…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.
I don’t think Stein’s piece is racist or bigoted, but it does flag in places as a piece of humour because if it is a satirical piece, it is weak in places because the satire is not always evident. There are also a couple of jarring, sour notes that don’t appear to be sarcastic or that appear to be bookended by funny bits in order to hide amongst the humour, and these make one a bit uneasy as if one has suddenly realized that the author really does mean what he is saying and is using humour/sarcasm to hide something a bit more illuminating on how he really feels. This is probably being unfair to Stein, but the manner in which he wrote some things contribute to this impression.
I read a couple of his other pieces, including this one on his Edison high school reunion: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1945358,00.html. In that piece he does say this: “And yet, as the new book Connected by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler shows, we actually do choose our friends through proximity and shared activity. Sure, I might now select a slightly different mix from the J.P. Stevens pool — especially if you threw some Indians, black dudes and supernerds back into it — but this was a group that could make me laugh and think as much as the carefully culled group I hang out with in L.A. You know, the ones who had a kid at exactly the same time we did.”
In the India piece and in this high school reunion piece he does poke fun at Edison in general and the culture in which he grew up. He is also irreverent about his own Jewish geneology in another piece. He appears to be saying that Edison has changed from a predominantly white town with not much to recommend it in his day to a predominantly Indian-American town with not much to recommend it anymore ( the initial changes he seems to have been ok with) And that the Indians there now have basically become American – or at least are aping some of the not so attractive features of New Jersey American life. The only reason he can’t recognize it is because the inhabitants and the outward look of the place are different.
“I never knew how a bunch of people half a world away chose a random town in New Jersey to populate. Were they from some Indian state that got made fun of by all the other Indian states and didn’t want to give up that feeling? Are the malls in India that bad? Did we accidentally keep numbering our parkway exits all the way to Mumbai?” He’s making fun of New Jersey here (the state that other Americans, even Jon Stewart, makes fun of) And look at the people with whom he spent his youth – they all appear to be wastrels or criminals.
The sour notes:
The bit about “that’s why India is so damn poor.” He may have a poor opinion of some of the people who came to Edison from India, but that has nothing to do with why India is poor. This is a flop connection and the humour doesn’t work.
“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.” – Again the humour flops, even if it is making fun of dunces who can’t be imaginative with their bigotry. Because jokes about multiple-armed Gods and elephant heads are just as unimaginative and cliched, coming from people with a very limited/insular idea of what God is. So the schools wouldn’t have been any better if the kids there had made jokes about the latter.
“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.”
The first sentence had no need for the word Indian. Why are charmless Indian strip malls and housing developments any worse than the thousands of other charmless strip malls and housing developments dotting America, especially in suburbia? I watch HGTV:) He can be upset about the strip mall and the housing developments, but the “Indian” was unnecessary. If anything, the rest of the world is unfortunately copying this charmless, generic American housing development model, complete with the silly names. And then following that with the Arizona reference (even if the spicy bit was meant to lighten the mood of the comparison) makes it seem more “ominous” than he probably meant it to be. He did write another piece on joining some “Buy Arizona” campaign for fun. So perhaps this juxtaposition stemmed from that. The use of the word anomie is strange. It means: “Social instability caused by erosion of standards and values. Alienation and purposelessness experienced by a person or a class as a result of a lack of standards, values, or ideals” So, does an Indian-dominated Edison suffer from a lack of standards, values or ideals. Is it socially unstable because of erosion of the more “white” standards and values of his past? He is free to feel alienated in Edison, but only because his “standards and values and ideals” whatever that may be (I guess shoplifting etc. and charmless non-Indian buildings like Pizza Hut) are no longer evident there. Basically he’s nostalgic for the charmless Edison of his past, not the one of the present, I guess.
I did find the Guindians bit funny, though, because years ago I was in New Jersey and saw lots of the people others labelled “Guidos”. I had a friend whose brother, Indian, made sure he hung out only with these types (no Guindians then). The girlfriends of these types were a sight to behold! And not in a good way:)
“When Michael Richards yelled the N word, that wouldn’t necessarily state a belief that one race is superior to another.†Actually that’s precisely what was stated. The (wrongly identified) heckler couldn’t get his superior comedy. He was, after all, a you-know-what. Stein is making no such claims. He tried to write a wistful / humorous piece about a changing neighborhood — a tough task for most. His tone-deaf handling of complex subjects like immigrants from developing countries, unknown culture etc. didn’t help it either.
“we ought to be a little more circumspect about legitimizing bigotry when it comes in the form of humor. We don’t want to be humorless scolds. If we play dumb entirely however to bigotry (however packaged in humor), the result is being lampooned in front of America and us in the corner offering a hollow, pathetic “not funny†counter. “ So we go to the other extreme? He is clearly placing easy laffs above everything. Shouldn’t we be able to make a distinction between hack writing and something that is coming from a truly racist place?
“What we saw was typical Stein snark (I and others find Stein to be hilarious, this column included; there’s a reason for his success). It was funny — and bigoted – and that is the problem we have to address.†This doesn’t add anything to the discussion, but Stein’s output leaves me somewhere between boredom and mild irritation. His success is not so unique in an industry where people continue to fail upward.
Dear Abhi:
The fact that you thought I was referring to you means that you have that feeling about yourself. Please check out Stein’s FB status where he takes another clever dig by first saying he did not mean to offend Indians then adding that he expected a Gandhian response. Would you not consider that a stereotype of the whole culture? Imagine if I told him that I am not anti-Semetic but ……well, you fill in the blanks with a stereotype about Jewish people.
Let’s not turn this into an issue among ourselves and our identities. We’re all shades of brown no matter how “white” we feel inside 😉
I’m not interested in debating ad nauseum about Michael Richards; it was a brief example I used. Suffice to say we disagree; Richards yelled out the N word in arbitrary anger (not to make any kind of nuanced critique on the recipient’s ability to understand humor for heaven’s sake).
If you read my comments, you’ll note that I am not dwelling on Stein’s entire piece. I don’t care what he said in 90% of it. All I am focusing on is his single statement that Indian stupidity explains India’s poverty.
What?! I don’t care if its hack writing or genius writing or so humorous it belongs in McSweeney’s or so stupid that it comes out of Carrot Top’s mouth. You can’t polish a turd. If something’s bigoted, the other qualities in the delivery of said bigotry are not essential. What makes Stein’s assertion worse is that its based on a lie – that India is poor because it’s people are stupid. To me that’s what further invalidates the racial humor.
The fact that you don’t comprehend its significance doesn’t render it insignificant. Try again. We are enmeshed here in debate over whether Stein’s column is funny (apparently if it’s funny- that means that it’s ok to say the things he did – at least according to Anna). What I said was yes it is funny AND yes it is bigoted. The simple fact is it doesn’t matter whether it was funny or not (or whether you were bored or irritrated for that matter). What matters is the nature of the racial stereotype Stein used. The only people who look the other way on this matter in my view are those who are too chickensh*t to see it for what is or those who belong in a lab with a bunsen burner and a set of beakers and lack the social awareness to understand prejudice and its effects.
Actually, I found that to be a very snarky response given the misguided hyper-rage of his “racist”-declaring detractors. At this point nothing he says will matter anyways (no apology will placate the hordes) so why not double down?
So says the anonymous commenter behind the safety of his blog pseudonym. You have to earn the right to use the word chickenshit.
Jess,
Ha! I have to laugh at this because he’s right about the “Gandhian response”. Our interpretation of Gandhi is to turn the other cheek but that is not the whole story obviously. Of course it’s what Indian-Americans like us think to be the case. Basically, we fold. That’s why MetroPCS has the ads it has running. We are soft targets because we lack the social cohesion, the emotional intelligence, and ultimately the backbone to fight back. We lack the ability to interpret prejudice and moreover to speak decisively against it. And so it will happen with greater frequency. You can count on it.
Thank you ANNA for blogging this. The article displays Joel Stein’s bigotry. Compare it to the article from a week or two ago when he goes to Arizona and manages to clearly state is stance against the changes in immigration law there to this one and you can see how he’s capable of being satirical without being offensive. You can chalk this article up to satire all you want, but the theme of this article is that the huge influx of Indians to Edison has negatively changed the character of the town. I honestly can see the great men of the Edison Police passing this around during the morning donut feast smirking at how someone like Stein finally got those damn brown folk to understand how they feel.
Calling this a work of satire or an attempt to be funny because that’s Joel Stein’s purpose at TIME is a weak defense and ignores the article’s content and the effect it will have on the general reading public.
The only thing that should alarm us more than those who can dismiss this as a bad piece of satire is those who will take solace in this article’s message,
@abhi re:chickenshit
He’s still right… 🙁
Abhi,
Relax man. Perhaps I used the wrong choice of words (wait- were you Mr. X??). We are however accomodationists by nature. We don’t want to see what’s wrong. We want to go along to get along. I don’t see a single convincing argument that what Stein said – stupid Indians led to India’s poverty – how that is not a bigoted remark. It being humor doesn’t exonerate it. It being Time magazine – which even has an Indian managing editor – also doesn’t make it acceptable. The fact that he didn’t blatantly come right out and say we were dumb as maccacas and that’s why we’re poor also doesn’t exonerate it. It shouldn’t take a slur for us to realize something is wrong. So in the absence of any real reason why we should look the other way, I suppose its speculation as to why we would. We ought to focus on the arguments here and not sidelights of name-calling.
I didn’t like this article by Joel Stein.So I thought I shall complain and hit Times Mag where it will hurt most….Cancel my remaining subscription. But then I remembered that I had got this subscription on a deal for free.
See my definitions above. Now THAT is bigotry. And you are probably an Indian Nationalist.
desi version of godwin’s law. you just confirmed it. btw I think you’re confusing “hindu nationalist” with “indian nationalist.” freudian slip?
In the spirit of Gandhigiri we should all send him roses ( or Marigolds) or laddus as currybear suggests.
Actually, claiming that there is a “desi version” of Godwin’s Law is technically a violation of Godwin’s Law. If we are being litigious.
A few of Stein’s pieces for the LA Times:
Finally, Some Prime Time Racism: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-stein19sep19,0,7897996.column
Why I’m in Favor of Torture: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-stein10oct10,0,2720632.column
How Jewish is Hollywood: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein19-2008dec19,0,4676183.column
jagr721, Re Richards: You gave a wrong example and leave it at that. Re stupidity and poverty: No disagreement there. Actually it’s a double dose of ignorance. The first wave of “smart†immigrants = model minority. Their stupider cousins = no wonder these guys are poor. The discussion about hack writing matters because humor is subjective and racism isn’t as black and white as you make it to be. Their overlap is going to elicit different reactions. No amount of laughs excuse racist bs, but there is a difference between “You are racist†and, “That thing you said sounds racist. â€
My reaction was similar to the buddy who shared this on Google Reader – “WTF”? Couldn’t really figure out where the writer was going with this. I still don’t, so I’m not going to crusade as “Racist”, rather hold it up as an example of “insert foot in mouth” and shitty humor. All the outrage will only make the writer feel better about himself, after all one of the objectives of art is to get a reaction from the people experiencing it. Now, if you really don’t like what the guy has to say, call it unfunny, shitty, crappy and don’t give it any attention at all. If no one laughs at a stand-up comedian’s joke, it’s generally pretty crushing to the comic on stage.
Whatever the guy was trying to string together just didn’t work; it’s like someone takes snippets of jokes, observations, anecdotes and tries to weave it together in some sort of narrative. Overall as a humor piece it was lazy and unfunny and seems like the editor was asleep at the wheel, or not even qualified to edit for good humor. Nor should it be surprising that people are pissed off about it due to varying interpretations people will extrapolate from it. That’s what humor that severely misses the mark does, particularly race/cultural/gender type jokes. Venue, the vehicle for delivery, timing, set-up, context – they all matter for humor and by publishing a weirdly written piece in Time Magazine, this guy missed the mark on all of them IMO.
Race humor can be done funny, but it takes skill that very few seem to possess. It’s also about context and the environment the “jokes” are being delivered in – people don’t go to Time Magazine for humor generally speaking.
I am not an Indian nationalist. I’m an Indian-American and like most of the people here my first concerns are with America. Once again, we find ourselves discussing semantics. Was what I said bigoted? Not too long ago, you were writing that all Stein was merely guilty of was “crude stereotypes” yet at the same time trivializing the outrage at the column. If I engaged in bigotry, will you admit Stein did as well. And if he did so, isn’t it proper that we condemn for it.
As for my statement, here we enter the gray area of race. If statistics bear out a trait that is more commonly occurring amongst a certain race (whether or not race is socially constructed), is it “stereotypical” to assert that this trait is more likely amongst that race (whether or not it arises from genetics or cultural factors). Or is it stating a fact. I’m not interested in the semantics of it- saying Indians are accomodationists (I didn’t say we all are). A few things, Stein’s bigotry was based on a lie- that Indians are stupid (a) and that said stupidity causes India’s poverty (b). Second, the context of him being white makes it, in my view, more inappropriate (but I realize others may disagree).
The tragedy here is that we are fighting amongst ourselves – and largely not over the content of Stein’s column but over petty matters of pride – over who is chicken, and who is anonymous, and who did what with Godwin’s Law. We are not seeking to understand what has happened, and decide how we should respond to prejudice against our people in one of America’s most prominent magazines. Sepia is one of the most known Indian blogs- the fact that such a debate devolves as it has here (granted not to the point of calling each other Nazis) just suggests to me we don’t have our act together. If I were an unethical advertising exec, debating whether or not to use a joky Indian accent for cheap laughs, but worried about the Indian community’s response … and had a glance at this thread, my decision would be bombs away. We can’t even figure out if in fact there was bigotry against us or we are caught up in trying to determine if the column was funny or not (as if that mattered) – and that is when the personal insults aren’t flying. I can see why the British divide and conquer strategy worked with such efficacy against us; we practically need no outside provocation to lose sight of what we are trying to accomplish, be driven to distraction by irrelevant issues, and so at each other’s throats we cant’ produce a coherent response when attacked.
Nah, I won’t leave it at that. See you can’t win a debate though absentminded repetition in the absence of reason. Richards himself said that his anger was boiling over because that group of people would not stop talking. In Curb your Enthusiasm, they parody the incident and have Richards say, “If only I could say something to you that would make you as angry as you are making me.”. That’s what it was about. Your point is nonsense that he used the N word to make a critique at their ability or inability to understand the comedic material presented. I don’t want to be driven to distraction over this point so that’s all I have to say about it…
Damn, comments be flying. Hey jag, there are people here who have somehow managed to post opposing views without name-calling and cries of dumbing down the discussion. When you get a break from your real-world molotov throwings, you may want to look into it.
I asked the question, if Joel Stein traveled to another time and place, what would he have written? Then I answered:
I am very much not in favor of colored people in general, especially in Newark, N.J. The mostly white bustling industrial town I left after graduating high school in 1949 has become home to one of the largest black communities in the U.S., as familiar to the (mostly black) drug dealers as the cutting process of cocaine.
My town is totally unfamiliar to me. The bagel shop where I used to goad the Jews into giving me free schmears is now a cake shop with an oversized fridge. The bagel shop moved to a nicer part of town, because Jews love paying taxes. The food processing plant where I used to work is still a food processing plant except it’s filled with black workers. The Italian restaurant that my friends and I refused black people work now employs four black people. There is an entire generation of white children in Newark who can find work anywhere, but have to work near black people!
I never knew how a bunch of people just a few minutes away chose a burgeoning, industrial town in New Jersey to populate. Were they from another mostly white town in this decreasingly white-owned country (sigh) that pushed them out? Are the white towns that looked the other way at black-on-black crime that bad? Did we accidentally put up a sign on the underground railroad that said Newark was a safe stop for their ancestors?
I read some history books that explained that after some black named Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream in 1963, it became even more acceptable for blacks to do everything white people do. MLK Jr. apparently had some weird relationship with people in which he said they were all created equal.
Before the Revolution of 1967, in which I fought for my side on the streets, more and more blacks moved to Newark because its growing black community, decent schools, and proximity to good, stable, if slightly demeaning, work. For a while, we assumed all the blacks wanted was a decent chance. Then, in 1967, that lowly cabbie Smith passed officers DeSimone and Pontrelli on 15th Avenue, and we were no longer sure about the decent chance – they thought they were just like us. In the years after, the not-as-subdued blacks started fighting even harder for their own rights, and we started to fear they might actually win.
Eventually, there were more blacks than whites. At which point my townsfolk, who always called blacks “niggers†under their breath, just moved to another town where we caused property values to rise and priced the niggers out. One kid I knew in high school drove down a black street while I yelled “go back to Africa.†In retrospect, I question just how hard that would’ve been for them, seeing has how flights to Africa are pretty expensive and the blacks are all poor.
Like most of my friends in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, I hated a lot of things about the way my town changed: black girls were dating white guys (traitors), white girls (nigger lovers) were dating black guys, there were restaurants that seated blacks right alongside the whites (the Jews just wanted to make money). But sometime after I left, the town became a maze of vibrant hair salons and other black owned businesses. Whenever I go back from my beautiful white town in Arizona, I lock all the car doors loudly; just so the black people know I’m on to them.
To figure out why it bothered me so much, I talked to a friend of mine from high school. After we looked in the mirror and realized we were both white, he said that part of what I don’t like about Newark is the opportunities that black people are being afforded, which probably would’ve been greater had MLK lived a few more years. In the decades I lived in Arizona, that area transformed from a place where white people did work for other white people to a place where we hired Mexicans to do the work for slave wages to a place where now we’re trying to kick out the Mexicans that came here in the first place because they do the jobs far beneath us whites. We left it at that and high-fived.
Unlike previous groups I discriminate against – Jews, Micks, Chinks – Newark’s first black generation quickly assimilated and played their role. But if you look at the current Facebook photos of students at my old high school, since renamed Martin Luther King, Jr., High, which you would have to show me how to do because I can’t use a computer, you’ll see that, while the population is at least half black, a lot of them look like they are enjoying their “equal rights.†Their freedom is so painfully American that if a qualified black man ran for President, he would probably win and I’d have to kill myself. Oh shit.
Dude, in the same article he says that if it wasn’t for Indians (and their smarts) Edison would be economically wiped from the map. You are either choosing to ignore what he is saying or you don’t get it. I suspect the latter, and will disengage. Time for bed anyways.
I will have to agree with Abhi. This article made me laugh (and yes I’m brown and not from NJ). There were a few mildly offensive part, but its satire! For those that have never read his work, read some columns in the LA Times. If you found this offensive, you probably wouldn’t like his other stuff. I do agree with some of the commenters in that would the Community have been as offended if Joel was brown?
“Nah, I won’t leave it at that…†You don’t get to be a literalist when it suits your argument and scream murder at stuff between the lines. “Richards himself said…†Right, he’s such an impartial observer. Have wonderful life. We’re done here.
The stupidity of the article aside, I can kind of see what he means about charmlessness. It’s probably not what he had in mind, but a lot of cool ethnic stuff is built into suburban sprawl and cheerless strip-malls and we tend to live in cookie-cutter McMansions. It doesn’t do much to maintain character for a neighborhood. Granted, it’s not really the fault of the Indians, Vietnamese, or whatever ethnic group happens to settle in an area so much as the fault of short-sighted urban planners. But part of me gets really sad whenever I see greenspace paved over to build blocks and blocks of identical tract housing.
Why is it that Indians can be made fun of but not blacks? I have seen this over and over again, and I have been really struggling to understand why this is the case. Here is my very tentative theory : people have very prominent racial biases. And it always shows up if you look for it.
People with a white sounding byline often get a far better response than people with a non-white sounding byline. In black communities in the Carribean, blacks with lighter skin were considered to be of a higher social standing than people with darker skin. Racism over the centuries has always been directed at people with darker skin. Why is this the case? It may be because – get this – everybody is racist. By everybody, I mean everybody. You, me, your father, your mother, white people, black people, everybody. The point is : you have to work hard to overcome this racial bias. This racial bias shows up time after time in experiments and research. For instance, every time you do one of these implicit association tests, you find that people who are darker are invariably associated with bad qualities and people who are lighter are associated with good qualities. But this is something that people have a really, really hard time accepting. That they too have racial biases. Everybody favors light skin more than dark skin, and this includes black people and brown people just as much as it includes white people. Note that these are not overt hatreds. These are simply biases.
Now, let us see if we can’t understand Joel Stein’s comments using this theory. If Mr. Stein made these same remarks about white people in Appalachia (that they are poor because they are dumber), that would simply sound wrong. If he made the same remarks about white people in Greece (that they are having economic problems because they are stupid), that would sound wrong too. And even if it did not, see what happens when we subtitute black people instead of brown. Joel Stein’s piece is very clearly humor/an attempt at humor aimed at Indians, yes, BUT if people said the same thing about black people, that would be considered racist. So what is it about Joel Stein’s remarks about brown people in India that somehow make them seem okay? So I would ask you to step back for a second and ask yourself if perhaps you, dear reader, are working hard enough to overcome your own racial bias. Perhaps you are. But perhaps you are not. Just substitute black people for wherever you see Indians referenced, and you will see what I mean.
It is not surprising to me that Abhi doesn’t see the remarks as particularly offensive. He grew up in Michigan. I am familiar with the culture of Michigan/Minnesota/Wisconsin, et cetera. These are white majority states. Humor such as this is very common and may be hard to spot because it is practically ubiquitous (The Onion came out of Madison, Wisconsin), and the humor is deployed in a light-hearted, facile way. But “facile” does not equal “right”. Just because they are facile about the humor does not mean that they have got something substantially insightful – it simply means that they are expressing what comes to them naturally. Dig deeper and you find that there are deep-seated cultural preferences that people from these states. These preferences too inceidentally show up in experiment after experiment. I can send you papers and references but this is about all you really need. Anyway, just see Nimesh Patel’s comment #172. That pretty much nails it.
Because Indians in the USA are, by and large, well educated and wealthy while there is a wide swath of Blacks who are still stuck in a poverty trap?
Jesus tapdancing Christ does NOBODY who comments on this site understand how a population distribution works? Just because there are poor Indians doesn’t mean that the population of Indians is generally rich.
We all know there are poor Indians. Sometimes we make general statements because having to include 1,001 obvious caveats that everyone is already aware of every time we say something is bloody tiresome.
That should read “isn’t generally rich.”
Ugh. We are splitting hairs at this point (for sake of debate, I re-read the article and didn’t see any mention Stein makes of Indians keeping Edison from being economically wiped from the map. The mayor makes a few points in our defense.)
The money quote is “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.”
The fact that ANY Indian or Indian-American can sit here and supply one rationalization after another for Stein and this utterance is beyond me. It is sickening. The Jewish community is to be admired not merely for intelligence of an academic variety, but of applied intelligence in service of their community and in defense of their people. They pride themselves on their backbone, their duty to one another, not on some kind of neutered objectivity on such matters. The Torah speaks of Tzedakah – of fellowship with other Jews, by providing for a fellow Jew in a time of need. I wonder what Hindi word would apply to someone who leaps to the defense of someone who shames our own community, who is only too quick to justify belittling words made at our expense.
I grew up in San Jose, California from age 3-16. You pretty much can’t get more diverse than that. Try again dude you are totally floundering.
Did you live in Michigan for any appreciable amount of time? His whole point is that in some places you can get acculturated to racial but not racist humor. If you lived in any such places, especially during high-school, the acculturation would still happen.
It doesn’t quite seem like Indians are being singled out here though. That is to say, yes he is talking about Indians, but it’s mostly a tone of “My town’s all different and I’m not sure I like it” rather than “Indians suck.” If Edison was taken over by Khmer people he’d be making unfunny comments about Khmer culture instead.
Usually when I see this kind of thing my reaction is pity more than umbrage. The Carlos Mencia school of comedy, where you just say insensitive, un-PC stuff just for the sake of being “edgy” was never really funny and is generally the refuge of a man without talent desperately jockeying for approval.
That said, I do make extravagantly offensive ethnic jokes all the time. So feel free to pity me too.
Shankar,
That’s the million dollar question. Perhaps one day the accomodationists in the Ind-Am community will be pushed aside – just as AIPAC and ADL have become dominant amidst the Jewish community. Only then can we push back with any success. It is impossible for those of us who actually bother to be loyal — to fight a two-front war- one with people like Stein, and the other with those within our own community who rejoice at justifying such behavior either from naive ignorance or a selfish kind of cowardice.
No- it’s a tone that Indians wear too much cologne, don’t assimilate, have made charmless strip malls, and the majority are stupid (hence India being 3rd world).
Were that the case, let the f*cking Khmer people deal with that. We don’t have the great fortune of falling through a time-space wormhole and living in that alternative universe; we inhabit this universe and therefore are dealing with reality and the article Stein actually wrote.
Warning: Half-assed analysis follows with leaks of emotion pent-up since the last 9 years.
The Lazy Satirist
The Stein piece is supposed to satire an old white fellow who grew up in Edison lamenting the ouster of his white childhood neighborhood by a stinkie (his concept) weird immigrant wonderland.
The only problem is that he really is an old white fellow who grew up in Edison ! And the entire piece is in character. Tough one to work out to be funny and current and informational and non-insulting and non-sticky to oneself at the same time (and his wiki entry says he is a journalist and taught a humor class at Princeton ? Puh-leez).
It is hard to see this as anything other than a veiled rant with real feelings hiding under the surface. Without a character transformation or change of heart the Archie Bunker (brilliant show, he should take a look) of Edison will appear to remain his intolerant self which does no service to the progressive society he is supposed to be writing to. Or are you serving someone else ? Your bank account maybe ? How easy was it to get this past the editor I wonder ? How is this journalism ? Even editorials provide some value. Being a troll is not one of them.
Joel is not clever enough and maybe there is not enough “material” out there that is outside the overdone stereotype realm for him to succeed… hey but it is a paycheck, no ? The lack of depth in the satire tells me he threw this out in an afternoon without much afterthought. His little tweet response does not constitute an apology (on the contrary, he feigns to be a victim) he still does not show any understanding of his offenses.
I really detest this kind of satire, where the lines are so blurred you cannot tell who is supposed to be vindicated. the original inhabitants, the new immigrants ? The bait (his epithets) actually turns out to be not as fake as it could be but almost too real. He does not “undo” the fake tirade successfully and in fact seems to almost cathartically enjoy it while laying bare some of his own prejudices while hiding behind various licenses he apparently has.
Does not matter what his intent is, I only have his words to judge.
If that is total confusion to you then how about this for satire:
“Hm, I want to write about how frustrating change can be for white America (yes, I am white, check) given the immigration issue these days and maybe people can laugh about it. And people love to laugh about Indians so I can bait them while I educate them and maybe soften them up to Indians, even the lower class ones (yes I am middle/upper class, check) making me a hero. So since I cannot write too much about the Indian experience since I lack personal experience with them (have bourgeois Indian friends I can count on to support me, check) let me write a satire of my nostalgic self spouting intolerant views about Indian immigrants invading my actual hometown. The source material is from my own childhood and I can couch any sterotyping with a few positive statistics about Indians. I do not have any positive personal anecdotes, oh well not necessary. And this will be a cool and edgy piece since Americans: (1) are reluctant to say they fear Indians because they fit terrorist profiles but will be trans/in-formed by the few stats I whip out and thus will have their guilt assuaged (2) believe most immigrant issues are about the Mexican border and the rise of the Latin demographic and I am addressing a minority that has a big presence in certain areas that many not be aware of (3) believe in the First Amendment and since this is satire I am protected, screw the critics (4) feel that latent racism is the new _____ (5) guarantee any publicity about me is good publicity. My article will have lots of hits and will earn a raise ! 6) know as do I that Indians are wimps in this country thankfully because of their immigrant status (I am not, check) so there won’t be too much of a backlash (6) are intolerant of immigrants and Indians anyway and can enjoy the satire as if it is for real, further boosting my readership ! (7) everyone laughs at the poor, just tap into the Slumdog vibe when you need to ! “
Not great satire but you get it.
By the way I am 2 years older than Joel and arrived on this soil from India before he was born. Not that I should be more entitled as a result, but can I at least complain about his individual arrival on this planet and his noise pollution ? I have lefty-Jewish friends (not many right wing ones) and they do not make the same mistakes and certainly don’t get it published in a major magazine.
To be the richest country in the world and then let yourself be colonized by a bunch of Pommies who rape all your resources and then you end up essentially worshiping their culture and beauty standards and once they leave you try and follow them to their country, you have to be pretty stupid, no?
Abhi, by relying on dictionary definitions of “racist” and “bigotry” you are off the mark in this discussion. You folks set up this blog as a voice for South Asians. Well the voice spoke when it asked Anna to comment on this piece. Whether Webster’s defines Stein as a racist is not the point. This article has offended many people in this community . It’s not ok to give Stein a pass. It’s not ok to say “awww shucks, can’t ya’ll take a joke?” Plenty of Stein’s articles are mean-spirited and not particularly funny. Who cares. This mean-spirited and unfunny article, though, I do care about. Taking offense is justified. Don’t let anyone tell you that it is not.
Anon,
You forgot to add (8) Because I am a liberal, generally holding views favorable to minorities in general, and I make a few positive comments about them to show that I am not motivated by simple-minded hatred. This is increasingly fashionable on the left since few can argue with credibility that they are actually unrepentant bigots with a serious hatred of people of color. No instead, they practically use their liberalism as a free pass to make insulting generalizations of minorities as they please. They can usually get away with it because they are joined by other white liberals who won’t fault their own and white redneck conservatives who almost never come to the defense of any minority. Dress it up as humor and you’re good to go.
(6) is right on the money.
wow strong oversensitivity to racial issues
LOL. you suck. I found the article hill a ree us!! He is bang on about Indians bringing in their stupider cousins and so on… You probably mad because you are one of the stupider ones! lol lol lol!!! and i got to learn a new word with which to call those cheap jersey bastards. Guindians!! lol lol lol!!
And you know what kids, it is cool to be racist. Don’t let the anal uppty highbrow crowd fool you. Racism pays.. look at Russell Peters.
The response I just sent off to Time:
Editors,
I was extremely disappointed to see Joel Stein’s article “My Own Private India in your magazine. I am sure that you have received many responses on the racist implications of the article, so I shall not belabor that point, although I will mention that I found this article to be a thoroughly failed attempt at humor. However, the most repulsive aspect of the article was Mr. Stein’s reference to India’s poverty, as explained by the intelligence of its citizens. To poke fun at poverty, which exists in India at a gut-wrenching level that most Americans cannot even dream of, is vile and cruel. It is also, quite frankly, untrue, which is what makes Mr. Stein’s comment unforgiveable.
In his Facebook and Twitter comments about the angered response to this article, Mr. Stein writes: “Didn’t meant [sic] to insult Indians with my column this week. Also stupidly assumed their emails would follow that Gandhi non-violence thing.” His continued stereotyping is evident in this assumption that all Indians would follow a certain response to his column. However, more importantly, I suspect that it is this sort of an assumption – that Indians are passive, docile, and accommodating of even the most atrocious injustices against them – that not only allowed Mr. Stein the confidence to write such a piece, but also allowed Time to feel comfortable to publish it. I sincerely wonder whether Mr. Stein or Time would have included anything that referred in a similar manner to the Jewish, African-American, or Latino communities of the US. Unfortunately, I need not wonder much, as I suspect that the answer would be a resounding negative.
And if Mr. Stein is still worried that “us” Indians have lost touch with our Gandhian roots, he need not worry himself – my satyagraha (nonviolent resistance) is still very much present, and shall be reflected in my decision to avoid reading his writing (or Time magazine) at any point in the foreseeable future.
Sincerely,
Amudha Poola
as someone who is mostly of Irish, Spanish, and Mestizo descent I am deeply offended by this article. I really wish people didn’t actually think like this and I continue to be amazed that this kind of blatant racism is made legitimate in the press. These kind of people that write articles like this and harbor thoughts like his are myopic, uncultured, and resistant to change. We are all from Africa…we must ALL unite against racism,
Great letter ak.
Again to make some joke that poverty = lack of intelligence is disgusting. And it is relevant that someone of Jewish ancestory, a huge population in the US toiled in slums and a huge population in Europe toiled in abject poverty and serfdom, to make jest of this. This sort of thinking poverty = stupidity is what drove many eugenics movements. Unlike Abhi, I don’t think b/c he gives a self-deprecating comment on his own community as an excuse.
Most of the Indians I know want issues of poverty of India to be on the forefront. B/c that equates discussion and change. Joking about poverty and intelligence is what I find shows the writer’s own lack of intelligence.
And no, I doubt Mr. Stein would make a comment like this about Africans or Latinos. And imo unfortunately there are some Indian leftists, but they shouldn’t appropriate the “left” or “liberal” slogan and don’t speak for many liberals, who regularly will denounce racism against Latinos and other minorities, but when it comes to directly denouncing racism, stereotyping on their own community, they don’t stand up, b/c they are too “liberal” too cool to be bothered.
There’s a place to talk about Indian poverty or poverty anywhere in the world – a poverty that causes death and despair. But Stein’s article wasn’t it.
Everyday Indian newspapers, columnists, editorialists, social scientists write about poverty, corruption, castism, religious tension,etc as they should to bring attention to social problems (and since we have free press this is easier done, than say in many other developing countries.) I know my offense doesn’t have anything to do with “he said India is poor” so it’s supposed to hurt my Indian nationalism and I seriously doubt most of the other desis writing in aren’t bothered by that and understand it’s necessary for social change.
one of the problems people are having in getting at the humor in the piece is that the writer has an assumed persona – a mix of snarky, sophomoric, in your face, but still quite an intelligent person, well aware of the range of people who immigrated here from india, the floodgate that opened after immigration was liberalized, the way the desis have renewed and exploited (in a positive sense) the market in NJ, succeeded brilliantly, made it their own, and created a strong vibrant community. all this is in there. the desi crowd there also deserves a bit of ridicule and ribbing. this indicates that desis have arrived, we can laugh at ourselves.
i totally don’t get this whining about “why don’t you make fun of the jews who got gassed” crap. there is no parallel. that is truly a moronic comment. nobody, but nobody, can laugh at themselves better than jews. why do you think many comedians are also jews? what stein has attempted here is that exact kind of humor.
get over it and stop the stupid rant mail to time magazine. it is embarrassing.
Yes, I went to the University of Michigan for four years, You know, the University with the the most activist brown population of any student body in the U.S. All my friends are hard core South Asian activisty types. You guys just don’t freakin get it. I will be leading the charge up the hill when it is real racism or bigotry. This is just oversensitivity by people (even those I am hugely respect like other bloggers on this site) that don’t see the difference between racism and bad humor and others who are charged up and desperate to prove that desis don’t (or shouldn’t) turn the other cheek.