…because he’s in his hometown of Edison, NJ. Get it? EDISON IS THE HOME OF A LOT OF INDIAN IMMIGRANTS! And they have overrun the township, what with their red dots, and zany, octopus-like deities and of course, their cows! Indians worship cows! And Edison is full of Indians! So there are cows in Edison, and the cows take dumps, and this unfunny columnist named Joel Stein really stepped in it, because the nasty brown shit (and by nasty brown shit, I mean “Indian”) is everywhere! The brown shit is unavoidable! ISN’T THAT HILARIOUS? WHY AREN’T YOU LAUGHING? Don’t you get it? That paragraph is humorous! I have bludgeoned you about the head with my clever humor! And if you don’t “get” it, you are excessively thin-skinned, like…like…an eggshell plaintiff!
What’s that you say, Desis? You weren’t impressed with Stein’s comedic stylings? Why…if you’re outraged, then that’s GREAT because it means Stein’s humor is EDGY. That’s what great comics do! They challenge you! They inspire your eyebrows to raise up like they’re furry, arched extras in a Petey Pablo video!
You didn’t think it was funny, at all? Well, chin up, dear Mutineers. Neither did I.
And that’s because, it wasn’t.
When I first ventured online today, I had a dozen tweets, emails and FB messages waiting for me. They all contained the same link to TIME magazine, a publication I adored as a child. My interest? Piqued. I started to read.
Let me tell you what I liked about the essay which all of you wanted me to read, first: the title. I loved the B-52s in high school and I love lifting blog titles from song titles. Clearly, Stein was referencing “Private Idaho“, which was a bit before my time (released: 1980) and to my INDIAN ears, a bit annoying. I preferred a single from a full decade later– “Deadbeat Club“. I used to put it on a lot of my mix tapes. Sigh.
Now that we got THAT out of the way, let me tell you what I disliked about Stein’s “meditation” on immigration. See what I did there? Huh? Huh? INDIAN STUFF, AGAIN!
Every. Thing. Else.
Let’s get started, shall we? But first, to really do Mr. Stein justice, I’m going to light some incense, play a “Jai Ho” remix, and nosh on some curry– but daintily! I don’t want to stain my exotic silk costume, which I bought in…of all places…Edison. What are the odds, right? Oh, wait…according to TIME magazine, the odds are very good that my Indian garb is from Edison. The whole place is infested with Patels. Did I mention there’s a dot on my forehead? I’m a dothead! Wheee! Oh, but I am getting ahead of myself (I am waggling my head as I type that. If you’re reading this, switch to an “Apu” voice, would you? Thanks, you’re a doll. I mean, you’re an Aishwarya!)
I am very much in favor of immigration everywhere in the U.S. except Edison, N.J. The mostly white suburban town I left when I graduated from high school in 1989 — the town that was called Menlo Park when Thomas Alva Edison set up shop there and was later renamed in his honor — has become home to one of the biggest Indian communities in the U.S., as familiar to people in India as how to instruct stupid Americans to reboot their Internet routers.
HAHAHA! Stein just called Americans “stupid”. Doing this protects him from any accusations of racism or bias, because he made fun of himself! And he said he was pro-immigration, so he’s nice, too. See how that works? What are you saying? It DIDN’T work? Oh.
Hmmm.
Maybe that’s because it was made by an American! Ooooh, BURN! Like a VINDALOO! And you can’t get mad at me, because I’m an American, too! Huzzah for humor insurance!> My town is totally unfamiliar to me. The Pizza Hut where my busboy friends stole pies for our drunken parties is now an Indian sweets shop with a completely inappropriate roof. The A&P I shoplifted from is now an Indian grocery. The multiplex where we snuck into R-rated movies now shows only Bollywood films and serves samosas. The Italian restaurant that my friends stole cash from as waiters is now Moghul, one of the most famous Indian restaurants in the country. There is an entire generation of white children in Edison who have nowhere to learn crime.
Aww, more self-deprecation! It almost makes you miss the utterly bizarre reference to the mithai place’s “inappropriate roof”. How, may I ask, is a roof ever inappropriate? Did it forget to wear its knickers? Does it have the F-bomb painted on it? Better yet, is the roof fornicating with something? Perhaps a chimney? Oh, yeah…you’re a nasty roof, aren’t you? You’re bad. You need to be punished.
Or wait– did Stein mean inappropriate like that inebriated White parent who showed up to my conservative private school and slurred about what he’d like to do to all of us young girls in our pleated skirts? If so, that’s a TERRIBLE roof. A dangerous one, even. Also, you can’t get mad at me for sharing that anecdote which makes Whites look bad, because I was in it. Or it was funny. Or something. What? “Humor” is Stein’s excuse. He’s American, possibly Jewish, and he finds himself far too clever– just like me! STOP BEING THIN-SKINNED, EGGSHELL PLAINTIFF.
I called James W. Hughes, policy-school dean at Rutgers University, who explained that Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 immigration law raised immigration caps for non-European countries. LBJ apparently had some weird relationship with Asians in which he liked both inviting them over and going over to Asia to kill them.
I’ll be damned. This hack was actually funny for a change. I’m going to agree with my colleague Amardeep and declare that this bit works. If only the ENTIRE ARTICLE worked as well. Also? EDISON IS FULL OF DOT-HEADED NERDS WHO WORSHIP PENISES. What? I was worried you’d forget. You suffered through that Stein piece, you’re probably used to being bludgeoned with such sentiments every 30 seconds. I’m just trying to be considerate, y’all. Why do you have to be so Indian about everything? Why can’t you be dishonest and White, and not change everything, and not take over the businesses where I learned to be a petty thief and…and…stuff? NOTHING SHOULD EVER CHANGE, DAMNIT. IT’S JOEL STEIN’S WORLD AND WE’RE ALL JUST LIVING IN IT.
After the law passed, when I was a kid, a few engineers and doctors from Gujarat moved to Edison because of its proximity to AT&T, good schools and reasonably priced, if slightly deteriorating, post-WW II housing. For a while, we assumed all Indians were geniuses. Then, in the 1980s, the doctors and engineers brought over their merchant cousins, and we were no longer so sure about the genius thing. In the 1990s, the not-as-brilliant merchants brought their even-less-bright cousins, and we started to understand why India is so damn poor.
Sorry, Mutineers– I’m going to have to ask you to stop reading this blog and look away for a moment. I love you too much to let you watch what happens next. Tearing someone a new arsehole is a brutal, violent act and you shouldn’t have to see that. Now go. Study some maths while I take care of this, nah? Acha, beta.
Removes hoop earrings
Which are 22K
Smears vaseline on face
Gets to stompin’ in stiletto heels
“YEAH, you accidentally racist, hypocritical JERK! You pee sitting DOWN in MY HOUSE! And it IS my house! I’m Indian! THAT’S WHAT WE DO, MF! WE BUY HOUSES! WITH RESPONSIBLE MORTGAGES! WHICH WE PAY OFF EARLY! BIATCH!”
Oh, sorry, little ones. Didn’t know you were already back from mastering “Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos”. Drink some Bornevita, kozhandai. What’s that? You want Horlicks, instead? Why are you laughing? Because it sounds like “whore-licks”? Really? Well, at least that’s funnier than the pap Stein wrote. Now nom this Parle-G and get out ma face. Mama’s got WORK to do! That and the next part is ugly. I know. AGAIN.
Eventually, there were enough Indians in Edison to change the culture. At which point my townsfolk started calling the new Edisonians “dot heads.” One kid I knew in high school drove down an Indian-dense street yelling for its residents to “go home to India.” In retrospect, I question just how good our schools were if “dot heads” was the best racist insult we could come up with for a group of people whose gods have multiple arms and an elephant nose.
Joel,
though I’ve pretended to give you an episiotomy in this post, I want to say that I actually don’t care enough to mind that you exist. I could have overlooked this entire fustercluck if you hadn’t composed the paragraph above.
Why? Why did you write that?
Do you think it’s funny when someone talks about negotiating a great deal and they exclaim, “I jewed them down to almost nothing!” If you do think that’s funny, you’re pathetic because you know what? I find “Jewed” offensive. And I constantly call it out, just like in high school, when I’d wish people “Happy Holidays” whenever I was out shopping with my Jewish best friend, who wilted a little inwardly at the absent-minded “Merry Christmas”‘ wished at two young girls who, truthfully, looked more like a Hindu and a Muslim than an Indian Christian and a Persian Jew.
I don’t like the term “Jewed” because it’s ugly. It trades in the worst stereotypes and assumptions about an entire group of people who don’t deserve to be disrespected and diminished by what is, at best, lazy phrasing and at worst, anti-Semitic poison, casually slipped in conversations like a roofie in our collective drink. Joel, I believe in the dignity of all people. I understand that words are powerful and that stereotypes are the preferred weapon of the uninformed and uncreative as well as the malicious and bigoted.
You “question” the quality of Edison’s schools because you think “Dot Head” was a mediocre epithet? Would “dotbusters” have been more suitable? Yeah, I know, wrong place. They slaughtered a “Dot Head” for the crime of being Indian over in Jersey City, not your precious, quondam white Edison.
I don’t give a shit.
The biggest problem I have with your inane, imbecilic piece is that it isn’t funny. Not even close to it.
I don’t think you are a racist. I truly don’t. But I do think that you don’t get it. That you fancy yourself to be far more “edgy” and “hilarious” than you actually are, because this…this TIME article is not funny. And this paragraph is exactly why I maintain such a position. You failed.
Isn’t all comedy offensive? Sure, a lot of it is. See: Chappelle show. I laughed four separate times during that consummately offensive video. Do you know what the difference between your “race com” and Dave’s is? Dave is funny. He is deft, artful, smart but most of all– he is Funny.
Your neighborhood racists’ inability to devise a better slur “for a group of people whose gods have multiple arms and an elephant nose” is neither funny, nor edgy. It’s disrespectful, ignorant and not even entirely accurate. What about a person with two arms and a prominent nose who lights a menorah? Because India has those, too. What thrilling invective should be hurled their way?
Unlike some of my friends in the 1980s, I liked a lot of things about the way my town changed: far better restaurants, friends dorky enough to play Dungeons & Dragons with me, restaurant owners who didn’t card us because all white people look old. But sometime after I left, the town became a maze of charmless Indian strip malls and housing developments. Whenever I go back, I feel what people in Arizona talk about: a sense of loss and anomie and disbelief that anyone can eat food that spicy.
This paragraph started off with so much promise; relatively speaking, that means you hadn’t stepped in shit up to your ankle. Then, you had to go there. Arizona, there. And no one even noticed your bizarre suggestion that “all white people look old”, because you had invoked the one state where your humor would play well.
So, the immigrants came and ruined everything, did they? With their “charmless” businesses which helped prop up Edison’s economy, even as they denied the township’s children opportunities to be junior thieves. I forgot to ask– what tribe are you a part of? You couldn’t possibly be the descendant of immigrants if you hold such exclusionary, retrograde views, so I’m assuming you are one of the only real Americans, because if you’re not an indigenous person, that would make you a giant, flaming hypocrite. And if you were an indigenous person and you held these views, well, I’d understand you a bit more but I’d still think you were a dick.
But enough about you, let’s talk about– you. Your piece, and specifically, those housing developments. Ugh. Who wants those. Better to have urban prairie, like Detroit or something. Also, you forgot to mention “curry”. Because all Indian houses smell like it, so surely these residential developments which you regret all exist under a puff of garam masala, yes? No? Head waggle, so? The whole reason the food is spicy is because of that curry cloud of powdered spice, wafting overhead, a reversal of the filth which orbits little Pig Pen’s feet.
You feel a “sense of loss” that your neighborhood isn’t a shrine to your memories of it? Join the damned club, accidental racist. The rest of us just accept that such evolution is a part of reality; we understand it, we don’t blame immigrants for it. And finally, what were you thinking, writing a column on Immigration and invoking “Arizona” within it, with your sympathies? Oh, right. Edgy.
Unlike previous waves of immigrants, who couldn’t fly home or Skype with relatives, Edison’s first Indian generation didn’t quickly assimilate (and give their kids Western names). But if you look at the current Facebook photos of students at my old high school, J.P. Stevens, which would be very creepy of you, you’ll see that, while the population seems at least half Indian, a lot of them look like the Italian Guidos I grew up with in the 1980s: gold chains, gelled hair, unbuttoned shirts. In fact, they are called Guindians. Their assimilation is so wonderfully American that if the Statue of Liberty could shed a tear, she would. Because of the amount of cologne they wear.
Okay, at this point, it’s 1am and I’m exhausted.
What the blood clot? Skype has been around for all of seven years. My parents arrived over thirty years before that. They didn’t have Skype but they did give their kids “Western” names because the “West” doesn’t have a monopoly on Christian nomenclature, you fucking fuck. And plenty of those immigrants who came in the late 60s DID assimilate, probably because they were 35 years ahead of Skype, but that’s irrelevant. You have TWO ethnic groups to insult now. The sad thing is, the whole “Guindian” phenomenon merits discussion and could spawn a whole other post, one which explores identity and emulation and NOT bad, racist attempts at wit.
And speaking of the “R”-bomb:
-despite your (apparently) being a member of a “minority” group
-just because you are not usually, actively racist
-even if it wasn’t your intention to sound so racist
-though you may have an Indian friend or three, who kissed your ass and boot-licked their way through some compliment of your…work…
IT WAS RACIST.
It was also ignorant, small-minded, cringe-inducing, embarrassing (for you) and classist. So please, in the future, just…desist.
I’ll let some of my beloved friends and readers school you as to how and why you stepped in it.
Erstwhile guest blogger (2006!) Maitri let Stein HAVE IT, in a missive to me. See?
Even if this were a simple observation on Joel Stein’s part of how his town has changed economically through the decades, he could have done it a bit differently. Case in point: “In retrospect, I question just how good our schools were if ‘dot heads’ was the best racist insult we could come up with for a group of people whose gods have multiple arms and an elephant nose.” Like these attributes of Hindu gods are insult-worthy. With this, Stein gave up the protection of self-deprecation and crossed that line. Why is it still so easy to do so?
Time Magazine ought to know better.
Said Brian, who was the FIRST of 26 of you to contact me about this:
To write an article in a publication such as TIME, that highlighted epithets (which the author himself thought weren’t creative or offensive enough) used to degrade children growing up in a country already feeling different is in bad taste.
Mimosa wrote:
Stein…starts to delineate how his town has fallen from a supposed “good old days” nostalgia, a place that was allegedly superior to the present. The associations made with Indians – their food, culture, and other ethnic practices – are framed as inferior to the ways of the gloried past. Racism is the belief that “race” itself determines human traits and capabilities, and that this quality is what pre-dates what is superior vs. inferior. By focusing on the way these “invaders” have deteriorated in the interim (strip malls filled with Indian grocery stores, movie theaters featuring only Bollywood films, gods and goddesses with their multiple arms and elephant noses), he takes a position of dominance, a position that there is only one narrative to be spun out of this hometown. Such a position is allied with the “raghead” comments stemming from the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial race, whereby GOP primary candidate Nikki Haley and President Obama were attacked for their supposed religious affiliations (nevermind that the rhetoric was completely flawed and ignorant).
But really, what bothers me about this piece, why it didn’t strike me as satire, is that it seems to assume that there really is a dominant narrative out there, i.e. that “white” culture is where it’s at. Assimilation is not an option, it’s a requirement for these rude new aliens – but of course, that assimilation is on the dominant narratives terms.
So…if any of your friends missed this hullabaloo in the Sepia orchard, just send them Mimosa’s thoughts. That way we deprive this fucker of page views. Our outrage has made this…uh…”story”…both the “Most Read” and “Most Emailed” links on TIME.com. Ugh. We are rewarding his stupidity.
Mihir buzzed this:
…so basically he is saying Indians are ok if they fit into his neat little white upper middle class template, and maybe stay under, say 20% of the population. In other words he’s ok with Oak Brook or perhaps Naperville but hates Devon Avenue. It’s unfortunate that he believed that Edison would forever be like 1989…the race/class-infused nostalgia just seems immature to me for a supposedly educated writer.
Of course he’s saying that. There are even Desis who say that. They just have the good manners and education to know that they are elitist douchebags and they keep that shit on lock. They don’t clutter up a once venerable magazine with their snobbery. Also? EDISON IS LIKE, FULL OF INDIANS! And you thought I’d forget…
Said Aditi, whose family, like mine, has subscribed to TIME for years:
Reading it made me feel defensive and frustrated at how mocking Indians has become such an easy target–the SNL skit a few months ago, Text ‘n’ Talk for PCS, Sanjeev the web designer in some insurance– without requiring anything to be actually funny. Just mock the accent, our immigrant ambitions and our gods….the Arizona reference was straight up Ridiculous.
And lest you think this is a bunch of minorities whining about getting their feelings hurt, read this, from Rachel Kipp, an editor in Philadelphia.
“If it’s satire, but nobody laughs, then it’s not satire.”
Maybe since Rachel isn’t Indian, Joel will value her words more! I know one thing– don’t ever change, Rachel. No, seriously, don’t. Because if you do, Joel Stein will write a bad column about it, for TIME.
My friend RR did an excellent job of conveying how many of us felt after reading this, via my FB profile:
I have to wonder, if a similar article was written about Latinos or African Americans if TIME would have the balls to publish it? If they did, wouldn’t all hell break lose? Wouldn’t this be something that NPR and everyone else would be talking about? Is it because Indians are too small a minority and too “passive ” to actually fight back? Some how I feel like the nerdy Indian kid in high school all over again.
Meanwhile, over on Twitter, AngryBrownGirl drew my attention to the next phase of this drama:
Did you guys check out Joel’s FB post? Apparently not expecting such a reaction? Give me a break!
It’s true; his Facebook page was updated with a status message which…wasn’t helpful. See for yourself:
Didn’t meant to insult Indians with my column this week. Also stupidly assumed their emails would follow that Gandhi non-violence thing.
Someone in the bunker thought that was so amusing, they felt sorry for Stein. I just gloated over the “stupid”, since his entire column was. Also? Edison. Indians. Lots of. Oy, I’m tired.
I’ll let Maitri fire off some parting shots for me, because she’s a hot geologist with a way with words and her ire isn’t just aimed at Stein– she’s gunning for some of you. Watch out now:
Yet, still, hitherto, even at this point, I can dismiss the whole article as noise. What really cooks me here is not Stein’s provincialism or even how easy it still is to use Indians as the butt of jokes. It’s the Indian-Americans, the ones who keep their heads down, “adjust” and don’t make waves, who will tell us not to be so sensitive and to shrug it off. “Let them say what they want. We should not internalize these things and let them bother us. Grow a sense of humor.” Because of their being doormats, it is easy for the Steins of the world to give ink to the Wholly Unnecessary. They make it so easy to do so. No more. I’m an American. The residents of Edison have been Americans for longer than Stein’s had a column. They don’t need this. Fuck you if you CAN take a “joke.”
Word. This born-American citizen is over and out. Let the wild rumpus begin.
When someone wrote to me: So, what tribe are you from Pocahontas? I laughed. That’s funny. Joel Stein isn’t clever or witty. And need I point out the irony of a Jewish man sounding like Adolf Hitler? You’d think another ethnic group that had been mistreated would have a little more sensitivity.
Hmmm… I still don’t see why you think it isn’t funny. I think it’s quite hillarious, especially the ‘Guindians’ bit. You guys thought Drop it like a FOB was pretty funny and I laughed along. Wait! did our TIME columnist just cross the line between brown on brown intolerant humor and white on brown intolerant humor? NOW I get it!
I liked the title too, but am lacking a bit in knowledge of musical references, so all that came to mind was a movie I haven’t seen yet about two male hustlers played by Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix. And Guindians, gosh I hope some of them start showing up on TV in a Jersey Burbs-type reality series, to be followed by many late night show and red carpet appearances.
Joe Stein, if you’re reading this…
See, what you should have done is made some jokes about prophet Muhammad being pedobear and Muslims being too sensitive and then opened up a Facebook page and urged people to submit drawings of the koran with shit on it…and you would have been hailed as the western ideal of free speech and the Muslims who found those pages offensive would have been presented on this site as backward (lol, Pakistan bans FB, lol).
The more you know :-). You’re welcome.
People like Stein puts the whole Jewish community down. I will apologize for his crime. Jews are very good people, don’t let this one man make you think otherwise. Thank you.
One minor thing to keep in mind is that the bloggers don’t speak with one voice. One Mutineer may have found that funny, another, offensive, a third, annoying, a fourth, cute…etc. There wasn’t even agreement on this TIME piece! Many of the people who are contributing to SM now were not part of it when that video was blogged. So it’s a little problematic to issue a blanket “You guys thought…”
1) Anna, how could anyone not like Private Idaho, the most fun B-52 song after Rock Lobster. 2) The Joel Stein piece was weird. I couldn’t get a sense of what he was trying to communicate. It’s like he wanted to rant about how those damn Indians ruined the nostalgic memories of his town only to realize there were things he didn’t mind about the transition and a certain defensiveness also crept in where he felt obligated to add some nice things to say or he would be branded a racist. 3) having said that, he was spot on when he talked about the changing nature of Indian immigration. I too used to think all Indian immigrants were brilliant until I ventured out to NJ in the 90s. 4) And Edison’s Indian storefronts can be ugly. But hey, it sure beats boarded up areas because of lack of business. 5) Joel Stein should stick to superficial observations on VH1’s I love the whatever decade series they have on whenever VH1 has time to veer away from their crappy reality shows.
AGREED- check out my rant at 8asians. http://www.8asians.com/2010/06/29/time-columnist-dislikes-indians-indians-not-a-fan-of-joel-stein-either/
WORST PARTS OF HIS RANT— “In the 1990s, the not-as-brilliant merchants brought their even-less-bright cousins, and we started to understand why India is so damn poor.â€
Cant believe he thought ‘dot head’ wasnt racist enough: “In retrospect, I question just how good our schools were if “dot heads†was the best racist insult we could come up with for a group of people whose gods have multiple arms and an elephant nose.â€
Thanks for this Anna. I was actually checking Sepia Mutiny as soon as I read Stein’s piece, and you lived up to my expectations!
It was definitely racist. But I don’t think I particularly felt offended. I just thought it was poorly written. Not funny. I was mostly lost.
Wait, why can’t this generation of white children, those want to learn crime, steal from Indian stores? Surely, criminals are not racist. That wouldn’t stop them. right? Or is that the joke? What?
Interesting that TIME International isn’t running the column. Is it because as a “model minority” in this country, Indian-Americans won’t raise issue with this but abroad, it wouldn’t be received as well?
I guess all of that shoplifting training paid off – TIME gave him money for nothing and we’re giving him shits for free.
Russell Peters he is not.
He is free to make lame racist jokes. And we are free to non-violently comment that they are lame and racist.
I didn’t even know much about this chap until i read this post … @sshole? yeah .. funny? NO! but there are some issues in that article that even I, while being brown, can see .. viz. if you happened to be at Rutgers, you can see the mobs of gelled-up blown-back-hair desi guidos trying to ape the original ones in their full glory … the SERC building would always be one of the hotspots … any desi who wasn’t like them, was automatically an unworthy, uncool FOB …
I didn’t even know much about this chap until i read this post … @sshole? yeah .. funny? NO! but there are some issues in that article that even I, while being brown, can see .. viz. if you happened to be at Rutgers, you can see the mobs of gelled-up blown-back-hair desi guidos trying to ape the original ones in their full glory … the SERC building would always be one of the hotspots … any desi who wasn’t like them, was automatically an unworthy, uncool FOB …
Oh my God, that’s completely sickening. And to think he didn’t even seem to feel any remorse later, on FB.
Another thing that bothered me about the article is that we somehow failed Stein’s initial rose-colored view of Indians as some sort of uber-race of doctors and engineers. We began to “bring over” the “losers” like the merchants and business owners and then they brought over the next “lower” rung of Indian humanity. And this somehow explains India’s poverty, (which is in itself a wholly wretched and unfunny subject)?
I didn’t know that immigration was restricted to a certain tier of people. I will also bitchslap the next person who says to me, “You people are so smart.” You people. All so smart. No, we’re not. And, thanks, we set ourselves up for failure very nicely all by ourselves and don’t need you to do it.
I like the response on this site a lot. http://www.currybear.com/wordpress/?p=4619
Can’t believe TIME paid Stein to write this coming of age ramble even if the piece had been politically correct. The magazine is downmarketing itself with such narrowminded perspectives. The article is racist.
It will be interesting to see if anyone complains about the article directly by writing a Letter to the Editor, and if Stein responds in the magazine. He could even echo his fb page.
I have to say that a mithai place with a red Pizza Hut roof is kind of awkward http://www.sukhadia.com/images/sukhadia_iselin.jpg
@SM Intern – I take the ‘you people’ back. All I am saying is that I have seen waaay more brown on brown bigotry in the US than white on brown or black on brown etc. If you were to take a quick headcount here of how many of us teased and shrunk away from FOBs or still caricature them on a regular basis, I’m sure you wouldn’t be shocked by the result. So again A) This article is not a lot worse than what many brown people do – and I have yet to see a post here or on any desi blog about that. B) while it’s not super funny (except for the aforementioned Guindians bit) it’s not crazily offensive compared to our own stereotypes so really chill the fish out…
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1997936,00.html
I’m more offended by this.
That’s tantamount to white people saying it’s ok to say the n-word because “they call each other that.”
I got the impression it was a (poorly) written version of a roast…sort of a ‘you’re collectively down’ now, so ripping on you is cool. While that’s charming and all in a bent sort of way, it’s still weak and unwelcome and pretty racialist. Yes, racialist, not racist.
I also find nostalgia for the ‘good old days’ funny – many (white) americans pine for the 50s and 60s as if it was all American Graffiti and Rebel Without a Cause, and yet forget that it wasn’t so fun and peachy for women and minorities at that time. When Obama’s parents got married it was still illegal in some states – this wasn’t that long ago. I will always think of this when I step into a retro diner. This article has the same theme – the good old days meaning less foreigners.
Would he have preferred some big box stores coming in and putting the local businesses out of work – would he have had the same satirical wrath for a generic, non-Indian strip mall anchored by Home Depots and Wal-Marts and Applebees ?
Oh – and to state that the latest wave of migrants is stupider and explaining why India is poor – how is that even remotely funny – are the Time editors asleep ? You could use the same twisted logic and say that this must explain why the latest generation of ‘real Americans’, so far removed from their Mayflower descendants are ignorant and lazy, no ? But that would be quite a generalization. And that’s not satire.
Long Indian: All I am saying is that I have seen waaay more brown on brown bigotry in the US than white on brown or black on brown etc. If you were to take a quick headcount here of how many of us teased and shrunk away from FOBs or still caricature them on a regular basis
Brown on brown bigotry is disgusting but doesn’t excuse what Stein said. In fact, practitioners of said bigotry and the associated guilt is what tells us not to react to articles like this, swallow our pride and take it out on the next person down the pole. It’s why aunties and uncles will sit at parties and not say a thing against white people but will take the first opportunity to refer to Obama as a monkey (I’ve started calling them on this, by the way). Screw that noise.
Allow me to vehemently disagree 🙂
This was not a racist article. It was clearly, CLEARLY intended to be sharply sarcastic and witty. One can argue that Stein hits in some places and misses in more. If we want to come down on him and say “stick to your day job Stein,” I am all for that. His intent was not to be racist though. I have been writing about racist or bigoted incidents involving the South Asian community here since 2004. When something is bigoted or racist I’ll be the first to call it out. Geez, some of our comment threads contain more blatant bigotry than people are accusing Stein of. This article reminds me of what happens when a white, hispanic, desi, etc. guy that lives in “the hood” (or pretends to) uses the “n” word. As an African American you might be like “whoa, that’s our word, you shouldn’t use that word. That’s wrong.” That’s true, nobody should use that word, but the word has been used. Often the INTENT of the user, however unfunny and wrong, wasn’t malicious. They are just assuming insider status illegitimately. Similarly, in Stein’s essay I got the distinct impression that he probably has Indian American friends and decided that gave him the right to write like one. Slightly misguided? Yes. Racist? Come on people! This part in particular had me smiling with a “true dat:”
People that are offended by this article are offended, I feel, for one of two reasons: 1) You don’t understand humor or sarcasm, or feel someone should be punished unless their humor or sarcasm is up to your high standards. 2) People are upset that Joel is speaking with the type of bravado about a subject that he doesn’t have the right to because he isn’t South Asian. If a brown guy had written this article we wouldn’t have had 30 people email us about it.
And I find is shocking and discouraging that the very first commenter on THIS very SM comment thread illustrated Godwin’s law by comparing Stein (a Jew) to Hitler. Offensive Pot meet offensive kettle.
And I found this part funny too:
He is saying that the bigots are too ignorant to even be properly racist. How do people not get this??
I’m glad this article was brought to light, but this post could have been half the length. The heavy-handed hyperbole just got to be too much for me to focus on the article and the issue at hand. I mean no offense, but Anna, you’re a talented and thoughtful writer and make great points, but you don’t have to try nearly this hard to infuse the post with soooo much “brown-ness” to get them across.
Hmmm. So if brown people are ignorant or rude to each other, it’s fine for whites or others to demean us, as well? No. One does not enable or validate the other.
Well if you didn’t see it, it doesn’t exist! Check the archives. All six years of them. I’m too tired to find evidence for someone flippant.
But just so you know– we are the blog that decided to NOT use the term “FOB” a few years ago because it was disrespectful, as disrespectful as “ABCD”, if not moreso. That is why we use the terms “ABD” and “DBD”. I see your assumptions, and raise you with truth.
You chill “the fish out” if you’d like, I would prefer not to. More realistically, I’ve had less than four hours of sleep AND it’s a sweltering hot summer, so I’m not going to “chill” anytime soon, no matter what someone anonymous suggests, even if Brown-on-brown nastiness is a real problem. I guess the next time someone Sikh gets threatened for having a turban, they should chuckle and think of that one time Anand Jon was a douchenozzle to Julie Titus. Do you see how that barely makes sense?
I just finished reading Joel Steins article: My Own Private India.
To say the least I was stunned. How can Time Magazine allow such a racist diatribe in its magazine? If you have any doubts as to the level of prejudice and intolerance that is evident in the article, I have a suggestion. Wherever Mr. Stein references either Indians, Indian culture, restaurants or people, simply substitute Jews, Blacks or Latinos.
Change the ethnic group, but keep the same words. I quote:
“Then, in the 1980s, the doctors and engineers brought over their merchant cousins, and we were no longer so sure about the genius thing. In the 1990s, the not-as-brilliant merchants brought their even-less-bright cousins, and we started to understand why India is so damn poor.” “But sometime after I left, the town became a maze of charmless Indian strip malls and housing developments. Whenever I go back, I feel what people in Arizona talk about: a sense of loss and anomie and disbelief that anyone can eat food that spicy.” ” But if you look at the current Facebook photos of students at my old high school, J.P. Stevens, which would be very creepy of you, you’ll see that, while the population seems at least half Indian, a lot of them look like the Italian Guidos I grew up with in the 1980s: gold chains, gelled hair, unbuttoned shirts. In fact, they are called Guindians. Their assimilation is so wonderfully American that if the Statue of Liberty could shed a tear, she would. Because of the amount of cologne they wear.” (in this quote Mr. Stein decides to take a shot at my heritage – substitute a pjorative for Jews or blacks for “guidos- A little double standard?) “At which point my townsfolk started calling the new Edisonians “dot heads.”
There are more. However, it is the tenor of the entire article that is offensive. It is a lame attempt at humor. It doesn’t work. Substituting “high end” vices for the run of the mill variety does not justify the offense. It does not qualify as satire. It’s simply an ignorant airing of every stereotype that comes to mind. Mr. Stein should be fired. He displays an intolerance, arrogance and down-right ignorance that should not be given a forum in Time Magazine.
Did anybody feel the same way that they did after MacacaGate? I know I did. And like we did then, it’s important that we make express our distaste to the public. I doubt we’ll be changing Joel Stein’s perspective on anything, but I’d be much happier if the next time a column like this was submitted to a major publication, it gets rejected.
Great job Anna!
That’s absolutely fair and I am so glad that you didn’t see the first version of this post, which was even longer. Still, I am always grateful for constructive, helpful feedback, so thank you. In my defense, I’d point to the timestamp– at 4am, it’s not easy to edit when you’re seeing two laptops in front of you, from exhaustion. 🙂
Again, see: timestamp. At that obscene hour, I wasn’t trying, the irritation was just flowing freely. Also…you do realize that this entire blog is infused with soooo much brown-ness, right? 😉
Oh hells no. How can we possibly compare this to Macacagate?? Even Biden’s donut comment was maybe worse than this.
All right, Mutineers. Thank you for the civil comment thread thus far– I’m late for a conference so I’m crossing my fingers that you will all continue to be kind to each other. I’ll pop in at lunch if I can, otherwise, after work. 🙂 Also, if you’d like to contact me directly, feel free to email me or FB message me.
To be fair, I didn’t even think of it that much about it being racist (apart from casting some stereotypes and using misnomers) until I read this post 😀
and guindians isn’t even the accurate slang used to describe guido-like indians …
Abhi:
This
Whenever I go back, I feel what people in Arizona talk about: a sense of loss and anomie and disbelief that anyone can eat food that spicy.
is not “just assuming insider status illegitimately.” I don’t think he considers himself an insider. The whole point of the article is the difference between him and his Edison and the culture that has supplanted it.
When folks invite me to a party in which white people are dressed as Indians in diapers and brownface, is that also assuming insider status illegitimately? This level of discourse, that it’s so easy to pick on Indians and paint them as other is so old and worth discouraging in the dominant American vernacular.
Paul Mooney gets it right.
It was simply not funny.
Quite frankly, I think there is way too much serious overanalysis over a sloppily written article which seemed more suitable for a personal blog than a magazine. However, people in diapers at a costume party??? Now, I wish I confronted such a moron.
Thank you for putting most of my thoughts into words, and including those of others that filled in the rest. TIME just fell off my radar, which is sad. It takes decades to build a reputation, and a single very stupid stupid move to ruin it (see Toyota).
I found his whole article so unfunny, and so…old…no, unoriginal, that it got me thinking. I realized it’s the same crap I’ve heard about how all of us awful “fags” kept coming into dilapidated neighborhoods and adding our time, money, and design sense to actually gay gasp RAISE everyone’s property value! How horrible that the whole town should be overrun with people so hell-bent on changing the culture! I can’t understand why many people in this country (and Americans aren’t alone in this) can’t see that the influence of one’s culture into yours is a sign of comfort, of a desire to be a part of your culture by sharing a part of theirs. It’s not an invasion, it’s a reciprocation.
I went through the article and changed most of the infantile epithets and sterotypes to those that are typically used to denigrate those like me, and found the article changed little. The businesses geared toward Indian influences all became french bistros, hair dressers, and flower shops, but the effect was the same.
That’s why it sounded so old to me, even though I’m not Indian, and didn’t grow up in area with a great deal of Indian cultural influence or people. It’s the same old, tired, ignorant crap I’ve been hearing my whole life in this country.
And we wonder why many other countries hate us. It’s not because of our freedom – in my opinion, it’s because we are GUARANTEED this freedom, and articles like Stein’s are what many of us choose to do with it.
Is Stein the same guy who appears on VH1’s various countdown and pop culture shows like “I Love the 80s”? If so, he’s painfully unfunny on those as well.
Wow did someone just delete my last comment? I’ll say it again just to be sure…
@ANNA My anonymity doesn’t affect the relevance of my views, and the author’s race doesn’t necessarily(in my book) affect the offensiveness of his. You don’t have to chill given the weather and all, but you don’t need to call me flippant either. I have been an SM reader for many years and linked to a FOB post in my first reply on this discussion (#2). I did raise you the truth when I said “If you were to take a quick headcount here of how many of us(“you” actually, because I only have been visiting the US for the last 10 years) teased and shrunk away from FOBs or still caricature them on a regular basis, I’m sure you wouldn’t be shocked by the result.”
Again: All I am saying is that I don’t get this political correctness, when it comes to humor or attempted humor. oh and from the anti-troll message above this box “Requests for celebrities’ contact info or homework assistance; racist, abusive, illiterate, content-free or commercial comments; personal, non-issue-focused flames; intolerant or anti-secular comments; and long, obscure rants may be deleted. Unless they’re funny. It’s all good then.”
I really wonder if Stein’s ever been to Arizona? Because I had one of the best briyanis I’ve ever eaten in Arizona.
Overall, I read his article and thought to myself, “What a whinerbaby this dude is.”
Joel Stein’s article was poorly written and unfunny. I am writing this from Edison, NJ, my hometown, and I am a young Jersey-born Kalabari Nigerian man whose neighbors are predominantly Gujurati, Maharashtran, Punjabi, Bengali and South Indian women, men and children. This place is just as much a part of the America we all share as anywhere else, including the whiter areas of Metuchen and South Plainfield, the blacker areas of Rahway or Plainfield, or the browner areas of Perth Amboy or New Brunswick in Central Jerz. The anxiety at the root of contemporary white backlash thought, even when presented seemingly benignly in Joel Stein’s case, is predicated on the sense that “their America” is being lost, and they say “they want their country back.” It didn’t go anywhere. The narrative that America proper is, has been or should be construed as a white country has always been patently false. So now this guy is bemoaning a “Desi Heaven” here in Edison in the way people like him might bemoan the existence of a “Nigger Heaven” in Harlem, Newark or Central Brooklyn. This is part of the landscape and as much a part of the American narrative as anywhere else, and it is not special. But it certainly is not a social space where the hegemony of “Westernness” or “whiteness” finds currency, and it never should be – and that is what threatens the backlashers and racists. Joel Stein’s poor humor in this piece is a veiled attempt to exclude so-called “immigrants” (in the contemporary sense, black and brown peoples from the third world) from the cultural, political, and social centerspaces. To him, Edison and any place where non-European-Americans are highly visible are seen as “not all-American” or even “un-American.” All thoughtful people of color should call out and oppose this tendency, which marginalizes and invites exclusion and worse.
among others the comment on correspondingly lower caliber immigrants coming over is quite scary because its elitist and callous
You didn’t? Uncle Sam isn’t rolling out the red carpet for Polish plumbers. The general American attitude about immigration has evolved from favoring Europeans to favoring educated people.
I think Stein was agreeing with you on this point. The “stupid uncle” paragraph seemed a pretty effective disavowal of his own model minority nonsense. Mr. Stein is Jewish, so he is probably well aware of how quickly positive biases transform into negative ones. Frankly I have no desire to fight back on this point. Good on Mr. Stein for discarding the stereotype, even a positive one. He ends on a sour note, calling India poor. But that’s not a stereotype. It’s a fact that flies in the face of the model minority myth.
Very well-written response. Just the right dose of Stein’s own medicine.
Scary is its linked to policy and politics, for example in immigration. On the other hand, its true after a certain point the model minority myth is not tenable…although how that interacts with poverty in India isn’t clear. Bottom line if it was funny it wouldn’t warrant a discussion, but its not, so it does. Most biting satirists do so from the left, maybe bc if its not done well, its just meanspirited laughing at the poors
Another kumbaya singing tolerant “liberal” shows his true colors. He would not dare write such a thing about hispanics or african black immigrants.
Offensive articles like this in a major national mag (“Time”) just proves to me that we (desis) need to insert/climb/claw our way up to decision-making positions in the media (TV, movies, newspapers, etc.) I have only met TWO young ladies (Bangladeshi-Americans) who work in (book) publishing field in NYC. They are bright, hard-working girls in early 20s, but not yet leaders. Where are the decision-making desis at “Time”? Are there any? If so, are the selling-out? Hmmm…
4 am or not, this was absolutely amazing. Thanks so much for writing this, Anna. I canceled my Time subscription years ago.