the startup capital came from for the industrial revolution in europe; etc. Those factors help us understand how industrialization has worked in the past and whether it’s separable from things like overcentralization, democracy, etc.

    BUT NOW? Well, a comparative, historical GNP that’s FAR more relevant to 99% of Indian’s today than what whitey did to them back in the day is this graph.

    but it doesn’t give you enough background to understand or contest arguments like “well, if China opens up its market, it will become more humane to its people and develop democratic political structures.” Which is an open question–but one that you can’t answer without looking at more than macroecon stats. and it’s one that has consequences for not just people in china, but people in taiwan, tibet, nepal, bangladesh, burma, japan, india, russia, korea, the u.s., etc.

    That’s my objection to reducing, to the degree that you do, a hundred years of social, economic, and political history to a few of (most likely) unverifiable estimates for macroeconomic growth rates. how can you really understand economic growth, its cost, and its benefits without considering all those things?

30. They apologized, OFF AIR. But we all know that this is not good enough. Therefore…

    http://www.citizenspeak.org/campaign/5366.php (Kick The Jersey Guys Off The Air!)

    As always, please click the link above, sign and attach your comment to the CitizenSpeak campaign form letter that AMWD has drafted. With one click, send NJ 101.5 our form letter and/or write your own comments.
    They will each receive your letter as if they were sent from your own e- mail address.

    For those who have more time, here’s the direct contact info for the station and the hosts. Even if you do use citizenspeak, it’s always a good idea to write/call them directly as well.

    Craig Carton & Ray Rossi ON-AIR: 1-800-283-1015 cartonandrossi@nj1015.com

    Program Director: Eric Johnson ej1015@nj1015.com Sales: (609) 771-8181 ext. 208

    Marketing/Promotions Director: Ray Handel rayh@nj1015.com

    General Station Email:

    nj1015@nj1015.com

    Asian Media Watchdog 676 A Ninth Avenue New York, NY 10036 Phone: 212-560-5683 Fax: 212-957-9191 Visit our website at http://www.asianmediawatchdog.com

31. It’s conceivable, for ex., that these stats harken back to a point when the “economy” was 99.9% agricultural — a relatively linear equation of f(people, land) – India had a LOT of both. by contrast, with the industrial revolution (1800s), the function became (tech, capital, people, land) – and India started doing far worse….

    The prime enabler of Britain’s textile manufacturing-based Industrial Revolution was cotton and other raw materials from India. Moreover, the East India Company and subsequently the Raj employed a complex and onerous taxation system whereby Indian agricultural profit was siphoned directly to Britain. The GDP numbers don’t lie.

    You are close, the Indian “equation” was India = f(people, land, plentiful natural resources)

    But the British function that equalled success was actually: F(war, mercantalism, colonial subjugation, India, other colonies)

32. i’ve lived in 99.5% white small towns that are 75% republican. i know the experience of “other,” and it isn’t all that bad, and it isn’t all that extreme.

    All the same, most of the rest of us would rather not be relegated to “other”, but if you’re cool with it, do you.

    there are some white people who will never accept that you are really “american” (of various political persuasions!). my attitude is fuck them.

    Yes and if they are irresponsible enough to spew such venom on the public airwaves, kick them off the air.

    and not to be snide, but racism isn’t the only reason that some people are disliked, they might just be prigs.

    Irrelevant. Sure some Asians are jerks, and so are some whites. Thanks for the news update. In other news, this topic is about entire races of people being hated on via derogatory epithets and rhetoric, solely on the basis of their race and nothing else.

33. Racism is inhuman and leaves emotional scars on the victim for a long time. I have lived in the US for over 10 years now, mostly in the west coast and faced racism only once in Edison NJ were I had been to meet a client. Actually it was at about 9 PM and this cab i took was driven by a redneck who made the most obscene and racist remarks. I had to keep quiet because of his size and aggressive posture, but I felt frustrated and that bitter feeling still hasent gone out completely

34. The interesting thing about this is that Craig Carton is Jewish and Rich Rossi is Italian.

    80 years ago they would have been the unwanted ‘unamerican’ immigrants.

    They don’t realize that one of the main reasons that they (italians and jews) are considered ‘real’ Americans today is due to an odd sort of triangulation effect resulting from the more recent asian and hispanic immigrants.

35. All the same, most of the rest of us would rather not be relegated to “other”, but if you’re cool with it, do you.

    well, then don’t act like you are “other.” but no, you say you want it “both ways,” but life is about choices and constraints.

    but go ahead, keep living in fantasy land. the universe was created for your comfort of course.

36. Make sure you complain to the advertisers of the station. If the station loses money, that upsets them more. They don’t really care how much you complain to them about the behavior of their jocks because they WANT the air people to be outrageous (good for ratings).

    p.s. also write to the Republicans and make sure they don’t participate in that debate.

37. I actually have no problem when their opinions, it is true that it tends to chafe a little-I myself grew in the deeeeep south and have faced quite a bit of racist issues. But I understand where they are coming from their home town being run over by ‘foreigners’ etc.. And it is a free country therefore the ‘Whte trash’ can think whatever they want right;)But my issue is that the radio is a public domain and once the it hits the air it becomes everybody’s issue and we cannot allow that to happen.

38. Saurav, you made some good points. But I think in a country as a large as America, there are going to be a handful of bigots out there. I mean, these are just isolated incidents. I’m sure most minorities experience some discrmination; that doesn’t make it right, but as people said, we don’t live in an utopian. I think as far as racism is concerned, America is one the best places to live. I’ve never really had a problem with racism, and most of the stereotypical bigots, i.e. unemployed working class white male are actually pretty cool if you talk to them. Racism in America is far less than in places like Germany, where all people of color are stared at. Come to think of it, how about India? I don’t think blacks could walk through a street in India without remarks about his/her skin. I’m not excusing racism, but it’s not something that’s found only in America, and even here it’s not anything (at least in New Jersey)

39. *utopian society instead of utopia

40. Subj: standing up, not stooping down…
    Date: 4/28/2005 8:17:31 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time From: LENMAX143 To: CartonAndRossi@nj1015.com CC: nj1015@nj1015.com

    I should not stoop down your level of thinking, and let it go, they said…but I have to say something… to stand up for being an Asian… I read your ASIAN-bashing team-worked blubbering, and I find you both nothing but white guys with white skin, gets dark in summer or if you can afford to go to Hawaii or to Asia – nothing more, but a lot less than human beings born of white parents who do not see beyond your white supremacy ideas.
    Be real men with just a little intelligence to give up your ideas of being the real people on earth or USA, that we Asians or Orientals, as you said – have no right whatsoever in the land, you call as your only land. You know what, you are envious of the Asian people because, we are the more prosperous people, hard-working people in America, that’s why we can spend that much money whether in Casino or in shopping. We don’t file bankruptcy, we can send our children to the best US universities with our own money and we can raise our children as good citizens of the USA.
    Look at how many you white people depend on our government, how you use every bit of the money we Asians pay on our taxes. How many white people are on welfare? How many are on drugs? Get your statistics… How many politicians depend on us, minorities, for them to get elected?.. So, when one Asian gets elected, you’re mad? That caller moved out of Edison, because she can’t stand Asians? Why, because she sees Asians as well-to-do and successful people and she and you are not?.. Good white Americans don’t agree with you, only white trash-people agree with you. Maybe, that’s the only way you survive, blubbering on radio, maybe you need some good counseling, or some more education or a freak accident, and suddenly your life will be in the hand of a good Asian or Indian physician who will be able to save your life, or maybe, you would rather go to a veterinarian than be under the good hands of a successful Asian physician…maybe because you don’t belong to the human race, both your brains belong to a much lower race… You dare the remaining goodness in you, if there is… to be able to raise your children with a different view about race and prejudice. Why do your station allow you to do that?…Because of the freedom of speech, and you take advantage of your job. We Asians like Americans not because of your color, not because we live here in the US, you call your own…but because we think that most white Americans are good, honest and warm people…but of course, there are classic brute beasts…exceptions. God bless your souls…

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41. I’m not excusing racism, but it’s not something that’s found only in America, and even here it’s not anything (at least in New Jersey)

    Vidar, I don’t disagree with you that the United States might be better than many other places in terms of race-based discrimination–but I’m American and was born and raised here, and I want this country to be better than it is. Thinking people are going to look back on this period in American history and try to figure out how we let the government and the wealthy do all these things to the least empowered people in American society and why we tolerated so many abuses. They’ll probably be talking mostly about the poor, but other groups (Black people, women, queers, immigrants, people who need health care, etc.) are part of it too.

42. “Generally, wherever i go and if i feel discriminated, i make a stand and fight back and every desi’s should. Recently in Dec, of 2004 i went to Taco Bell drive thru and ordered few things with beans, at first there was female on the other side of the intercom, as soon as i mentioned beans, some do0d came on the intercom took my order in a fobby desi accent. It didn’t occur to me at first that they were mocking the indian accent, when i pulled up to the window to pay the girl there said “Rashad you were right” meaning ya they’re indians. So i told the girl where the guy who took my order, i wanna see him, she’s like why? he’s making your food. [TO MAKE THE LONG STORY SHORT], We went inside and when i go in, all the people making the food where blacks, and the manager was a white female. So i walked in and said “you people (black ppl) should know better then to discriminate” the manager was like get out of my store before i called the cops and some other bs i cuss and yell and walked out. Went home contacted the CEO of Taco Bell, wrote them the letter provided the recipt as proof of me being that, told them what happened word for word and next day or 2, the regional manager called to apologize and turns out the whole Taco Bell at that particualre joint got flagged and they took some action towards the discrimination, I got 1 month of FREE taco bell food, and ya i used it and Abused it.”

    Well, all I have to say is that you’re damn lucky to be living in a country where such discrimination is promptly dealth with. I just returned from a place where gender discrimination is rampant and there is no system set up to deal with it. The name of that place is India.

    Somya Bhatia

43. I live in New Jersey and have actually heard these idiots on the radio. I have also seen how they’ve responded to criticism. They’ve done nothing.

    Since sending them e-mails has failed to achieve anything, I suggest we hit them where it hurts: their advertisers. If enough people contact their advertisers and complain about Carton and Rossi’s racist remarks, this will create pressure to get them off the air, and show other broadcasters that they won’t get away with making racist slurs.

    The following is a list of some of their biggest sponsors:

    Bank of America Verizon Wireless Applebee’s Asbury Park Press Boar’s Head Ham Centex Homes The Cancer Centers (Atlantic Health Systems)

    I’m sure these companies will respond if enough people complain. They certainly don’t want to be known as sponsoring racist programming. I’m going to write letters to all these companies. Please do the same.

44. Hey Lester,

    Can you please post a sample letter of protest to the sponsors? I guess people can use that as some sort of guideline while writing to the sponsors.

45. I’ve compiled a list of some of the biggest sponsors of New Jersey 101.5 FM’s Carton & Rossi show on my blog, and provided links so people can easily contact these advertisers. If enough of us write to them, we can get these bigots off the air.

    Please visit: http://ceaseracism.blogspot.com/

46. Ravinder Ransi asked me to post a sample letter of protest to the sponsors. Here is a letter I’ve written to the CEO & President of Bank of America, Kenneth D. Lewis. You’ll also find it on my blog: http://ceaseracism.blogspot.com/

    RE: Your sponsoring of racially intolerant radio programming on New Jersey 101.5 FM (Carton & Rossi, “the Jersey guys”)

    Dear Mr. Lewis:

    I was recently shocked to learn that Bank of America sponsors radio programming that is racially intolerant. On April 25, “shock jocks” Craig Carton and Ray Rossi of New Jersey 101.5 FM ridiculed Asian-Americans on the air and called them “damn Orientals.” Bank of America ads are aired during the Carton & Rossi show and I am wondering why you financially support such programming. Asian-Americans are, after all, an increasingly important market segment for you, and your business is growing in Asia.

    Mr. Lewis, on the Bank of America Web site you are quoted as saying you are in business “to help make communities stronger.” You also say you reach “for higher standards in everything we do.” Do these standards include the type of radio programming you support? For Carton & Rossi’s show on 101.5 FM does not make our community stronger. Their comments are intolerant and divisive.

    Please stop funding the Carton & Rossi show. New Jersey doesnÂ’t need such offensive radio broadcasts. Just like Bank of America, we want to make this community a better place to live, for everyone.

    Sincerely, Lester Gesteland

47. A more complete list of sponsors of NJ 101.5 FM’s racist show

    I listened to New Jersey 101.5 FM’s Carton & Rossi show again today to (a) make sure no Hyundai ads came on (I was asked to do this by Kai Yu, Director of Asian Media Watch) and (b) to see what other companies are sponsoring the show. I am happy to report that no Hyundai ads came on. There were also no ads for Cingular Wireless, a company that told Asian Media Watch and the Star-Ledger newspaper that they had ceased sponsoring the show.

    For those visiting this blog for the first time, let me fill you in. On April 25, the “shock jocks” mentioned above ridiculed Asians and called them “damn Orientals.” (To see a transcript of their remarks, please scroll down to the first blog I posted.) I am now working in concert with Asian Media Watch to contact sponsors of this show and ask them to pull their ads. We want Carton & Rossi off the air.

    The following is a list of more advertisers airing commercials during their show:

    Sam’s Club http://www.samsclub.com/ PNC Bank http://www.pncbank.com/ GEICO http://www.geico.com/ Lowe’s Home Improvement http://www.lowes.com/ James Toyota Outlet http://home.jamestoyotaoutlet.com/ Malouf Buick, Pontiac, GMC http://www.malouf.com/ Sansone’s Route 66 AutoMall http://www2.rt66automall.com/en_US/ University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey http://www.umdnj.edu/ Seado Watercraft http://www.seadoo.com/ Accucare Pain Medicine Tel: 866-322-6500 http://www.accucarepainmedicine.com/ The Diamond Institute for Infertility and Menopause http://www.diamondinstitute.com/ Esurance Auto Insurance http://www.esurance.com/ Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey http://www.ringling.com/ Mid-Atlantic Waterproofing http://www.basements.com/ Barracuda Networks http://www.barracudanetworks.com/ Ocean City Maryland http://www.ocean-city.com/

48. Those racist jersey guys rossi and carton would have been run out of town if they worked in Chicago. Their comments reflect their ignorant mentality and uneducated upbringing. Theyre a bunch of clowns. But seriously are there so many desi’s in NJ that its a problem?

49. UPDATE: Four Sponsors Have Pulled Their Ads!

    The latest development in the NJ 101.5 FM campaign is that Applebee’s has withrawn its sponsorship of the Carton & Rossi show. That brings to four the number of sponsors that have pulled their ads. (The other three are Hyundai Motor America, Cingular Wireless & Bank of America.)

    This is worth applauding, but don’t let up the pressure. There are many more advertisers that need to be persuaded. So keep writing the sponsors. It works!

    You’ll find a list of these companies, plus the names and addresses of their CEOs/owners at: http://www.CeaseRacism.blogspot.com/

50. Lester, you are a rock star. I bow.