Perhaps in response to my last post about the record blinding whiteness of the RNC, the GOP has decided to reach out to minority voters in the key state of Virginia with a big rally this weekend.

Among the key speakers at this rally will be none other than former Senator George Allen of Macaca fame, a man the state party sees as perfectly exemplifying the face they want to put forward to minority voters:

“George Allen has an excellent record on issues of diversity, reaching out to people…His whole career, his whole life have been a testament to a guy who’s treated people equally across racial lines, across every kind of line.” [Link]

No, you haven’t accidentally clicked on a post from the Onion, this is for real, I don’t have the imagination to make something like this up.

For those of you whose memory is hazy, two years ago George Allen was a senator from Virginia, favored not only for re-election but for the party’s Presidential nomination in 2008 until he called a young desi by the name of S.R. Sidarth a macaca, and welcomed him to “America and the real world.” [Youtube]

In the process of digging around in Allen’s history, reporters found out that he also had a real fondness for the Confederacy and used to keep a noose hanging from a tree in his law office. So it’s not just desis who have reasons to be repulsed by Allen, it’s a far larger group of potential voters.

When asked about the macaca incident, the communications director for the VA GOP waved the whole thing off as being just a wikipedia smear job:

Asked whether “macaca” might cloud the message a bit, Scimeca said the whole thing was a smear-job by the Dems: “Anyone had to go on Wikipedia to be offended by it. And you know how people can mess with Wikipedia.” [Link]

That last statement will probably offend a group that overlaps heavily with desis in Virginia, techies. After all, how could any self-respecting geek still respect a party spokesman who can’t tell his Wikipedia from his Youtube?

Related posts: Q: What is a “Macaca” and should we fear it? ; “Macaca” Not Going Away ; The Macaca Speaks

Continue reading →

Watching the Republican National Convention was a little like being lost in an Alaskan snowstorm: I was blinded by the unbearable whiteness of being a Republican delegate. It was surprising, therefore, to find out that the delegates were even whiter than they appeared on TV. It seems the camera not only adds ten pounds, it also increases the amount of melanin in the room.

While 44% of all delegates at the DNC were minorities, this was true for only 7% of RNC delegates. In fact, this was one of the whitest RNC conventions in decades, pretty much since Black Americans effectively regained the franchise:

Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black, the lowest number since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies began tracking diversity at political conventions 40 years ago [Link]

This was a big shift from 2000 and 2004, when the Bush campaign successfully reached out strongly to Black and Latino voters. The absence of Latino voters was particularly striking, probably because Latino activists have been driven out of the party grassroots that constitute the delegates by the rancor over immigration.

The party has also made a concerted effort to court Hispanics, but its electoral gains have been diminished by the hard-line stance many Republicans have taken on immigration… 5 percent of delegates are Hispanic, the lowest percentage at a Republican convention since 1996 [Link]

McCain’s own campaign manager said:

“We have to make a better case to the Hispanic voter that the Republican Party has something to offer other than a deportation slip,” [Link]

And while I was unable to find any figures on Asians at the Republican convention, the numbers leave little room for Asian delegates unless in very small number.

Continue reading →

Dear Bridget,

Amar chotho apu. My sister from another mother (because all of us Bangladeshis essentially are, nah?). Is Bridget your bhalou nam or dak nam? Neither? Ok. Well, yay! Finally, a Bangladeshi-American makes it to the stage of a big political party convention. Rumor has it that your outfit was pretty fly. How did it feel being up there on stage? Did you feel like you were breaking boundaries? Because as the first Bangladeshi-American on stage at the Republican National Convention, you definitely were. And your mother, Cindy McCain, made sure to let everyone know in her RNC speech how she “discovered” you too.

For me, the great moment of clarity was when I became a mother. Something changed in me. I would never see my obligations the same way again. It was after that I was walking through the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, surrounded by terrible poverty and the devastation of a cyclone. All around me were the children and the desperate faces of their mothers. The pain was overwhelming, and I felt helpless. But then I visited an orphanage begun by Mother Teresa, and two very sick little girls captured my heart. There was something I could do. I could take them home, and so I did. Today, both of those little girls are healthy and happy. And one of them you just met tonight: our beautiful daughter, Bridget. [Fox News]

Ahh, but who is this other little Bangladeshi girl you were adopted with?

John and Cindy McCain adopted one of them, Wes Gullett [McCain’s former aide] and his wife Deborah adopted the other… The McCains adopted the baby with the cleft palate, Bridget, and the Gulletts adopted the other one, Nicki. Both children required a lot of medical attention, but the Gulletts never saw a hospital bill.[ABCNews]

Continue reading →

I have yet to finish all my Democratic National Convention posting since I’ve been on near constant travel ever since I left Denver (I’m in Alabama right now in a hotel where some Gustav refugees are also staying). I am however, in touch with an Indian American woman (let’s call her PK) who is in Minneapolis this week. PK is at the RNC as a medic who is treating protesters (and possibly some anarchists) who are at the convention. I asked her if she’d be nice enough to send me a dispatch and she sent the following last night:

Today I spent most of the day at a street clinic, organized by local and national activists concerned about the health of those involved in protests, especially those subject to police brutality. We’re housed in a church, right across from one of the main hospitals in St. Paul (this is where I do some of my medical rotations). We’re close to the capitol building, but a mile from the Xcel Center. This center is here to address the acute needs of those in medical need, but either unable (due to lack of health insurance) or uninterested (due to lack of trust with the medical establishment or record system) to access their medical care at the mainstream health center.

Yesterday, many of the medics out on the streets were taken in with the protestors. The general belief is that medics are being targetted for arrest particularly because without the support staff there to help the “rioters”, the protestors will be less likely to attempt further action.

The Poor People’s March for Economic Human Rights took place today. It was notably smaller than yesterdays demonstration, and the arrests and retaliation was smaller, though the police presence is out of proportion to the number of marchers. In clinic, the entire afternoon and evening we kept getting texts that tear gas was used at this-and-that street and we were expecting a deluge of tear gassed individuals to show up, any minute. But we had very few visits, mainly because people are being decontaminated on the streets. At the clinic, we have a larger makeshift decontamination center (basically, the person strips, we hose them down to remove all residues of the gas, clean out their eyes with solution, and have them put on new clothes), and it seemed to attract a lot of unneccessary attention late in the evening because we had all the “fresh clothes” set up on the grass and the Poor People’s March veered towards our street. A collection of police came by and began asking what we’re doing, who is renting the space, and other unnecessaries. They were told to return with a warrant, and the remainder of the evening was high stress, as the main organizers began to prepare us for being taken in, in the case of a raid. My main worry through this whole thing was typically desi– I’m studying for the USMLE and can’t afford to go to jail right now! AND WHAT WILL MY PARENTS THINK??!

Continue reading →