This ain’t yo daddy’s GOP no more. Not only is the Chair of the RNC a black man (Michael Steele, who owes his victory to the majority-minority terroritories of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Marianas and American Samoa) but Jindal is the new televised face of the party, set to issue its rebuttal to Obama: 
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, widely seen as a potential 2012 GOP presidential contender, will deliver the Republican response following President Obama’s nationally televised Address to the Nation on Feb. 24, Republican congressional leaders announced in a joint statement today. [Link]
Has the GOP decided to embrace multiculturalism as a demographic necessity? Was 2008 the last year that contenders for the top RNC spot will send out CDs of such chart topping hits as “Barack the Magic Negro,” and “The Star Spanglish Banner“?
Not exactly. Nativists remain both a significant constituency within the party and a significant source of amusement for those of us outside of it, offering insights like:
“Diversity can be good in moderation — if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers — as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.” [Link]
Despite their persistence, the nativists are unlikely to be a significant stumbling point for Jindal. Although he’s got a bit of a tan, he’s assimilationist’s wet dream, an all American guy named Bobby, whose youngest child is named “Slade Ryan” (no joke).
More importantly, he’s exactly what the rest of the party is looking for: a governor, a social and fiscal conservative, a staunch Christian, and somebody who claims to stand for increased transparency (except for his office, which is exempt). He has Palin’s virtues — he’s a young, conservative, state level politician — but he’s also articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, a storybook candidate.
Lastly, it doesn’t hurt that the party is desperate, with just five red states left, all of which are low population. At this point, they’re willing to try something new, especially if it’s old wine in a new bottle. Whether Steele and Jindal represent long term change in the party’s thinking, or just drunken college experimentation, will depend on how well they take advantage of this opportunity.
Mariachi dancers?
A FOB question: why is the name Slade always brought up when folks are trying to explain Jindal’s degree of assimilation. What is the context sorrounding that name? Wikipedia left me none the wiser on this.
Since the name “Bobby” leads to heated debates, I think he should refer to him as
“He Whose name we dare not speak”
Just like Jesus during the Holidays.
And everything is politics. If this country voted for Lil Wayne for President then the Republicans would nominate “The Ying Yang Twins” as Chair of the RNC.
Looks like the republicans have succumbed to the herd mentality. They are imitating the democrats by anointing these two colored guys, Jindal and Steele, as their leaders.
A similar thing happened after Indira Gandhi became the first female Prime Minister of India. Its neighbors Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka promptly elected their own female Prime Ministers/Presidents.
2 · IBCD said
It’s not a “typical” American name, like say Robert, Michael, Brad, etc., but more of a hardcore good-ol’, Bubba-type name. It’s kind of up there with “Cletus” in its redneck-itude. Let’s put it this way, when I think of person named “Slade” that last thing my mind conjures up is a little brown boy who could be my own nephew.
4 · Go Jindal said
Ms. Sirimavo Bandaranaike is doing sommersaults in her grave.
Sri Lanka elected Sirimavo Bandaranaike 6 years before Indira Gandhi was elected to power.
7 · Vanya said
Thanks. I stand corrected. So it is Sri Lanka that was the trail blazer in the region and India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who were the imitators.
No offense, but this post seems a little confused. You break out with the lede:
But then we find out:
and
and
A provocative lede is fine and good, but one that completely contradicts the substance of the post probably falls under the category of bad craftsmanship. Lede aside, however, I think you are on to something about how UNREMARKABLE the potential candidacy of Jindal is, symbolic or otherwise.
8 · Go Jindal said
Or maybe, just maybe, these independent, sovereign nations have their own reasons and considerations for electing their female leaders that are not dependent on what neighboring countries do.
This national platform might some day be pointed to in the same manner that many point to Obama’s 2004 appearance at the DNC…as the future candidate’s coming out party. That being said, any speculation of Jindal running in 2012 is somewhat pointless. It will all come down to what Obama’s poll numbers show in Feb 2010. If he is above 50% then Jindal will probably not run. He would be stupid to blow his wad at the age of 39. Better to wait until 2016 with a wide open field and a ton out outside the beltway cred. The other interesting news is that while Jindal and Romney (another future Republican candidate for President) came out very vocally against the stimulus package, Crist of Florida (yet another hopeful) came out vocally for it, even appearing with Obama. That essentially means that while Jindal and Romney have to hope Obama fails and the nation suffers, Crist comes out looking pretty good either way. Jindal and Romney chose a short term tactic whereas Crist chose the long-term strategy. A good strategy usually wins over short-term tactics.
11 · Wild Elephant said
oh, i don’t think the nation’s ready for someone who’s out.
For the record, the Obama as “magic negro” meme originated in the LATimes, by a progressive writer who’s upset Obama isn’t progressive enough. ergo the racial smear.
It’s not a “typical” American name, like say Robert, Michael, Brad, etc., but more of a hardcore good-ol’, Bubba-type name. It’s kind of up there with “Cletus” in its redneck-itude. Let’s put it this way, when I think of person named “Slade” that last thing my mind conjures up is a little brown boy who could be my own nephew.
well, he was raised in louisiana. what kind of name do you expect him to have?
i’d really like to know what makes one an assimilationist or not. just curious. i’m not a big fan of bobby because he’s not one of my kind; he’s a socially conservative southerner, and people know what i think of those who pander to creationists. i’m a socially liberal westerner. no way in hell i’d give my son a name like “slade ryan,” has a meathead connotation to me, no idea why, probably my regional/class prejudices. but what kind of name should someone like me give my kids which wouldn’t indicate assimilation? as an atheist who doesn’t identify as muslim it would seem kind of weird for me to give a son a name like ‘mohammed.’ i’m just not a fan of mohammed to be honest. i’m a brown dude, so why should i give my kid a turko-persian name like a lot of muslims do? (though i’m a fan of my surname cuz of star trek ii) but i don’t have hindus in my family (at last not for a minimum of 3 generations), so would a “desi name” like rama be appropriate? as it happens, my fiance & i have discussed it and we prefer what you might term traditional “anglo” names, though not of the generic kind (e.g., david, joshua, etc.). i’m a greco-roman history buff, so that should give one a clue, classical roots in preference to hebraic or germanic.
and what if my fiance and i adopt a black kid? we’ve talked about about adopting, and if we did it would be cool if the kid was a different race from both of us (brown & white) since that way people wouldn’t tag one of us as their “real” parent compared to the other. would they be desi/brown, or not? (there’s a surplus of blacks in the american adoption system, and since we’re an interracial couple we aren’t too hung up about the kids “looking like the parents”)
these are weird questions. to a great extent in a place like india (or bangladesh or pakistan, etc.) they’re not an issue. you’re identity is non-negotiable in a way that’s not true in the USA. there’s a particular core set of identities which defines you, by religion, region, caste, locality, etc. (and i am one who thinks in a substantive way indian culture is hindu, no matter the religion, just like western culture is christian, no matter the religion). the united states is different. 20-40% of american born browns are marrying non-browns. large minorities are converting to christianity of a non-indian variety. many are becoming totally irreligious. people are negotiating their own cultural identities in a fluid environment, picking up punjabi/hindi words and integrating it into their slang if they’re south indian, learning what south indian food is like if they’re north indian, hanging out with white hare krishnas and reconceptualizing what hindu can be, becoming a follower of krishnamurti despite coming from a shia pakistani background (this last example is based on a real person, in case you think it’s a hypothetical).
i don’t have much in common with bobby in terms of how i’ve come to identified myself as an american. but, i would assert
1) in many cultural ways brown kidz who didn’t take the bobby route have more in common culturally with bobby than they do with their “ancestral cultures.”
2) there’s a big spectrum of what brown is. it’s being constructed right here, right now, but people who are generating their own perceptions and boundaries. i think it’s just an empirical reality that a north indian hindu is probably the “core” brown identity because of numbers. but people go in a lot of different directions and have a lot of combinations.
3) there are grounds to criticize bobby jindal. but put me in the category of those uneasy the implications that he’s obviously a sellout, as this sellout wonders if one day we’ll be outside the magic circle of brownitutde.
I’m not sure you’d get tagged as an assimilationist just by the name you gave your kid. Honestly I think the assimilationist charge on Jindal is based primarily on his being a Republican fundamentalist. Everything else just “confirms” the suspicion.
As for names, there are a lot of pretty cool Arabic names for kids. My brother actually gave both his son and his daughter Arabic names. While he’s irreligious his wife is actually a rather traditionalist Hindu so that really surprised me.
If you want a Greco-Roman name for your kid though you really should go all out. Latin names have a certain power to them. You should name your kid Scipio Africanus!
Honestly I think the assimilationist charge on Jindal is based primarily on his being a Republican fundamentalist.
what does being a ‘republican fundamentalist’ has to do not do with being desi? IOW, bobby’s politics are not mine (though i am to the Right of most people here), and it is totally kool to hate on someone for their politics. american as apple pie. but why the charges of being a sellout? what is ineluctability brown that he has contravened? is it is the conjunction of a whole set of parameters? or is it something specific like that he converted to christianity and then dissed hindus to other christians?
Scipio Africanus!
i’ll let the kid get his own agnomen 😉 as for scipio, there are issues re: pronunciation of that name…i don’t want a son with a nickname “skippy” 🙂 kato kaelin also ruined cato.
The issue is more that he was not born Bobby, and that he took on the name as a way to assimilate. That DOES reflect his discomfort with being in his skin and on his rather desperate need to fit into (white) culture (The Brady Bunch being the rather iconic representation of idyllic White America). If he had been born a Bobby or had taken on that name because of his conversion, that would be a different matter. The name change, whatever the real reason may be, implies a level of self-hatred, which, however common among some immigrant minorities, is not something that is respected. That is, one can assimilate while maintaining one’s heritage (ones name usually being a signifier). Rejecting one so wholeheartedly while embracing another just seems crass.
This is probably why so many people keep bringing up his name. It is the narrative that surrounds it that brings up too many echoes (legitimately or not) of minority shame within majority culture.
The fundamentalist bit there wasn’t attached to the Republican bit. I should have used a comma. He’s not just Christian, he’s one of the theocratic dominionist ones (which is where the “Republican” comes in.)
I don’t personally know enough about Jindal’s views on India or Indian culture to determine whether he’s a sell-out or not so if I want to dis him I generally stick to terms like “nutjob” or “jackass.” But whether he’s Indian or not would depend on whether he has any pride in India or its culture. Dinesh D’Souza, for example, is a total sell-out because he goes out of his way to throw insults at Indians from an outsiders’ perspective.
This is probably why so many people keep bringing up his name. It is the narrative that surrounds it that brings up too many echoes (legitimately or not) of minority shame within majority culture.
this is a plausible enough narrative. my point is that you don’t really know, you’re connecting the dots. i think perhaps we might take an “innocent-until-proven-guilty” position. that’s why i’m suspicious of the term “self-hatred.” perhaps this is who bobby jindal really is? as for the points about shame, etc., those are real, and don’t reflect well on someone’s character. but, again, whole nations change their identities, religions, languages, etc. perhaps one can point to bobby and say “what a loser,” but this sort of individual act of transformation is pretty common, and it’s how all of us got our “heritage.”
The fundamentalist bit there wasn’t attached to the Republican bit. I should have used a comma. He’s not just Christian, he’s one of the theocratic dominionist ones (which is where the “Republican” comes in.)
well, bobby has pandered to creationists, so i’m not going to pushback on this too much. but, i would want a clarification of the ‘dominionist’ appellation. i’ve seen it thrown at lots of right-wing social conservative catholics, but from what i know technically it refers to a particular perspective among calvinists. has ‘dominionist’ just come to mean more generally those who imbue their politics with a religious perspective which his exclusionary or anti-pluralist?
I brought up his name because I think it makes him more acceptable to the assimilationists. One of their arguments is that they don’t like foreign names, and that everybody ought to have “American” names. Hopefully they can pronounce Bobby just fine. (And Jindal rhymes with jingle, so they should be fine with his last name too)
He is free to name his kids whatever he wants, but it does signify something If his son had been named Moishe Teitelbaum Jindal, what would you think? If his daughter had been named LaQuisha Jindal, what would you think? If his son had been named Dolf Wotan Jindal and his daughter Virginia Dare Jindal, what would you think?
He’s a brown Catholic. Slade Ryan (to my ears) sounds very waspy, that is, very white, very angle an very protestant. It sounds as deliberate as any of the names I’ve listed above.
More after I grab a bite to eat.
I understand “Dominionist” to mean a worldview which says Christianity is the one true religion, governments should explicitly govern from a “Christian” worldview, and Christians alone should run the show reducing all others (including people who aren’t “Christian” enough) should be relegated to second class status.
Basically, it’s like Iran with a Bible in your hand and no beard on your chin.
Buster, I’m confused by your feedback. If I started a post by saying what a big change Jackie Robinson represented and then went on to talk about how he was the ideal man to desegregate baseball, given how he exemplified the traditional virtues of sportsmanship and was an exceptional athlete, would you say that my lede had contradicted the substance of my post?
The ones who hate Jindal’s politics are pulling at straws for having changed his name to bobby when he was in Kindergarden. If I was named Piyush…I would change my name too. It has more to do with other kindergardners going Pee yuuu than anything else. I doubt he was thinking political advantage in choosing Bobby. I am sure his wife had a say in naming their kid Slade. Slade sounds like a ‘cool’ ladies man name rather than any political connotations to it.
If his kids name choice is the burning issue in his ability to be a good governor…than I say he is doing pretty well.
I meant to say those criticizing Jindal….Its late.
If his son had been named Moishe Teitelbaum Jindal, what would you think? If his daughter had been named LaQuisha Jindal, what would you think?
fair enough point. laqisha. lol.
He’s a brown Catholic. Slade Ryan (to my ears) sounds very waspy, that is, very white, very angle an very protestant. It sounds as deliberate as any of the names I’ve listed above.
american white cultures are more diverse than this, you’re stereotypes aren’t too fine-grained. the catholics in louisana are cajun, which is way diff. than northern catholics. here’s a baby name map. a new england WASP would not have a name like ‘slade.’ it’s a nouveau name and lacks class. things are different in the south, and the southern upper class has that weird habit of giving kids last names as first (e.g., jackson). it turns out that slade is a welsh surname, but i suspect it is a normal name in his social circles. see this article on politics & baby names.
btw, bobby didn’t take a big step toward assimilation: marry a white chick (which around 1/3 of american brown brownz do).
Razib —
Slade is a rare first name, but a common last name with English origins. However, this habit of using family names as first names is one which is WASPy, and since the last name is WASPy as well, it signifies Waspitude.
‘ it’s a nouveau name and lacks class.
let me clarify here: i was once in louisiana, and a lot of upper middle class people had names i thought were “trashy” (that is, those are the sort of names that working and lower class people had where i lived). so there are regional differences here.
thinking about it further….
assimilationist: yeah, a good case self-hating: not convinced
Actually, I’d argue that marrying a Brown girl would ingratiate him to the traditionalist Whites moreso than “stealing our White wimmin” would. Well maybe it wouldn’t ingratiate him, but it would certainly avoid pissing them off.
Although growing up in the South myself, I can attest that I feel like my race is a much bigger factor there dating-wise than it is for me in New England now. And in those cases where race wasn’t a deal religion pretty much made it a deal-breaker.
I wont claim he’s self-hating, I wouldn’t have the evidence to substantiate such a claim. He has definitely chosen to transform himself, and he’s consistently chosen to transform himself in a direction consistent with assimilation.
Far more important than names is how Jindal has behaved w.r.t. desis, such as when the two Indian students at LSU were murdered. Also, as far as I can tell, unlike Obama who showcased his immigrant family heritage, Jindal seems to shy away from that topic. So the impression generated is one of a politician who wants to emphasize the American side of the hyphenated identity, and hide the brown side of it.
Self-hating is just one possible explanation for why he might choose that path. I can’t tell if it’s right explanation because I don’t know what’s motivating him.
It’s unfortunate enough that a bunch of omniscient critics love to bash this man for an all-consuming self-hatred which they have uncannily, expertly diagnosed, but I find it especially distasteful that now, we’re suddenly the Judiciary branch in charge of who gets to name their kid what– and to what degree we may then criticize them for being “too assimilated”.
Sad. The whole obsession with male Jindal names is sad. And pathetic. Slade is a popular southern name, AFAIK. What if– hear me out here– what if…Bobby and Supriya just like the name?
Have you collapsed from shock at that possibility?
That maybe they didn’t use focus groups or engage in pitiable insecurity about what a few thousand bitter, irrelevant brown people would think of them, when going about their own business and naming THEIR child? I met a little brown baby named Jayden. How about you cackle about that, anonymously, on the interweb? Or is Jayden all good because his Dad is NOT a “sell-out” whose lifestyle and decisions conjure the discomfort about being “different” in which you marinated, back in the third grade?
Apparently, it’s a lot more labor-intensive (and far less fun) to come up with a coherent comment about how disappointing it is that a Rhodes Scholar claims to believe in Creationism, so why not default to this lazy bullshit?
Actually, I’d argue that marrying a Brown girl would ingratiate him to the traditionalist Whites moreso than “stealing our White wimmin” would. Well maybe it wouldn’t ingratiate him, but it would certainly avoid pissing them off.
good point.
So the impression generated is one of a politician who wants to emphasize the American side of the hyphenated identity, and hide the brown side of it.
i think deemphasized is fine, but “hide” seems too strong of a word. he can’t hide it. there’s a difference between barack obama and bobby jindal: barack obama looks “american.” that is, he looks black. even the name isn’t necessarily a bar since black americans sometimes give their kids african names or change their last names to african or islamic ones.
FWIW, when i was in louisiana (baton rouge) years ago it was kind of strange because sometimes i think i confused people because they dichotomize life into black an white.
I understand “Dominionist” to mean a worldview which says Christianity is the one true religion, governments should explicitly govern from a “Christian” worldview, and Christians alone should run the show reducing all others (including people who aren’t “Christian” enough) should be relegated to second class status.
yeah, this is all true. but it came out of neo-calvinism in the USA. it seems to me that the term ‘dominionist’ has lost the narrow sectarian connotation, but perhaps it is important to remember that the seminal thinkers in the movement are neo-calvinists who don’t take kindly to roman catholics. roman catholics don’t have any equivalent theology in the mainstream of the church that i know, they made peace with democratic liberalism in the 1960s with vatican ii (though the catholic church had views closer to dominionism before then). this is only relevant because bobby is a roman catholic so i can’t be help wince at the aspersion ‘dominionist’ when the original dominionists considered the papacy the whore of babylon and stuff.
Who cares if Jindal’s first name is Bobby or Bouba? Who cares if he looks like us, talks like us or from our village?
Many of his positions are unpalatable (to me) and that’s what eventually matters, doesn’t it?
Many of his positions are unpalatable (to me) and that’s what eventually matters, doesn’t it?
amen? 🙂
btw, for the record: “Diversity can be good in moderation — if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers — as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.â€
the quote is from a “nativist” who has a korean mother.
Anna, you and I are simply going to disagree on this.
I can’t find the 2000 census first name list, but Slade as a first name is so rare that it doesn’t even show up in the frequency tabulations in 1990.
It is a common British last name though, so it’s as if he had named his son “Wellington.” Now he and his wife can name their son whatever they want, but as with Moishe and LaQuisha, I’m not going to pretend that there’s no significance to their choice. Even if they chose Slade purely because they liked the sound of it, it still tells us something.
(FWIW, Moises is ranked around 600 amongst American male first names (there is no listing for the nickname Moishe) and there is no listing for LaQuisha, but there is a LaQuanda at around ranking 3100 or so)
That said, I restricted my reference to names to a single line in this post, and even then used it just to illustrate the fact that Jindal would be acceptable to nativists rather making any point about what it revealed about his “true nature.”
It is a common British last name though, so it’s as if he had named his son “Wellington.”
lol. does he want his son to be assumed to be gay?
…not that there’s anything wrong with it!
It is a common British last name though, so it’s as if he had named his son “Wellington.” Now he and his wife can name their son whatever they want, but as with Moishe and LaQuisha, I’m not going to pretend that there’s no significance to their choice.
no, this is kind of off topic, but the analogy with wellington doesn’t work right. wellington is a classic “foppish” first name (it was even the first name of the tragic doctor in dune). the kind of effete upper class name that people give their kids to suggest status, or perhaps a family name. slade is as you note really obscure. moishe and laquisha are not obscure. if a jewish family gives their daughter the name rahel instead of rachel, or some the name moishe instead of moses, that tells you something as to their attitude toward assimilation with the gentile world (since many hebrew names have common ‘american’ equivalents). similarly, the name laquisha or tyrone are strongly black coded names. slade is just a generic white name, kind of meatheadish sounding. the “signal” is a lot weaker than the other names you’ve offered. anna’s hypothesis that they just “liked the sound” seems to hold for more obscure first names, or newish rare names, than it does “classic” names.
Wellington is a common last name which is rare as a first name, it also doesn’t show up in the frequency charts of male first names in 1990.
The comparisons to Wellington, Moises and LaQuanda were intended to make a different point – the fact that some first names are highly coded by community and so the use of the name by somebody outside the community is significant.
Slade, like Wellington, is an English last name turned first name. Not a common first name for a young Catholic boy in America. As a good Bayesian, even though Slade is rare, I’d infer from the name that the holder is both white and protestant. The Jindals are neither.
ok, i did a spot check. “slade” looks to be overrepresented in southern states, but not exceedingly so.
methodology, http://www.intelius.com, slade = first name, just select states.
p.s. around the same number of guys named Wellington as Slade in LA according to your methodology.
Annachechi, I don’t really understand why the discussion about Bobby Jindal’s name and his son’s name isn’t fair game in this context. No one on this thread is claiming that if he had just named his son Slade and converted to RC, without all the other things that go with it, including the fundamentalism and his downplaying of his immigrant roots, that the name would be a problem. But the truth is that the names are just the most obvious aspect of something that makes me and a lot of people uncomfortable about Bobby Jindal, he wants to so badly be like the people he grew up with, he is pushing away the thing that must surely have been such a huge part of his life, which is his desi identity. Even if he did have a very typical American childhood, there must have been something that was out of the mainstream because of who his parents were, so why this pretense that he is exactly the same as a white kid from Louisiana. He is essentially whitewashing his life, his parents (except when he needs to trot out the hardworking immigrants schtick), and the things that shaped him.
Hmm, you don’t understand my feedback, I don’t understand your reply. I pointed out that your lede indicates that today’s GOP is NOT “yo daddy’s” variant anymore. Then your post indicates that, in fact, the GOP has changed very little, if at all. “Old wine in a new bottle.” (In this respect, by the way, I think you are spot on.)
Now, imagine that in said hypothetical Jackie Robinson article, your lede was: “The rules of baseball just ain’t the same.” Then you went on to point out that the game hadn’t changed at all–the rules for calling a balk remained the same, the strike zone wasn’t narrowed, and you still couldn’t play in the big leagues with an aluminum bat. I would then make the same criticism.
At any rate, it was a minor point of craftsmanship, but one that in this instance seemed important to me, as the first sentence in this piece distracts from the larger point made in the rest of the post. Which is an important point, as some people are getting all gassed with Jindal excitement, extremely prematurely and wrong-headedly (the latter being, strictly speaking, just my opinion).
45 · Lea said
waht did he do to his parents?
wait…which one is it?
The name Bobby is one of the most common names among punjabi males born in Canada and the United States.
Diversity can be good in moderation — if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers — as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.†[Link]
What is wrong with most Americans wanting keep there dominant culture. They are no different then dominant ethnic groups everywhere else in the world. Who feel the same way about there culture. But for some reason America is held to different standard.