I was hesitant when I heard 60 Minutes was doing an interview with Governor Bobby Jindal because frankly, I didn’t think I could take sixty minutes of the sing-songy voice we heard on Tuesday night. But Jindal’s segment is only 12 minutes long. So I watched. And was a little bit impressed. Don’t believe me? Here, watch for yourself.
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I’m not sure if it’s because I’m juxtaposing this clip with his speech earlier this week, but I actually kind of liked watching it. The segment shows him as an ethical, straight-edge, god-fearing, son-of-immigrants, birthed-his-third-child-himself family man. I think it was smart of him to do this interview so soon after the disastrous performance earlier this week, but I’m just not sure enough people watched it to nullify the effect.
It was interesting how Jindal and his wife tried to downplay the Indian factor when approached with questions of race. When asked if he felt any racial tension while being raised in Baton Rouge, he said he didn’t feel any and “they accept you based on who you are.” When asked about if his family maintained any Indian traditions, the couple responded, “Not too many. We’ve been here for so many years. We were raised as Americans.”
Personally, I think that maintaining Indian traditions is completely American and you should not have to marginalize one for the other. We are all Americans with a hyphenated back story. But I also think the question was poorly asked and I wonder if the couple would have responded differently if it was a Desi reporter asking the question with more nuance. I also wonder how much of what they say to media is political posturing verses what they feel about identity behind closed doors.
Overall, I think it was a decent bio-fluff interview with no real hard hitting questions from 60 Minutes. We didn’t learn too many new Jindal facts, though Manish listed some here. But I think what this interview did for me was remind me that there’s a brown* guy in politics gunning for Obama’s seat in seven years. But from the other side. And my kind of brown*. And that is kind of… remarkable.
*I say brown. Republicans say beige. Can someone explain to me why he’s the “beige hope”, not “brown hope”?
When asked about if his family maintained any Indian traditions, the couple responded, “Not too many. We’ve been here for so many years. We were raised as Americans. Personally, I think that maintaining Indian traditions is completely American and you should not have to marginalize one for the other. We are all Americans with a hyphenated back story.
I still don’t understand why there are many in the desi community who use this as an excuse to be critical of Jindal. The guy grow in part of America in the 70’s and 80’s with a small desi community may have had alot to do with it.
I think the 2 people who may benefit the most of Jindal who may not be indian enough are his daughters.
Mrs.Jindal highschool picture.
http://public.fotki.com/apjung/the_chee-weez/archives/gkhs/1989/gk01.html
When I saw him say that he didn’t feel any racial tensions growing up in Louisiana I laughed. I grew up in a diverse suburb of Los Angeles ten years after Jindal was a kid and I got all sorts of racist crap thrown at me for being Indian, especially in elementary school. He is full of it.
And I laughed even harder at the question about the Indian tradition question. This guy can claim he is true blue American for political reasons but I’d love to see him with his parents. His parents are still instilled with Indian traditions and so he has to know plenty about them.
In general, the interview made him look like a tool, as did his speech. He is just trying to gun for the GOP nomination and to do that he has to stay far right of center and not like his ethnic background get in the way. Total tool. I use to like him a lot more, but now I think he is going to get stereotyped as a combination of Palin and Pat Bucchanan (a nerdy dude who will get ripped to pieces on SNL like Palin did; combined with a ideologically right wing nut who can’t appeal to mainstream voters).
If he were smart he would have used the speech to talk about how he can change the GOP by being more inclusive and modifying this government is the problem attitude. Anyway, the GOP is so weak he still is the front runner for the GOP nomination in 2012.
Ah, that’s why they accept you “based on who you are.”
Yeah, he’s being a politician – lying / shaping/crafting reality. I scoffed at this too.
Because Republicans are afraid to say the word brown. It’s a euphemism, a pretty transparent one at that.
You would think that AFTER Obama someone like Jindal could be more open about race, but it’s the opposite because he’s a Republican in a redneck state and he wants to win the GOP nomination, which he can’t do by being open about his background. It’s pure BS.
The guy definitely knows policy and he will eventually get the GOP nomination, but he doesn’t have the vision that Obama does.
I’m beginning to wonder, if racism is really less about the actual skin color than it is about the mannerisms, the behaviors, the accents, the sounds, the vernacular inherent in any culture. If Jindal didn’t sound like a Christian evangelical American, if his name wasn’t “Bobby”, if he didn’t walk and talk like a white-bread, didn’t have conservative/religious thoughts/ideas, would he be accepted?
I’m really beginning to think that racism is less about the color and more about everything else associated with it.
No racism is about how you look too. If Obama wasn’t Obama but looked the same he couldn’t get a cab at 11pm in most American cities.
No racism is about how you look too. If Obama wasn’t Obama but looked the same he couldn’t get a cab at 11pm in most American cities.
Really sad that those racist “DESI” cabdrivers will not pick someone up who looks like obama.
Taz,
Don’t worry about beige, it’s just a ‘lighter shade of brown.’
At this stage he can’t win. He can only lose. There’s no possible way he could admit to being racially targeted as a kid. What would it achieve? Given that he’s a Republican from Louisiana, the sympathy he may gain from an admission like that is far outweighed by the risk of the story going wrong. Obama played a noncommittal game about a lot of stuff too. We’re 3..7…11 years away from a bid for him. Jindal’s just managing his image, not making any mistakes, and working on a solid policy resume. “By nature a cautious man.” Smart too.
I too scoffed at his response that he never encountered any difficulties growing up as a minority in Baton Rouge. Even his interviewer, Morley Safer, seemed skeptical of that possibility. While he may come across as impressive for his political accomplishments at such a young age, it seems to me that he has sacrificed his entire identity to his political ambitions. I don’t necessarily need for someone to wave an Indian flag around and claim his/her brownness, but the blatant denial of any connection and the attempt to appear “all-American” while taking on the role of representing the diversity of the GOP just doesn’t sit right with me. It would seem then that the Grand Ole Party is banking its dreams on someone who is just a different shade of white – beige – not a different kind of candidate. Sigh.
Perhaps because Chicanos called shotgun on ‘brown‘?
Here’s my 2 cents worth. I saw the sixty minutes show yesterday, and let me tell you this guy is just another republican opportunistic politician (also a slime ball). If he does not want to associate with Indian heritage and ethnicity, and does not take pride in his roots, then I say let us stop talking about him, as he will go down the same way as many others like him. btw he needs to put on some weight by eating those Jamablayas and southern grits and biss-kits 🙂
Except that Jindal looks a darker shade of brown. He looks blacker than Obama.
What struck me was how different he and Obama are in their attitudes towards being American. For Jindal, being American means assimilating to white culture, and discarding whatever other heritage you have. For Obama, being American means having plural heritages all brought together by common ideals.
I was about to attribute this to the difference between Hawaii and Louisiana, but then I reflected that Louisiana was built by dissenters and non-conformists, since it was a French Catholic colony that got absorbed by the USA. But Cajuns are proud of their distinctive heritage, and don’t feel any the less American for it. No, I think the big difference is between Barack and Piyush, Barry and Bobby.
Minor point, but I had the nagging feeling that the interviews were actually done before his rebuttal. Safer kept juxtaposing it and even invoked Limbaugh, but never really put it to Jindal himself, except perhaps the part where he brought up Gingrich (though – and I haven’t kept up with this too much – Gingrich could have been talking up Jindal before the rebuttal). So, I had the feeling that he’d gotten the interview before and the rest was editing. But I could easily be wrong. Anyone know for sure?
i totally disagree. this is just not fair. a man should not be held prisoner to his color by anyone.
It is a bit disappointing, and honestly a bit revolting, to see all this psychoanalysis of Jindal and universal judgments about the appropriate way to be Indian in America. The man has made some personal choices – it isn’t at all clear that he considers them normative or the only way to be American, I haven’t heard him imply that in any statements at all. What he should be held accountable for is his expressed views and policies to the extent that they affect others, and I think there is plenty to dislike on that count.
I watch The Soup on E! on a weekly basis and know what the show is about – especially that one cannot be too sensitive about its content. But the last week’s show (first aired on 02/27/2009) was a new low, even for that show.
In the introduction segment where they mention the show’s content, the voice over says, and I paraphrase, “we wash the stains off the Oscar red carpet” – and at the same time they show the Slumdog Millionaire kids at the Oscar red carpet. They cut to Billy Bush saying “gross”. To knock on poor kids from the slum is the height of douce baggery, IMO.
The show then begins with the SM kids being interviewed where they are really excited and talking very fast – the host Joel McHale interjects saying “slow it down kids” and they cut to Bobby Jindal saying in his Louisianian accent “my dad used to say Bobby, Americans can do anything”.
While not agreeing with Bobby Jindal’s politics, this characterization is terrible. SM kid = Gov. Jindal because of his skin color is really what is being said and I wish we can voice our disgust with this to the concerned folks. I for one, will longer watch that show and we hope more can be done.
So Jindal can deny his Indianness all he wants, but the rest of America won’t.
I’m a little surprised by the animosity here. I’m part Bengali, but have never lived there, don’t speak a lick of the language, and consider that part of my heritage fairly low on the totem pole of things i’m interested in learning more about. Am I running from my roots or ashamed of them? People seem to be taking this almost personally. Like in distancing himself from India, he’s somehow calling them inferior.
khoofi @19: I am not asking to hold anyone prisoner – by his color. Look at the short history of USA or for that matter history of any country and their leaders. Regardless of where one was born – great leaders and shakers were always proud of their heritage – whether it was English, Irish, German, Polish, etc… He can deny all he wants but his Indianness shows and will show up as he gears up for 2012 and beyond. Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh calls him Future Reagan – but Regan was never shy of his ethnicity, was he?
21 · KundiKarruppan said
FTW! SO TRUE!
15 · Yo Dad said
I’m so with Yo Dad. I AM impressed with the fact that he seems to be a good politician, good guy, smart, straight laced, educated and accomplished but the minute he denied his roots and downplayed the desi connection it turned me off. There is something phony and disingenuous about someone who is first generation and doesn’t feel any connection to his parents heritage especially the very principles of his heritage and culture that probably instilled in him the qualities that have made him a leader.
I can’t trust someone who would so easily and willingly let go of his roots for personal political gain. It was really disappointing to see. If Obama proved anything to us and the next generation it was that you could be a minority with lots of challenges and still overcome them.
Bobby Jindal just told the next generation of aspiring minority Presidential hopefuls that they can only get there by denying who they are because if they tried to be bicultural (as if it’s so difficult to be American and Indian at the same time) that would make them UN-AMERICAN. Being Indian and being American are not mutually exclusively in my world. I don’t want my kids looking up to this kind of leader.
Yo Dad and JOAT —
You’re pointing out something interesting. Jindal seems to be using a pre-Obama playbook, both tactically and ideologically. This means he downplays his heritage, while both Reagan and Obama talked about how their heritage made them more American. (It also means that this ideological views seem to have been frozen in around 2002, but that’s not relevant to discussions of race).
Rahul — you’re right that he’s not making any claims about what anybody else should do, but it’s naive to see this as a purel personal choice on this part. Any politician worth his salt will have had political advisors and possibly even focus groups weigh in on this issue. The nativists are a strong force within the party, one that almost managed to block McCain and convinced him to recant his position on immigration. There’s no way Jindal hasn’t strategized his presentation of his own immigrant past.
” There’s no way Jindal hasn’t strategized his presentation of his own immigrant past.”
given how it is being discussed, how well can that be going? It’s not like everybody is now suddenly above questioning his choice of public name, religion, party, etc. His answers show quite clearly that he’s not devoted a great deal of resources to defining a valence-issues-laden stance on assimilation and identity. Better that he continues to leave the issue starved of attention than divert any from the truly pressing problems that LA faces.
What’s tradition? What’s heritage? Eating dosas? Enjoying Kathak? Being fiscally prudent? Not wanting/giving something for nothing?
What Bobby should have replied is that he’s retained some traditions (fiscal prudence etc) while rejecting others.
JOAT>>Bobby Jindal just told the next generation of aspiring minority Presidential hopefuls that they can only get there by denying who they are
That’s your interpretation and you’re entitled to it. However, are’nt democrat desis guilty of the same? They tell the next generation of aspiring hopefuls that they can only get there by denying who they are(fiscal conservatives, family oriented etc).
I think SMers need to make up their mind as to which traditions have lasted the test of time and which have withered away and are not worth maintaining.
M. Nam
i speak from personal experience. in order to work with the broadest category of people one has to avoid being coerced into a bucket. obama and jindal are BOTH minorities and hence have had to leave a lot of blank space for OTHERS to fill in. obama has the benefit of a two-race gene pool and upbringing. he is also goodlooking and has benefited from a racial group that voted for him as one bloc essentially. jindal doesnt have any of these advantages. i dont really need to defend him, but honestly – i get a better chuff looking at his profile than i did when i saw obama’s. for heck’s sake – the guy is brilliant and he is governor of louisiana. he has smashed through more barriers than anyone i know. I WANT to say, Fuck YEA!! do whatever it takes but go for the big one. Win or lose, I’m going to be smiling through it all.
or maybe i’m just a little older, more scarred than y’all. I relate to the junkyard dawg in he. and i LIKEs it. heeyaa.!
Nayagan — we’re not the target audience. I suspect this is playing quite well amongst the people who were meant to hear it, and as for us … well, we were unlikely to vote for him anyway. ABDs can gripe about Jindal all the want, it wont hurt him politically at all.
18: I agree. This was definitely taped before the rebuttal. He was never once asked about the reaction to his speech. Doubt the Republicans will let him go out there so soon again. The piece did not have a time element to it. It could have been broadcast anytime really. But CBS was the smart one: they knew people would tune in, wanting to see how Bobby would fend off the criticisms. Which he didn’t.
“i speak from personal experience. in order to work with the broadest category of people one has to avoid being coerced into a bucket”
coercion can be met and faced off with a “more country than you” accent and much regional cultural reference dropping. That is Jindal’s ‘way’ and mine as well.
and it is a function of him being indian, and an academic overachiever, and a policy wonk, and having a can-do attitude towards everything [including being the midwife for their first baby.]
Nice family. It looks like his kids, mercifully, take after his wife and not him.
There is certainly a double-standard at work here – but that goes with the territory. So far, Jindal has been handling himself well. Since Jindal is a Republican, he is constrained in how different he can be. Obama looked different, but was quite a traditional Democrat – pro-union, suspicious of free trade, believes government can solve a problem, provided it has the right leadership. But remember, during the Democratic primaries, Obama was careful to distance himself from other black politicians or political power brokers. He wanted to make a name for himself, and not simply be dismissed as the next Jesse Jackson. He probably referred to Ronald Reagan more frequently as a model than Andrew Young or Tom Bradley. In all the family photos he ran in his campaign ads, he prominently featured his white relatives, and limited his black relatives to his wife and children. African American commentators understood why he did this, and were more likely to express frustration at a culture that expected Obama to do this, rather than direct their hostility towards Obama. A number of posters here do not want to extend that understanding to Jindal.
Jindal’s approach is not that different – to reassure Republican primary voters, which tend to be predominately Southern, white, and Christian, he has to demonstrate those traits. His public discussion of his religion is more annoying than unsettling. While I may express some personal disappointment in his seeming to be evasive on his Indian background, I am not in his shoes. Even a simple statement like enjoying his mother’s Indian cooking would have satisfied some.
And as pointed out earlier – what is an Indian background? After all, he seems to be a devoted family man, signed an ethics reform law that his more “American” colleagues never signed. He pursued an advanced degree. Plus, Christianity has been in India well before Islam or Sikhism. Christianity arrived in India before it set foot on the British Isles.
Personally, I’d rather have him turn Louisiana around.
It is time for Mr. Jindal to look up conservatism in a dictionary.
…I cannot deny my past to which my self is wed, the woven figure cannot undo its thread.
35 · KXB said
Yeah, I think this is why some have trouble with his downplaying of his Indian heritage. It just seemed like a total rejection. Bobby, you, like most of us, grew in an immigrant household, ate Indian food, probably learned some of your parents’ language, were likely exposed to Indian music, movies, stories, myths, etc., but you can’t say one thing that connects you to your heritage? Throw us a bone here.
But you’re right. We aren’t in his shoes. He is a politician in a conservative Southern state with a very complex racial history. He has to do what he has to do. When does mention his family/heritage, it is in a context he likely feels his constituents can appreciate (i.e., the plucky immigrant family that came with very little, made most of opportunities and got ahead). I guess that should count for something.
What a douche. I am most definitely not a fan, especially after hearing he changed his name, religion, and political affiliation. Lame. He seems to have done everything short of bleaching his skin, MJ-style, to appear white. I’m not usually one that insists on being 100% Indian, especially when you’re born and brought up here, but this guy has absolutely no pride in his roots.
I disagree with pretty much everything Jindal stands for in the sphere of public policy, particularly his support for creationism, but that does not give me the right to judge/criticize him because he is not particualrly steeped in Indian traditions. Hey, if we all are so fond of our traditions, then why did we or our parents move here in the first place?
Btw, does anyone recall whether Obama was asked if he follows any Kenyan traditions?
What a puff piece that was. Not a single critical or negative opinion during the entire segment, but lots of fawning questions. Did 60 Minutes think they discovered Jindal, or what?
I would say it began disastrously especially when he was reciting all his “personal stories” but then as he went on to speaking on policies and issues he sounded better.
28 M Nam -> Agree with it wholeheartedly!
There may be many reasons to reject Bobby Jindal but his not enjoying dhaal-chawal is not one of them! I understand politics is a deeply personal thing and he may be playing to please his constituencies that may not include the diaspora. In this, he is probably no different from Dinesh D’Souza.
Those that are asking him to ‘throw a bone’ or crabbily pulling him back into the bucket to wallow with the ‘rest of us’ are practicing an insidious form of extracting conformance, which I might add is a very ‘unamerican’ trait. I sense a widespread infection of defensiveness amongst the confused desis.
3 · backbencher said
i’ve seen people all over the place on this one. i had maybe one or two racial incidents growing up and have met many black and jews, very liberal ones who believe racism and anti-semitism remain large social problems, who concede they’ve personally never faced it.
but i do recall a vague sense of being differnt, and most importantly, having a higher hurdle when it came to girls(except indian girls of course, where the only hurdle was the parents). i think this is where the subjectivity comes in. what i just accepted as a fact of life…non-indians being tribal, identifying with their own community and behaving like, well indians, breads more resentment and anger in others, who see it as part of a racial hierarchy. ir racial tension.
doen’t know about lousiana though
I wonder what your threshold is and where you grew up. I had as many as 1-2 incidents a week, if you count random people yelling at me. I got to the point where I tuned it out and people walking with me would react to something I hadn’t even heard. It wasn’t traumatic, but it did make me wary because even if most of these people were never going to act on it, there was the implied threat of violence.
26 · Ennis said
Ennis, I think it is perfectly acceptable to focus on the Republican party’s narrow view of minority participation in American culture. It is perfectly likely that Jindal made his choices to gain acceptability within the party. However, the disapproval and sanctimony that your comment smacks of, as well as other comments here, is a bit much – given that Jindal has not made or hinted at any appropriate ways to be Indian in America, it certainly is not appropriate to suggest that his way of being Indian in America is lesser in some way. As somebody earlier mentioned, Obama had to tread a very fine line on the blackness issue too, going far out of his way not to seem too foreign, or not to be the angry black man, the label with which stellar civil rights leaders in the black community have been tarred. Of course, there were those in the black community who debated whether he wasn’t black enough, as a result of this.
(This is even aside from the question of how Indian he would have to be for him to be considered Indian enough. Does he have to score 100 out of 100 in maths? Does he have to wear a down jacket that’s twice as thick as he is? Does he have to reek of garam masala? Honestly, people have to give this shitty identity politics up, and accept that Jindal does not owe it to you or India or the “Indian community” or “Indian culture” to be appropriately Indian in any way, shape, or form. If he makes president – which I hope he doesn’t, because it would mean that the wingnut social conservative faction of the Republican party has prevailed – those who care about the identity issue should be happy that a man with the last name of Jindal got there.)
(Second, the stories that he has told of his life, which haven’t been contradicted as far as I know, are that he adopted the moniker of Bobby as a young kid, and converted to Catholicism in high school. If he did that to become governor one day, well, I think we should all be in awe of his dedication, determination, and foresight at a time when we were more worried about the acne on our faces. I think that it is much more plausible that there were other reasons why he chose to identify with these values, than ascribing it to focus groups that would make him acceptable to nativist groups on the off chance that he would be the leading GOP contender for President. Remember that in any Indian family, breaking with the religion to go with another is a BIG move, I doubt he did it lightly, or that it was received casually in his family; I vaguely recall that there was a period of estrangement with his parents as a consequence, to still stick with that decision when he was so young reflects some sort of deep-seated conviction about his choice. If you still want to go down the psychoanalysis route, I would bet that a schoolyard bully was the reason for the name change, but honestly, I really don’t care.)
Shame on you, far too many of you.
If you want to hate the man, go ahead, but blanket pronouncements about what other people in our community must do to get your approval or stamp of authenticity are, as Rahul correctly observed, revolting. You don’t know what his childhood was like. You don’t know shit, except what YOUR childhood was like. To extrapolate that someone is lying because their recollection of something doesn’t conform to your own experiences is idiotic as well as insensitive. And how much stereotyping do you feel like engaging in, anyway? I’m 34. I was born here. I have older cousins in rural parts of this country who never experienced having their arm broken in three places while being called “Indian nigger”, like I did, in fabulous, sunny, tolerant California. It’s incredibly offensive to assert that people in Louisiana are somehow less evolved than people in other places, so Jindal must be lying. But a lot of this thread is incredibly offensive, and I’m saying that about the comments which were made by some of my own friends.
This blog was founded to upend stereotypes, ignorance and conformist ways of thinking– within our community as well as without. After this comment thread, I feel like we have quite a ways to go…within. No, I don’t love or support Jindal’s policy positions, but I don’t feel like violently disagreeing with someone’s take on creationism is a license to attack them viciously. Oh, wait…that’s not what a lot of you are disagreeing with, is it?
30 · Ennis said
Not true. A big portion of his fund raising comes from wealthy Indian Americans, and as we can see from this thread, there is at least one first-genner who can’t abide Jindal for what he sees as the betrayal of the Indian traditions. It doesn’t come free of cost.
44 · Ennis said
this might help explain the discrepancy: i had indian friends nearby who went to different school districts and faced a much higher level of taunting, like being called “Gandhi” in the hallway. but they were in catholic, italian, irish neighborhoods. i grew up in a jewish one where the sensitivity level was extremely high.
one time a dude taunted me by saying how he saw a film on india, and how we were all poor and disgusting; but he got absolutely pummelled by his friends, who then retorted we (jews) were in a holocaust and how would you like it if manju made fun of you for that. and so it went…
Jindal is so awkward. Why does he walk like his wife just took a strap on to him?
To be fair he gave the political answer to the “racial tension” question and said “I dont know, people here accept you”
but this was just painful for me to watch. Obama was wearing turban’s and visting his grandmother in Kenyan villages and he turned out okay.
I do almost nothing “Indian” in my life. Reading this blog is about the most Indian thing I do, but I dont pretend like my Indian background isnt there.
Got nothing to do with objective policies and issues from a liberal/democratic viewpoint (remember separation of church and state). But maybe you are trying to address something which some Republicans probably cling as to how upbringing and cultural background affects policy making and governing ? Solution could perhaps be to selectively choose venues where you can filter one more than the other ?