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.
Watch CBS Videos Online
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”?
I wonder what your threshold is and where you grew up. I had as many as 1-2 incidents a week
I don’t go looking for racism but growing up in rural NC, very Republican by the way, I didn’t experience any racism. It was cool for me to be Indian, except in hs, when I couldn’t date, and I was sooo aware of my cultural differences at that age. But it wasn’t racial epithets that made me feel bad; it was the fact that I couldn’t participate in lots of social activities that my friends wanted me to do. Could people have said things about me and my family w/o me knowing?…sure but I didn’t experience it firsthand…but it is sharp contrast to what some of my friends growing up in Potomac, MD and Northern Va experienced. In Potomac which is pretty diverse, my friend was spit on…same with my friend who grew up N. Va, who was beaten up often in middle school over Indian taunts. I didn’t experience anything like that.
However 15 years after my older sister and I grew up in that rural town, my little sister came about. And if you ask her about our rural town, she says she hated it! And she had kindof mild racist taunts thrown her way like, “I don’t like chocolate milk” — don’t ask me where kids get these things…this was something that I remember was said to her in middle school. She’s done exceptionally well in school and when she got into a merit-based boarding school, there was a group of white kids who said crap about her and affirmative action. When she got into med school, these girls said the same thing. My sis find it so ironic and she hears these things through our town’s grapevine, as she knows that being Indian didn’t do jack shit to help her get into academic programs.
I would have thought someone growing up in Potomac, MD would have been fine, there was a lot of desis, I think even 15 years ago…but my friend had a different experience than me growing up in rural NC. His (my friend’s) father by the way, a very successful doctor in the area, told me that he has been stopped by police in Potomac and hastled and he actually took a policeman to court over this, but nothing came of it. My father on the hand, a very dark-skinned man, has gotten away with so many speeding tickets (he speeds often) b/c they realize who he is (in our little town he’s well known). So experiences can vary w/o someone trying to whitewash their life.
49 · ShallowThinker said
heh. well, why don’t you just read the blog while sipping johnny walker black…now tht’s keeping it real
I think there is a lot of confusion between “is” statements and “ought” statements in this thread. To say that Jindal probably eschewed some practices and traits that could have been perceived as “Indian” within his surrounding community and hence tried to “fit in” as it were is not to necessarily pass a normative judgment on the same. One is a matter of explanation (“is”) and the other is a strictly normative statement (what he “ought” to have done). Like all politicians, many of his decisions on how to present himself to the rest of the community probably had may strategic elements (the same incidentally could be said of many of Obama’s decisions earlier in his life). I don’t think there is something automatically condemnable in that (unless you dislike almost all politicians). Although most of his positions are execrable to me, I do not blame him for being a quintessential politician (political entrepreneur, rather). So while it is a bit naive to think that Jindal’s decisions about self-presentation are not strategic, it is also wrong to condemn him for his strategic decisions without equally condemning all those who have made certain goal oriented and calculated choices (how many of us have not somehow tries to “fit in” to our environment, e.g. by taking interest in certain sports b/c it makes our life easier in office or expands our friend’s circle; indeed I would argue that we constantly make these decisions).
10 · Suki Dillon said
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blockquote>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.
If by Desi, you include African cab drivers as well, you will be right. People do not like to get mugged. Certain situations are more susceptible to mugging than others. People like to avoid those situations. Nothing peculiarly Desi about that.
In my masters program I had an naturalized African classmate/friend who was changing his major after years in accounting. He had driven a cab to put himself through college in his undergrad years (70s) and told me that he would not pick up people going towards Harlem, etc.
If by Desi, you include African cab drivers as well, you will be right. People do not like to get mugged. Certain situations are more susceptible to mugging than others. People like to avoid those situations. Nothing peculiarly Desi about that.
I’m so glad you said that; South Asians don’t have any monopoly on racism.
If that is the case, then I am really screwed. I was always a poor math student.
I believe right now 13 US Senators are Jewish – how many of them are asked about which Jewish traditions they observe? In Illinois, our new governor, Pat Quinn, describes himself as an observant Catholic – yet he is firmly pro-choice. In those cases, the politicians are left alone about religion and ethnicity.
The people of Louisiana elected Jindal not because they were trying to correct their state’s checkered racial past, but because they were sick and tired of seeing their state be the laughing-stock of the country. If at the end of his term, the voters decide he did not do a good enough job, they will show him the door.
As for ragging on Louisiana – any state that gave us jazz, jambalaya, and Ali Landry is alright in my book.
Less Indian? Why? Because his name is Bobby? What makes you guys so Indian? What are the “indian traditions” that you guys have?
I’ve said this before and punjabis can back me up on this, Bobby is VERY common name (if anybody says otherwise you obviously havent lived in punjab).
And, Punjabis have that thing anyway, they always downplay their punjabi-ness (with their tutti angreji) unless punjabi songs are playing.
I’m on the center as far as politics go, I look at ability and not how a person looks like and anybody criticizing him on this blog has to be a hypocrite (if you think you’re not, go back in your life and think of a time you wanted to downplay something)
sigh@53, interesting point. if competition and capitalism breeds a drive to win in the outside world then whats wrong what jindal does wrt to his personal life ? i think what is probably happening is that just coz jindal is a desi, all desis are probably projecting their personal “desi” experiences (pleasant and unpleasant) and choices they made at home, within family, outside etc in trying to form an “opinion” abt jindal. nothing wrong but nevertheless a projection.
Does anyone else think that Jindal was set up by the GOP with his rebuttal speech? Purposefully made to look bad so they could legitimately give up on him and put a white face back in the forefront?
40 · cc said
I was thinking about how I would have answered the questions if posed to me. If an old white reporter asked me the same question, I probably would have responded like the Jindals did. But if someone asked me what my favorite Desi food was, sari or kurta, or a question that was more targeted within the scope of “tradition”, I may have answered it with a lot more thought. I don’t maintain “traditions” from the desh, per say, but I do have many things about me that I maintain that are distinctly hyphenated American.
Not to defend the Jindals, but I really do think the questions were asked poorly and if they were better done, we could have received the answers that many on this thread are itching for. I also think that the whole “Bobby married an Indian” woman – something I would consider very traditional – hasn’t even been touched upon on this thread and if he did harbor as much ‘self-Indian-hate’ as has been speculated, wouldn’t it be more likely he outmarried? I just think that there’s a lot about Bobby and the Jindals that we do not know (unlike Obama who wrote memoirs thoroughly covered race). He married an Indian, raises money from Indians, and mentioned his Indian bootstrap history in his speech on last week. I just think that we are not getting the full story, and it’s because of 1) How inept mainstream media is 2) Republican Party political posturing.
Romeo,
I believe you are coming from the right place but in your comment you generalize all the Punjabi’s with a broad brush.
Another thing to consider: Jindal is generally seen as pro-India in India. Of course it has more to do w/ Republican party’s pro-India tilt in recent years. But it’s funny to see Indian wonk tank offering him a pragmatic handshake while others are wringing their hands about his lack of Indianness.
Heavily disguised irony, I knew somebody would pick it up 😀 61 · umber desi said
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blockquote>Romeo,
30 · Ennis said
We were? Who is “we”? With your careful “unlikely” duly noted, it still annoys the fecal matter out of me when people assume that brown people think and vote alike. We don’t.
::
Is this all some of you got? He’s a “douche”? Or, “I’m not one to insist that people wave a flag or be 100% Indian” (except…you seem to be doing just that)? And my absolute favorite: “I’m not a fan of his because he converted”. What’s wrong with being Christian? Who do some of you think you are? You might just belong to religions that came to India AFTER mine did. KXB thoughtfully tried to school you, upthread:
You know, even if we want to ignore (!) his truly disturbing positions on major issues, criticizing his poor delivery of an uninspiring speech could be damning enough. There’s no need to expose your true feelings regarding your utterly presumptuous authenticity requirements. Oh, you thought this was a safe space to be an intolerant asshole because we brown people are “unlikely” to support Jindal, and thus would never call out such ignorant, offensive tripe? Wrong.
And, Punjabis have that thing anyway, they always downplay their punjabi-ness (with their tutti angreji) unless punjabi songs are playing.
What are you talking about. Most punjabi’s can’t go more then 5 minutes without talking about how great being punjabi is. That is one of the reasons that I like Bobby Jindal. It was good to see person of punjabi background who running for office and didn’t use his punjabi background.
Here in Canada there are many punjabi’s that run for office and they run in places where there are huge punjabi communities. And most of the time when they are running they talk about how great it is to be punjabi more then the issues. Some have even being elected to office without even speaking english that well.
Hey, if we all are so fond of our traditions, then why did we or our parents move here in the first place?
Maybe due to the place they lived was not a great place to live and alot of that had to do with the culture and traditions from there.
No one ask’s them but The House gets days off of Rosh Hashanah, Passover, Yom Kippur and the Senate goes by a similar schedule. That seem’s like they take the Jewish rep’s kind of seriously and I dont think any reporter has the ball’s to ask any of them what kind of Brisk they had.
By the way, does anyone else think that “Brisk” sounds like a great name for a soft drink? Everytime I say it, I get really thirsty.
67 · ShallowThinker said
Fantastic pun in your comment aside, do you mean bris? 🙂
Anna/KXB and Rahul
Thank you for your comments on this thread.
Not to be offensive Suki, but Canada is a little jattak (seriously, no offense, but its true)
And yeah, you’re right I phrased that wrong, they downplay their indian-ess, they do embrace puunjabi-ness.
Politically, Canada has a massive punjabi population, being punjabi is another trump card. I dont think it’ll be such a good move here to associate yourself closely to such a group thats so small and that would probably also alienate other Indians, forget about Americans.
65 · Suki Dillon said
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blockquote>And, Punjabis have that thing anyway, they always downplay their punjabi-ness (with their tutti angreji) unless punjabi songs are playing.
And btw I am Punjabi Hindu who in all likelihood is going to marry a Catholic may raise our kids as Catholics and it makes me really sad to see some of the comments on this thread.
Perhaps the better question is, “would Morley Safer have asked an European American politician, how many Italian/Russian/Irish/etc. traditions do you follow?”
Piyush Jindal can call himself anything and live any way he wants. Nothing makes up for the fact that he is on the wingnut fringes of an intellectually bankrupt party, and is quickly adopting the Goper playbook. His delivery of the rebuttal wasn’t the problem, it’s his motheaten and long discredited ideas that are. I thought GWB and Palin were bad, till I saw Swindle Jindle, lie about is role on Hurricane Kat. This guy will do even better than those BS artists.
Don’t be sad for your kids, umberdesi. From this thread, apparently, that’s a surefire path to getting on the presidential shortlist.
and excessive scrutiny and criticism by their desi peers 🙂
72 · serenityha said
Ah hah…wouldn’t that be an interesting question that the adventurous SAJA wonks should ask some politicians one of these days ?
72 · serenityha said
I’d bet that any community which is just in its second generation in the US (for the most part) is likely to be asked these questions. European Americans have been in the US for several generations at this point. In any case, even if Safer didn’t know better, shouldn’t we?
71 · umber desi said
74 · Rahul said
75 · umber desi said
I’d like to think the third generation of brownies will be a little less mean, a lot more mellow. 🙂 If they aren’t, your kids can come chill with my future progeny, who will almost certainly be the product of a Christian-Hindu union, themselves. You’re not alone.
Actually one a non-objective stereotypical note I have heard this comment abt. Punjabi immigrants in many countries… (warning: racist comment probably follows=>) Maybe because they are fairer than the typical south-asian desis that they think are different from the rest ? 🙂
Oh come on! The 50% thing was a joke!
Hindus have a lot of Gods! Get it? It’s funny.
🙁
So he said everything any aspiring politican will say, can’t blame him for it. I don’t care if he changed his name, religion and seems sorry that he was born brown rather than white. I do care that he want Intelligent Design in Schools, wishes to take away abortion rights, and probably thinks Earth is 5000 years old. I cannot support someone that backward.
Okay, I know most people don’t believe the earth is 5000 years old or believe in Intelligent Design, but it is a theory, just like evolution is just a theory…and I think it’s okay for this intelligent design theory to be taught in schools.
among Jindal’s policy stances that irk me is, his limitations on abortion, and stem cell research.
82 · PS said
As long as you teach the FSM theory with ID, I am ok with it.
No, I meant “Brisk”. “Brisk” is how they say it in old Hebrew
Crosses fingers and hope they buy my arguement in order to save me the embarassment.
80 . Yoga Fire said
It was funny, but I didn’t want to derail the thread. This thread is about Jindal, not any future offspring of mine. 🙂 I only said what I did because I wanted to reach out to Umberdesi, not threadjack.
I appreciated your comment– it forced me to edit and tighten mine.
::
How do some of you know that Jindal “wishes he were White”, etc? Is there a link to such a bold, astonishing declaration?
Jindal’s no idiot. He’s probably well aware that what makes him famous or distinct is his back-story, and that includes his ethnic background. I wonder if some of you are annoyed by that fact, because it might not seem “fair” that someone who, in your opinion, isn’t “Desi enough” gets any benefit from being brown?
As long as you teach the FSM theory with ID, I am ok with it.
lol; I guess it is a slippery slope, but evolution is a theory. I was actually taught ID in middle school.
86 · PS said
Our existance is also just an theory, did you not see the Matrix?
Just because I’m not brown enough, you people disgust me :D. Just Kidding. For me, its different, I grew up in Punjab and while there are some “brown-er” people we dont see the darker shades and we do go bonkers about fair skin. and i had never travelled south of south Delhi. I’ve done the whole north though. But an average American thinks Indian = South Indian ( as far as colour goes, this goes back to Russell Peters bit, c’mon whats your real name, Russull?? c’mon yaar… PRATAP!!) so we’re trying to not confuse them. Kashmiris look whiter than white people, nobodys saying anything about them 😀
79 · Priya said
Our existance is also just an theory, did you not see the Matrix?
ha,ha, no I didn’t actually. Anyways I don’t want to go on about this…I’d have to do some research but I do think that it’s important to realize evolution is a theory and therefore that may give more understanding to Jindal-like stances on teaching ID. But thanks for the sarcasm – it did crack me up.
Romeo 86 my comment was referring primarily to Punjabi females not males 🙂
Be careful with this “it’s just a theory” line. The scientific perspective is that we can never ever really know the truth, hence everything is considered a theory, and the best we can hope for is to have better and better theories. The way an airplane flies is also based on just a theory, except that the plane actually happens to also fly. Tomorrow that theory could be proven to be completely false and your plane would fly anyway, but based on the new theory. Now, religious believers have gone completely to town with the “everything is just a theory” perspective among scientists and have been using it to push their own dumb agenda as if it were on a par with science. It most definitely is not okay imo. I cannot help feeling that Jindal is lying when he says he believes in intelligent design. Anway, I don’t believe him or respect his views. As for the cultural thing, I think it’s perfectly legit to wonder how comfortable he is in his own skin. In fact, it’s also legit to say he looks like a drowned rat (this is the US after all and we are americans 🙂 – looks count for a lot as even the NYT and the rest keep reminding us.
My dad’s a punjabi sikh and my mom’s tamil catholic. I was in a catholic school for 10 years of my life (in India, not the US). Don’t worry. Your kids will turn out fine.
71 · umber desi said
My first intelligent comment here (or so i think).
I’ve dabbled in genetic programming and I’ve built some pretty neat stuff for fun. i’ve also done research when my brain used to work. Evolution makes sense after a while but as they in the beginning, it really does not and I’ve put in some wild mutation laws to work and still its doesnt make sense. and If anybody knows how, please tell me, I could be on way to create a sentient being. DO siamese twins survive in the world on one headed people (smart people would get this and I wont have to explain anymore, HINT HINT!)
89 · PS said
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10342 I was raised in a strong Hindu culture, attended weekly pujas, or ceremonial rites, and read the Vedic scriptures.
There were heated discussions, many of them invoking family loyalty and national identity.
So much for growing up like a normal American in Baton Rouge with no Indian influence.
88 · ROMEO 86 said
I’m sure there is a point to this cluster**** of words strung together, but yeah, I got nothing.
91 · Divya said
But why do we do this? I’m being sincere when I pose this question, and I’m asking it of myself, as well, because I know I’ve done it too and yet am hurt when it’s done to me: why is it legit to engage in conjecture about another person’s comfort with their identity?
You can convert out of Hinduism without being disrespectful or dismissive. I mean, why didn’t he vote on the Diwali resolution (HR 747)? Other Catholic congressmen voted for it. Even ones from conservative districts. Maybe he had a valid reason, but I’d have liked to have at least heard him offer one up.
As for the conversion thing, if Jindal is happy as a Catholic more power to him. But I’d like it if people on the more liberal side of the issue could at least try to understand the concerns a traditionalist Hindu might have about it. It’s not racism or prejudice although those are sometimes symptoms of the underlying issue. I was a religion minor in college and I spent a lot of time studying Catholic theology from St. Augustine on down. I’ve even said that if I did convert to Christianity for some off reason I’d be a Catholic (or Syrian to keep some Indian roots). I don’t really buy into the idea of a personalistic God or necessarily agree with the notion of there being only one spiritual path. But I nevertheless have a lot of respect for Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. If the colonialism went in the opposite direction and India had colonized Europe I’d probably be all over “Western European Religious Studies” classes. But then I read sites like this: http://www.deoomnisgloria.com/archives/2008/07/from-hindu-to-catholic-bobby-j.html
These people aren’t bad guys. They genuinely seem compassionate and I’m sure they’re nice people. But when they make comments like these: “Sounds like we should all do a better job of talking about our faith to Hindus around us.” “Many of the Hindus are exposed to Christianity but it requires God’s grace and our response in following … just as much as talking.”
I can’t help but feel insulted or threatened. It feels as if I’m being talked down to as spiritually immature at best and deceived by “evil forces” at worst. When I find myself in a religious dialogue with a Christian (or a Muslim or whatever) I try to use my Hindu ideas to inform their Christianity with the hope of making them better Christians. On the other side, though, it feels like Hindu openness to other religions is deliberately being used as a trojan horse to convert us rather than as a two-way street in which we can both learn something from each other.
So belonging to a minority religion in a very Christian nation it’s not hard to imagine why Hindus might feel somewhat put off by someone who converts in the context of all this social pressure.
Yoga fire,
Reading that site you linked to or others like that one is purely your choice, me personally can’t be bothered to react to all the garbage out there.
And may be he didn’t vote on the resolution that you mention in the same vein that President Obama didn’t vote on a lot of contentious issues when he was in Illinois.
Another person who has been in the news alot in last month is my hero Rod Blagojevich who has done a fair share of interviews in the past few weeks. But I don’t recall a single person asking him about what serbian traditions he has kept.
And when he is running for President in 2016, I don’t think the Serbian Americans will be saying he is not Serbian enough. Instead they will take pride in the great work he did as the Governor of Illinois and of course the courage he showed when he overcame that most unfair impeachment and conspiracy against him after he spoke out against the World Bank. Most men would not be able to show the grace under pressure that Blago did.
i guess i lean toward anna & rahul’s position here re: jindal critiques. there’s some diminishing returns on psychoanalysis at some point 🙂
in any case, re: racist incidents, if i had to bet money i think jindal is being a politician 😉 but, i will tell you guys that i went to middle & high school in a region which was 99% white, 50% mormon, 75% republican. in fact, after the 1990 census there was an article titled “the blacks of [redacted] county.” it proceeded to profile every single black person within my county on two pages 😉 i got jumped by drunk cowboys at dances a couple of times (my friends jumped in and it was a brawl), and called a “sand nigger” or yelled at perhaps once ever 6 months by rednecks in trucks (i’m estimating on the high side, it was probably closer to 1 once a year re: yelling). i think we need to do a survey to get a better feel for these things and the variables. we confound different aspects sometimes.
for example, i have east asian male friends who complain about racism as to why they can’t date person X (person X being a white female). now, i’ve had plenty of white female friends admit to me that they’re not attracted to east asian dudes. that they are the bottom of the pecking order (see my post on why race matters more for women in dating). but, some of my friends were the types of guys who would be 25 year old virgins if they were white. but they didn’t attribute any of the dating problems they had to their individual/personal qualities. i had an acquaintance who was a really muscular 6’1 korean dude, and he had no dating issues. so though being east asian was probably a negative, his other characteristics made up for it. OTOH, the nerdy engineering major who is 5’4 who complains about racism as being the reason he is not getting play is deluding himself. most people are somewhere in the middle.
i say this to point to the complex variables which might affect how racist people treat person X. if someone is good looking and popular, then they’ll probably experience a lot less racism than a nerd. if someone is a white nerd they’ll be taunted and mocked for being a nerd. if they are a non-white nerd, there might be some racist slurs thrown in, but the point is that the racism is incidental to the taunting. on the other hand, some people are attacked for their racial identity quite explicitly in some occasions, while sikhs & muslims who dress differently aren’t targeted just because they’re unlikeable.
over the years of reading this weblog i’ve seen a few people make comments about how they would get into race-related fights every week (e.g., on the way home from school). but, i realized that some of these jerks were also the types that i wanted to f**king punch in the face they were such dicks (yes, i’m sure some of you think the same of me, and a few times i taunted friends while playing basketball to the point where they called me a “sand nigger” after they snapped).