Yesterday, Abhi blogged about the unfortunate remarks that The Senator From MBNA made about desis in Delaware; today, Biden’s case of foot-in-mouth syndrome is still a hot topic. SD pointed to just one of the stories about donut-gate via our news tab— this one is from the grey lady:
Facing criticism, potential 2008 presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday defended his recent remark that ”you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”
I wouldn’t have advised the Senator to go that route, but okay.
The Delaware senator said his words were taken out of context.
Aren’t they always? Quelle tragédie. Here’s what I heard: one needs to have a “slight” Indian accent in order to order a glazed, as if the person behind the counter wouldn’t understand you otherwise. That’s garbage.
You know, the only proverb I ever memorized as a child was “Pride goeth before a fall”. Boast and you’re toast, y’heard? I’m saddened that the Senator seems too proud to own his faux-pas.
Oh, and if you need to F5 your memory– here’s what started all the drama, Mama:
On a recent edition of the C-SPAN series ”Road to the White House,” Biden is shown in New Hampshire boasting about his support among Indian-Americans.
”I’ve had a great relationship. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking,” the senator said.
That’s my favorite part by the way– when he foolishly insists that he’s not joking. If only he had known that his poorly-chosen meal of toes would follow him like a bad case of gas, all the way over to eye-rack. He might have fasted.
Visiting troops and officials in Iraq this week, Biden was asked about the comment during an interview with CNN’s ”The Situation Room.”
The senator said he has had an ”incredibly strong” relationship with the Indian-American community in Delaware and that his comment was misinterpreted.
I keep waiting to hear a “sorry”, “my apologies”, “oops” or even a “dude…my bad”, but he’s got nothing useful like that for us, which is too bad, because that would have been one way to make this all go away.
“I was making the point that up until now in my state, we’ve had a strong Indian community made up of leading scientists and researchers and engineers,” Biden said. Lately, he said: “We’re having middle-class people move to Delaware, take over Dunkin’ Donuts, take over businesses, just like other immigrant groups have, and I was saying that … they’re growing, it’s moving.”
Oh, well now…that explains EVERYTHING.
Good for him. Finally a Democrat who doesn’t patronize minorities. If he goes down, at least he goes down with his balls intact.
May some nice desi 7-11 worker get down on her knees and give him a big free slurpee.
Why not “his knees”? Your comment blows (no pun intended). Figure I’m a trigga-happy blogger, so step back.
How come he didnt say South Asian American? He didnt know thats the term for desi people and their off springs here in Amreeka? Anna you should write him a letter of protest.
I see where your coming from.
but my logic is rigid and firm
Step off Anna. You need a drink or something. A real stiff one.
wayyy too many puns in this comments thread… I’m gonna go take a nap..
This is whitey sickness, whitey racism, whitey’s fault. Whether a “progressive” leftist whitey who thinks brown ppl need to be reformed of their evil doing sati dowry bride burning acid throwing ways which makes them so dang poor, or rightey whitey who flaunts his plato-to-nato triumphalist free market wherz the brown shakespeare we invented science whoo hoo bit, whitey just has it out for brown ppl. We need a revolution.
It is so funny to see so many people offended by that remark. Is this because he is a politician? Is it OK for him to still feel the same way but not say it?
Someone again please explain to me why any of this actually matters?
Being a former Indian American Democratic staffer in New Hampshire (you didn’t know there were Indians in NH before this did you!), as well as a former member of the India Association of New Hampshire, this totally amazed me. My reaction- “wow there are enough Indian Americans in states like New Hampshire and Delaware that Biden would even be able to make a comment like that?!” (as lame as it was… I mean, he’s a very smart guy, he couldn’t do any better than that while trying to impress these Granite State Desi’s?) It really shows that the population is, as the Senator said, “growing.”
I’m personally not offended, more like impressed that this is getting this much media attention. Does that mean that our community is finally being recognized (or at least perceived) as politically strong, or it was a slow news day?
This to me is the more interesting question, not whether or not Biden is racist. I don’t think he is. But I think everyone carries unfortunate stereotypes. Especially older white people. Let’s be real: politicians are trained to not talk in the common vernacular. People like me try and train them, but sometimes the subconscious stuff slips out. Although is owning a Dunking Donuts and having an Indian accent a bad thing? It’s not quite model-minority, a little more Apu from the Simpsons…. I don’t know. It doesn’t get me all hot and bothered. I hope it’s not because I am a Democrat. At least he didn’t call them “terrorists.” And at least his legislative record is supportive of immigrant communities. In the end, that’s what I care about. What he does, not necessarily the dumb things he says…..
It’s one thing to admire someone’s “intact” testicles, it’s quite another to end your initial comment the way you did. You didn’t need to go there.
“if you need to F5 your memory”…classic a n n a
oh, one more thing: when I get a Jeep, I’m putting A N N A on my chrome.
Anna:
I’d be offended if he apologized for that comment. Of course Dunkin Donuts are dominated by Desis. As if its something to be ashamed of. You ought to apologize to all the 7-11/Dunkin donuts/Patel-Motel owners! Thanks Joe, for noticing and for being first to support the nuke deal!
Prasad:
I may be way off here, but I think people would rather he neither said it nor felt it.
Good for you.
When I say something stupid which comes out the wrong way, I apologize because I’m not above that. That’s the courteous thing to do. Especially since he likes us so much.
…annnnd now you’re hallucinating, because I never wrote or implied that.
For what? Your delusion or your confusion? BIDEN is the one who sliced our community apart on class lines, not me.
Non-sequitur.
In some weird way, I feel a strange sense of satisfaction that he said it. I mean he said it in public where he can be held accountable for his racism, not just at some tastefully held dinner party or golf game or whatever else white people do in their spare time.
As Siddhartha commented on another thread, racism should be called out and bashed around the head for what it is. Racist Democrats are just as bad as Racist Republicans and Racist Anyones.
Yeah we’ve all got ugly stereotypes we hold about others but everyone needs to work to get rid of em
Manju, your jokes are a bit too small-minded to hold up for v long 😛 So stop being disgusting!
Hmmm well possible presidential candidate –> poss. president –> of most powerful country in the world…maybe?
Anna:
See, I must be really thick, because I didn’t see any insult from Biden pointing out that certain businesses are predominantly Indian owned. I thought maybe you were insulting by him mentioning one of the following. 1. ”IÂ’ve had a great relationship. 2. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. 3. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a DunkinÂ’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. 4. IÂ’m not joking,”
I thank you for digging deep and unearthing the truth behind his words.
“You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. IÂ’m not joking.”
Yo, that doesn’t just say that Dunkin’ Donutseses are dominated by Indians. It says that in order to buy a donut there, you need to have an Indian accent, like you won’t be understood otherwise. He’s got advisors. If this isn’t EXACTLY what he meant, he could have rephrased, but he stuck to what he said. By the way, he went on to say after his defense of his original statement, “I could have said that 40 years ago about walking into a delicatessen and saying an Italian accent in my state (from that NYT article).”
Look, I’m not saying that this should end his political career or anything, and it certainly won’t. It’ll be forgotten in about five minutes. But I see no reason why politicians (or anyone, for that matter) shouldn’t be taken to task for saying dumb shit like that – ESPECIALLY old white men, because we’re going to be stuck with them for at least a few more decades.
My thoughts exactly. Again, a tempest in a teapot.
IÂ’m sorry if I offended anyone. I was taken out of context. Of course, the Indian community is made up of hardworking, patriotic, and diverse people who are dedicated to their families, their religion, America, and freedom, and do not give away free slurpees.
tashie, vivek- I compeletly agree. It was a dumb comment. He needed to be called out on it. He needs to educated about stereotypes and how they hurt communities, AND he is a powerful politician and should be held to a higher standard. And he has been. So, now what. What does this all mean? I wasn’t making exuses for the man… just not sure what this really amounts to. I’d like to be optimistic and think it may reflect some new level of awareness of our communities growth and class diversity…but that’s probably not what’s driving the story. Anyway, to me the REAL racism going on in DC is the Republican Congress’ vehement opposition to renewal of the Voting Rights Act, obsession with erecting a freaking wall at our border with Mexico, etc.
It’s terribly inconvenient, isn’t it? That we can’t choose what offends others? Tsk-tsk.
Well, I personally don’t support the nuke deal, but for someone who thinks it’s a legitimate indicator of support for community concerns, this isn’t really a non-sequitur — I take the point behind rasudha’s comment to be: never mind Biden’s dumb comment, I’m concerned about his positions and actions on issues of concern to the community.
Far from being a sign of community strength, I take the fixation with these kinds of comments to be a sign of political weakness and insecurity as a community, a sign that neither we nor mainstream media are capable either of keeping our eyes focused on issues that really matter to the community or actually exercising sufficient influence over those issues. Biden’s position on any one of the following issues matters infinitely more to the community than his stupid comment:
Others may disagree with his positions on these issues, and that’s fine — but that’s the level at which a politically mature community should primarily be evaluating him or any other politician. Fine, call him out on an obviously stupid comment. But only in proportion to its significance, and then please move on. If someone is going to get exercised about this gaffe, I would hope and expect them to expend at least that much energy — and hopefully much, much, MUCH more — on real issues of concern to the community. Otherwise, at the end of the day, all of this is just a trivial sideshow that risks turning our community’s political engagement into a three-ring circus.
AK: I agree- but with that line I was actually referring to the mainstream media’s and general public’s perception of our political strength. Despite the community’s self-congratulatory response to the US-India Nuke deal, it’s not clear to me that we are players when it comes to major domestic issues, winning elections, etc. And for the record, with regard to the issues I believe are important to our community (civil rights, education, health care, immigration reform) I feel Joe Biden has been on our side.
Communis Rixatrix (achoo!) —
All that I asked was for someone to please articulate what exactly is offensive, and — more importantly — why it matters more than all of the substantive issues over which our community seems to get much less exercised. I’m not denying that there is something offensive about Biden’s comment, but it’s frustrating to see people get much more worked up about this comment than they ever seem to have about things that matter a lot more. Some other more carefully scripted politician — be they Democratic, Republican, or Green — might never say anything along these lines ever in their lives, but does that give them a free pass on policy? At the end of the day, is that really what’s most important?
AK and mini:
Just to clarify – which community are you talking about when you say “our community?”
In what way is that racist ?
What was he smoking anyway? The Dunkins I know (in several states) have no desis in them. In CA, there used to be this whole Cambodian Donut thing going on, but with some of the regional chains. Has anybody else noticed this? Is this a NorthEast Corridor thing?
Mini — gotcha, I thought I got your point (and I agree w/you re: the nuke deal) but sorry if I misunderstood. I suppose I might still have the same answer though, which does not necessarily seem inconsistent with what you are saying — if that’s what the mainstream media thinks really matters to South Asian Americans, and they are not capable of evaluating and covering the community’s interests and concerns at a deeper level, then at least to me that’s a sign that the media doesn’t really understand South Asian American communities as well as they can and should, and that perhaps we as South Asian Americans are not doing a very good job of engaging with and educating the mainstream media about issues that actually matter. But that still might be consistent with your suggestion that the very attention to Biden’s comment is a sign that the media thinks that it might matter if the South Asian or Indian Amerian community has a reaction to it.
Vivek —
What turns on the answer to this question? I definitely wasn’t suggesting that South Asian American communities are or should be understood to be monolithic, only that there are substantive interests and concerns — about which people within the community might well disagree — that matter much more than this. But your question itself seems intended to make a point, so rather than my trying to guess what it is, let me just ask you by way of clarification what the point you wish to be making here is, more directly?
Ennis:
You need to be called out and educated about stereotypes and how they hurt communities, especially since you are a powerful blogger. Just because you see no desis in dunkin donuts doesn’t mean they’re not there. They may be in the back making the donuts. There’s obviously a glass ceiling at dunkin donuts.
And what’s with the “cambodian dounut thing”? Are you implying that cambodians should stick to agriculture as Pol Pot wanted? I’ll let you know that cambodians are very diverse and make more than donuts.
There was this strange but true case of mistaken racism some years ago:
ANNA —
Can you elaborate on what you are getting at here?
rasudha,
Maybe Anna was referring to this:
Anna, I don’t think Biden sliced our community apart along class lines – Indian Americans ARE sliced along class lines.
That said, I can’t make head or tail out of this statement by Biden because it’s so ambiguous.
If those same exact words came out of the mouth of a Pat Buchanan/Rush Limbaugh type, I’d know exactly what they meant: “Well it was all good back in the day when THEY were working for US and developing OUR systems and technology to keep US on top; but now the scourge of immigration has taken hold and THEY’RE taking over OUR businesses, etc. etc…”
So what does it mean when Biden says it? He doesn’t bother clarifying how he views this wave of “middle-class” immigration – whether positively or negatively. So those of us who like Biden are left to interpret for ourselves what he means by these comments. If we like him and we don’t like going to Dunkin’ Donuts and dealing with a brown immigrant face, then we can still like what he said. If we like him and we’re all about Indian immigration to Delaware, we can also still like what he said.
Vivek —
This is an excellent point — context matters a great deal here, but thanks to his being a bit of a windbag, it’s hard to get a real handle on the context from which Biden’s comment (or his clarification) emerges.
AK –
I wanted to make sure we were on the same page – as far as I know, Biden only has close ties with Indian Americans. This is a South Asian blog, so whenever the term “our community” comes up in this context, I never know what to make of it.
I wasn’t trying to make another point at all, but since you picked out my skepticism about community in general – at least in the political context – here it is:
To identify the South Asian American community or the Indian American community or the Pakistani American community as political units is incredibly problematic to me because, even though you may be well aware that these are not monolithic in nature, they are divided along class lines, and those with access to power and who have the ability to articulate the interests of each community belong to a privileged class whose class interests are often opposed to the class interests of many of those whom they supposedly represent. Anyway, we can take this discussion somewhere else if you’re interested in pursuing it.
But back to the topic at hand, which community were you referring to?
Hmmmm…. What happened to compassionate, benefit-of-the-doubt-giving Akka-ANNA?
I kinda liked her. Atypically empathetic for a human.
AK:
Indeed!
Wow…you really got me. I’m such a hypocrite. I’ll go cry now.
In New Jersey and New York, I would say the majority of Dunkin Donuts are owned by Gujuratis. There’s one dude, a Patel, who owns at last count 70 along the eastern corridor. He’s the donut king. There is apparently racism coming from dunkin donuts itself: Ive been told that some Indians are having a difficult time buying franchises, and those that own them are scrupulously inspected for “cleanliness.” I am sure Dunkin Donuts brand managers are cringing now – they have been stuggling in their efforts to gain a portion of the upscale whitey market by selling lattes, smoothies and what have you, only to be ground down by Biden’s remark and by the hegemonic brownitude imposed upon them by market forces.
What turns on the answer to this question? I definitely wasn’t suggesting that South Asian American communities are or should be understood to be monolithic, only that there are substantive interests and concerns — about which people within the community might well disagree — that matter much more than this
Condemning ANY stereotyping of browns should be of paramount concern, and should transcend political interests, especially when the perpetrators have substantial poiltical power. Whether your (wo)man signed the nuclear deal or opposed immigration “reform”, should matter not when it comes to (even benign) racist behavior. If we can’t agree on that then we deserve to be divided and ruled.
Vivek — got it, thanks for the clarification. For my own part, I was referring to the South Asian American community, recognizing all that you say, but remaining hopeful that there can be spaces in which a shared set of interests can be advanced across the class divide that you rightly identify — not without lots of hard work, but I do believe that such spaces can and do exist. I don’t know enough about Biden’s relationships with “the community,” however that may be defined, to respond to the rest of what you say, but I personally react to Biden’s comment as a South Asian, not as an Indian — while he refers to Indian Americans, the comment itself didn’t strike me as one that carefully tried to distinguish in fact between Indians and other brown people who might be working in 7-11s and Dunkin Donuts. Maybe he did mean to be doing so, and his statement reflected some actual empirical data in his head about Indians, but it didn’t seem that way to me.
Vivek:
Rush and Buchanan couldn’t be on more opposite sides of this issue. Pat is a clssic conservative who has been consistently protectionist (as well as opposing the war in iraq on the grounds that we should only go to war for our self interest, not building democracy) while rush has been equally consistenly pro globalization and free trade.
Furthermore, the fact that you fail to mention pelosi, clinton, and Harkin (“We need to create jobs in this country, not China, Bermuda or anywhere else,”) even though they fit the bill much more than rush shows the danger of these expansive definitions of racism…it is politically opportunistic.
In our tawana brawley culture, victimization is power. And everyone is playing the game, including indian republicans in regards to the joe biden. Republicans gleefully label dems racist b/c their anti-free trade policies hurt poor countries, when everyone knows their realconcern is for the unions and working class americans–like buchanan’s is (sans the unions).
One person on this thread labled the position of wanting to build a wall to monitor immigration racist–no doubt that racists like this idea just like they like protectionism–but the idea is simply not defacto racism. There are enourmously complex issues of national security, wage depression, cultural assimilation, healthcare, etc that need to be addressed.
It’s become the american way to use racism as a political weapon.
ANNA, don’t cry, I wasn’t at all trying to suggest you are a hypocrite. Was mostly just trying to be playful, and forgot to tack on the “;)” at the end.
(Sigh. Humans can be so prickly sometimes.)
😉
I actually didn’t find Biden’s words offensive, and it’s certainly not racist. And not funny – since Apu has been at it for years. There are a disproportionate number of desis in certain business and it’s fine to make fun of us from time to time, as long as it’s done in good taste.
Good point. Cisco Kid. But I think a lot of people thought this was done in bad taste.
Too, true, risible invisible. Cool superhero-like name btw…hmm must get myself something more than a nickname name.
I can see some people’s point here that this may seem like a storm in a chai-cup…especially when you think of how people would have reacted if Biden had said ‘You can’t walk into a software company without a slight Indian accent’ instead of what he did.
He definitely made a racist comment and should be taken to task for it…
but I think it’s also a class issue. I mean it’s like when Latino film stars like Salma Hayek etc. got offended when some other old white person said there was no use learning Spanish because ‘who would you talk to? The ‘help?’ Very different reactions than when people stereotype races in other positions like rich neurotic Jewish psychiatrists etc.
I know that for me at least a small part of my own cringeing the stereotype of the Indian bus driver/shopkeeper/Dunkin Donuts worker vs. doctor/software engineer is their actual job…I mean how many of the people on this site are university educated? This is where the real bite was in Biden’s bark of a comment – if there’s one thing a model minority is supposed to be good at, it’s gettin’ an education.
It’s the class diviseness of his remark that really sucked. And that’s why it was in bad taste, because unlike white culture in places like Australia/NZ or even Italian culture which Biden cited where a higher education is not so tied to class, in the Indian subcontinent there is still a clear class demarcation between different types of jobs, and a social stigma attached to ones that do not require professional qualifications.
You know Delaware doesnt exist just to provide transit from NY to DC, and to allow corporate headquarters to get tax benefits. I spent a lot of time at the U of D, and it really is that Indian in the convenience store and Dunkin business. I dont think I went to more than one(The one bang in the middle of UD) which wasnt owned by an India. Even more prominent was Indian ownership of liquor stores. So the sentiment regarding ownership was probably not racist ….but the crack about requiring the indian accent.. maybe not quite racist but definitely something wrong there.
Manju – you hit the nail on the head. Victimization is power. A pity that Indian Americans have jumped on the bandwagon. Not sayin’ it ain’t good to talk about these things but I find this witch-hunt mentality more distasteful than Biden’s comment. The race card seems to be losing its punch so now people drag in the class divisiveness issue! Jeez.
I sometimes get the warm fuzzies when I walk in to some of these stores entirely manned by desis. Why is it a crime for whitey to feel he needs to work on his accent when going to these stores? Any reason why this is not interpreted as a mark of respect? In any case, his comment seems to have been an attempt at bonhomie and the reason it misfired says as much about the Indian-Americans as it does of Biden.
Manju (#41):
I picked two people off the top of my head whom I’ve heard unapologetically make racist and xenophobic statements. I don’t see how their other politics are relevant here.
American politicians protecting the interests of working class Americans is simply not defacto racism. It certainly capitalizes on the association of fear of jobloss with xenophobia, yes. There WAS Hillary’s gas station Gandhi gaffe, for which she was fried (rightly so) and for which she apologized. Maybe this would be a better example of another Democrat being explicitly racist.
Well, um, yeah. So why is it that you wanted me to call Pelosi et al. out? Most Democrats and some Republicans stick up for minority rights. Pat Buchanan refers to the possibility that whites will one day become a minority in the US as “the looming demographic disaster.”
In the comment I’ve just quoted from, you called on me to call out the racism you found inherent in comments made by Pelosi, Clinton, and Harkin. Fair enough. If you want to do that, what business do you have asserting that [the accusation of] racism is being used as a political weapon? Is that how you were using it?
Lurkster (#46):
Actually Lurkster, for a while all human history was the history of class struggle. Then some folks figured that things like race and gender might figure into the struggle as well. Jeez.
To all my friends who have suggested that Joe Biden is smart and/or intellectual, what is that based on? In DC, it is a widely held belief that Biden is a pompous windbag. Did anyone see his performance during then-Judge Alito’s confirmation hearing?
If Biden had said that, in Delaware, you can’t be in finance or journalism unless you are Jewish, would that have been an anti-semitic comment? Or, in Delaware, you can’t commit a crime unless you are black, would that have been racist.
Vivek:
You misunderstand me. I don’t want you to call them out. I don’t think they are racist at all, even hillary. I was saying that these individuals have said things that could be construed as racist and their postions are even more explicitly anti-indian (in effect) than rush’s.
But we must consider that they may hold these positions b/c they have other prioities, as would someone who wants to limit illegal imigration.