Barack Obama: “I’m a desi”

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Recently Jeff Yang of the San Francisco Chronicle sent me an article he had just published in that newspaper. He wrote:

I wanted to share with you guys the most recent installment of “Asian Pop”–which some of you may be aware now appears in both the online and the reconstituted wood pulp edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. The response to it has been quite interesting and, er, high-volume, from black, white and Asian American readers alike. Anyway, if you’re getting this then you’re someone whose opinion I value and whom I think might be interested in the issues involved here, and I’m curious about your thoughts.

Here are some excerpts from Jeff’s article:

“White skin notwithstanding, this is our first black president. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, he displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas…”

With these words in the New Yorker in 1998, Toni Morrison granted our 42nd president, William Jefferson Clinton, a kind of cadet membership in the grand cultural narrative of black America…

…reading Obama’s absorbing 1995 memoir “Dreams from My Father,” it strikes me that the tropes that surround and define Obama can just as easily be read as those of another community entirely. Which raises the question: Could it be that our true first black president might also be our first Asian American president? [Link]

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p>I will reserve my opinion of what I think of Jeff’s partially rhetorical question. Instead, I’d like to take you now to a fundraiser that happened Sunday in San Francisco (also reported in the SFChronicle):

The Illinois senator said it is “a testament to the American spirit that I’m even standing here before you” as the Democratic Party’s presumed nominee, because some Americans are “still getting past the name,” which he said some consider “funny.”

“Change is always tough, and electing me is change … and it means that people are going to hesitate a little bit,” Obama told a crowd of about 200 deep-pocketed supporters at a VIP reception for South Asian and Pacific Islander supporters at the Fairmont Hotel.

“Barack Obama – they’re still getting past that name,” he said. “…

Obama told the group – many of them Indian and Pakistani immigrants – that he is not only familiar with their cultures – but also proud of his lifelong associations with them. [Link]

And now for the money shot:

“Not only do I think I’m a desi, but I’m a desi,” he said, using a colloquial term that describes South Asian immigrants. The remark was greeted with laughs. “I’m a homeboy…” [Link]

Oh but there was more (in front of an audience that included Kamala Harris):

He said that when he went to Occidental College, his first roommate was Pakistani. And in his dorm, he said with a laugh, “Indians and Pakistanis came together under one roof … to cause havoc in the university.”

To applause, he said he became an expert “at cooking dal” and other ethnic dishes, though “somebody else made the naan,” the trademark Indian bread.

“Those are friendships which have lasted me for years, and continue until this day,” he said. “I have an enormous personal affection for the people of South Asia…” [Link]

I’m actually kind of disappointed now that Senator Jim Webb of Virginia has reportedly taken himself out of the running for Obama’s VP spot. With Obama making sambar and Webb making Dosa in the Whitehouse, that ticket had lots of potential! But isn’t it just like a desi man to have “somebody else [make] the naan?”

Word has it that SAFM is trying to get John McCain on the record as being a fan of Pav Bhaji which is less elitist than dal and naan.

Related posts: Is Barack Obama a secret…Hindu?

79 thoughts on “Barack Obama: “I’m a desi””

  1. 29 · Manju said

    Heh, I tthought of that when he said this: “You gotta really go some to play the race card with me – my office is in Harlem, and Harlem voted for Hillary by the way.”

    nuance might be the last refuge of a scoundrel, but the startling lack of ability to understand basic phrasal differences is the first mark of an idiot.

  2. 52 · seema said

    nuance might be the last refuge of a scoundrel, but the startling lack of ability to understand basic phrasal differences is the first mark of an idiot.

    so someone who quotes idiots is what?

  3. Mr. Obama sucking up to desi people. Well, If you’re only after people’s votes.

    amsterdamguy, be fair– he learned to make dal before he was looking for votes, and outsourcing the naan-making is much in the Bharat Baba manner — which in no way detracts from his Israeli monniker, Baruch Obama, or his Crow name, Black Eagle.

    Anna, if you’re reading this thread, I want you to know that I actually saw the Papaya putting in a plug for Obama.

  6. Hinduism isn’t a religion. There are no religions that have arisen from India. There are 100s of priestly jatis everywhere in India. You get an F- for that one, a little lower than your D-.

    Lol. Yeah right jyotsana, you do deserve an A+ in BullCrap 101, and I am an abject failure.

  7. So you admit you were making it all up?

    What the hell are you talking about? Make what up? Quit playing games and just answer the question.

    btw ‘libertarian’ does NOT mean liberal.

    There he goes again. Where did I say or imply that? I have asked this question of the libertarian casteists here before: how do you reconcile libertarianism with hereditary casteism. None could respond. Because it cannot be reconciled.

  9. 58 · Shazem said

    Lol. Yeah right jyotsana, you do deserve an A+ in BullCrap 101, and I am an abject failure.

    You got that. You get a pass. A creationist geocentrist troll like you is exempted from understanding evolution or cosmology. Sorry, can’t make that any simpler. You will have to struggle a little more to raise your grade from F to D.

  10. Kali wrote: I am a NRIndian and a secular humanist. I am from the South and even a Brahmin … Kali also wrote: Keep your eye on the ball guys – this is not an opportunity for an exhibition of casteism. No wonder we have so much insoluble sectarian strife…

    Boy, am I glad you are keeping your eyes on the ball.

  11. if i say upfront that i am white from the south while criticising another white from the south does that make me racist?

    You are ignorantly equating race with religion. You can change your religion but can you change your race? You say you are an atheist, so on what rational basis do you continue to identify yourself as a brahmin? How can a a non-hindu like you belong to the hindu priestly caste?

    libertarians are far more likely to be god-fearing mccain/gop/small govt supporters than liberals (the two are not related despite similarity of the name to those fixated on labels).

    You keep arguing with this strawman, stubbornly ignoring the fact that I have nowhere equated libertarianism with liberalism. Whats the problem? Cannot answer my question?

    Libertarianism emphasizes individual liberty, including occupational liberty. Which means that the hindu caste system is the very anti-thesis of libertarianism, yet we have a number of thoroughly confused libertarians and atheists here who see no contradiction in identifying themselves as belonging to a hindu caste!

  12. how did a thread on barack obama devolve into discussions abuse fests on casteism?

    Because conversations lead places, people talk about what they want and what matters to them, and are wonderfully, confusingly, and interestingly complex and beautiful.

  13. 67 · Shazam said

    How can a a non-hindu like you belong to the hindu priestly caste?

    springsteen. working class.

  14. 7. I am done with trying to raise your grade. You will have to retake next semester.

    Kali – you won’t get far arguing with Shazam – I believe she herself hates her/his caste, skin color, looks, indianness and she/he’s only agenda is to think everyone else has these insecurities hard wired in them.

    Shazam regularly changes her handle, which I actually thought would get one banned, and has been banned often but she/he has come back with a different handle, in the short time I’ve been here – Shazam-Nikil,Valkimi,kaka,etc. and Prema. This is Prema and I don’t blame you for wanting to argue back but just know she/he has been banned often for her outlandish comments and you are arguing with someone who’s obsessed with stereotyping desis and other ethnic groups and insisting she knows everything about you – http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004355.html

  15. There are Christian Brahmins – any comments on that?

    You should be embarrassed for using a logical fallacy to defend yourself. How does the indefensible stupidity of some hindus who converted to christianity rationalize your own indefensible stupidity?

    There are also Kshatriyas who go about their business in various professions without joining the army or a militia.

    There are also tons of “brahmins” working as janitors and domestic servants in India. What this shows is that the caste system is a fraud and a farce.

  16. PS wrote:

    you are arguing with someone who’s obsessed with stereotyping desis and other ethnic groups and insisting she knows everything about you

    This is coming from the person who told us all that the chinese in Taiwan expressed their contempt for her dark skin to her face and at the same time claimed that they praised her “continuously” for her filipino looks!

    Another fine example of cognitive dissonance 🙂

  17. 73 · Shazam said

    stuff

    Oh, get off your lame high horse. I am (what I consider) a pretty egalitarian atheist who was raised in an anti-caste religion (Sikh) who still chooses to identify as a jatt, despite the fact that I find some jatts obnoxious. Sorry, I refuse to disown my ancestors even though they might conceivably disavow a pervert like me.

    Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

  18. Kali – and by the way, so many of my family members who are atheists still identify with their caste, and I’m from a low-caste in kerala – I think the reason being b/c it affects socioeconomic conditions and also social or cultural pride in some cases. I know with some people who are brahmins and couldn’t give a rats ass about their brahminness, it will still effect social or economic policies from where they are from in India, so sometimes they still will identify with this socioeconomic part of being a particular caste, whether brahmin or anything else. It has nothing to do with religion for them but more socioeconomic considerations.

  19. Shazam, you make me love the caste system and all its inequalities…I feel like finding some brahmins and feeding them or something, just to piss you off. Preferably atheist brahmins who are proud to be so.

  20. Here’s one for you: Sufi Kalam sung by a Sikh. Sublime! Rabbi: Bulla Ki Jaana Maen Kaun

    Dude, EVERYONE knows about that song already! It’s old…

  21. 81 · Amitabh : Dude, EVERYONE knows about that song already! It’s old…

    Walter Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) Song of Myself – 1856

    Amardeep wrote about Rabbi a little while ago, but I was at work and couldn’t listen to the videos and later forgot about it. For whatever reasons you posted the link, I did listen to it and it was pretty good. TY

  22. 84 · Shazam said

    Its not just brahmins obviously as we can see by the highly emotional defensiveness of PS, Harbeer and Amitabh.

    You just refuse to see this from any but your own dualistic black/white perspective. My pride in my heritage has no bearing on how I treat others and move through the world–if anything, I’m probably more critical of my own people than I am of “others”–and I willingly own the “bad” aspects of this group identity along with the stuff that makes me proud. Here’s an analogy: I’m also an anarchist who is proud to identify as American, even though I’m theoretically against any hierarchical state and the US has done plenty of things I wish it hadn’t. I don’t feel the need to erase our historical and cultural distinctions, I don’t see how their maintenance necessarily implies a subordination of “the other,” and I’m not confused I’m just comfortable with contradictions. Ideologically purity is Satan.

  24. You may have noticed many comments deleted and commenters banned. SM is not the place to argue like school children about something irrelevant to the post:

    abusive, illiterate, content-free or commercial comments; personal, non-issue-focused flames; intolerant or anti-secular comments; and long, obscure rants may be deleted.

  25. 75 · Admin said

    abusive, illiterate

    56 is ok. And #59? and #70? It’s your blog, but some uniformity in policy enforcement would make it a better place.

  26. #56 is ok. And #59? and #70? It’s your blog, but some uniformity in policy enforcement would make it a better place.

    I got tired of deleting, I have a life too. Maybe after I eat dinner. Next time don’t participate. I had to delete a lot of yours too.

  27. 21 · smallpress said

    “White skin notwithstanding, this is our first black president. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, he displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas…� This is not all that Morrison said. There was a lot more irony and not a whole lot of joy in what she wrote in that essay. Unfortunately this gets spinned into some grotesque anointment of Clinton by the famous writer. She actually did no such thing.This is what Morrison actually said in the summer of 1998, at the height of lynch season for Bill Clinton:
    African-American men seemed to understand it right away. Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President’s body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and bodysearched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear “No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and–who knows?–maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us.” For a large segment of the population who are not African-Americans or members of other minorities, the elusive story left visible tracks: from target sighted to attack, to criminalization, to lynching, and now, in some quarters, to crucifixion. The always and already guilty “perp” is being hunted down not by a prosecutor’s obsessive application of law but by a different kind of pursuer, one who makes new laws out of the shards of those he breaks.
    If there is some parallel being drawn to Obama as the first desi President – heaven help him.

    Man I hated when folks said Bill was the first black president and this guy who wrote that stereotyped so bad it made my head hurt reading it. I have never and I mean ever considered Bill the first black president and don’t give that joker to me when he is acting a fool in the white house or eating Mcdonalds yes I know all black people do that. Bill showed his true colors.

  28. When my mom read that he had said that, she called me and said, “See? Even a half-black, half-white boy can make daal but you can’t”. Dude, Obama is one of the only democratic candidates who I have been able to related to, partially because he seems to understand the nuances of racial and cultural identity. On a sadder note, I heard an uncle (CPM supporter, no less) at a desi get-together claim that he could never for a “kala”. That depressed me like no other.

  29. “Pakistan is our ally” – McCain

    “If there is actionable intelligence, I will not hesistate to strike Pakistan” – Obama

    I wonder if these type of quotes will bring in older Indians toward Obama.