O-bhangra-ama

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All I’m saying is that I’d like to have seen former first lady Barbara Bush get down to bhangra with village school girls. That is all I’m saying (h/t Sushil)!

The Obamas are in India doing some politico-shmolitico-ness this week, as we have been following here at Sepia Mutiny. Lesson of the day: never underestimate a good dance number to bond transnational alliances.

The whole country watched Michelle Obama shaking a leg to hit Bollywood number Rang De Basanti during her interaction with school kids in Mumbai on Saturday. Then again on Sunday, while celebrating Diwali with children from a school in south Mumbai, she broke into a jig to join kids performing a Konkani folk dance, even inspiring the US President to join her on the dance floor. [ndtv]

I wonder if this may at all change the script to the upcoming “Obama” Bollywood movie, “Phas Gaye Re Obama” (“Obama is in a Fix”). It’s about Obama-loving Indian gangsters struggling amid the economic recession. How can they not have a Michelle Obama inspired dance number now? Continue reading →

Free Rides to the Polls

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New Yorkers, you have no excuse:

Harpreet Singh Toor, a neighborhood activist who is running to become the first Sikh in the city council, has come up with an innovative way to get his voters to the polls next Tuesday.

Toor has arranged for Sikh cab drivers to use their cars to ferry voters to and from the polls on election day.

“It is important that the voters in Southeast Queens make their voices heard,” Toor said. “Of course I hope that they vote for me, but what is most important is that they vote. For too long the needs of this district have been ignored by those in office. The only way we will change things for the better is to come out and vote in large numbers.”

Toor noted that Sikh cab drivers also offered free rides in the wake of 9/11, and said the gesture then and next week is related to the Sikh concept of Seva, which he defined as doing service without any expectation of return. [Link]

I think we should do this in every district in the country but make it a more collaborative all-around effort! I am imagining that a local sweets store would provide gulab jamuns and samosas in the cab and a local dhol player could get people psyched up by playing their instrument just outside the sphere of the polling place. Then some kulfi on the way out. This is my vision.

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Vote “American” Today

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For months we have been highlighting the campaigns of South Asian American candidates. Now it’s “go” time. Get out there today and please encourage others you know to vote as well. It is precisely elections like these where the things you voted for in presidential elections are rolled back. If you felt voting in 2008 was important than this election is no different.

This past August, the Republican nominee for Kansas’ Fourth Congressional District Mike Pompeo — who owes much of his personal wealth and political career to the right-wing billionaire Koch brothers — tweeted out an article referring to his Indian-American Democratic opponent Raj Goyle (a former Center for American Progress staffer) as an “evil” “turban topper,” calling it a “good read.” Shortly after the tweet, the campaign released a full apology, calling it an “honest mistake.”

Now, the campaign has once again returned to racial waters. Pompeo supporter John Eck, who runs an insurance agency in the district, placed two digital billboards above the building that houses his company. The first features an image of Pompeo along with the phrase, “True Americans Vote For Pompeo.” The second billboard says, “Vote American. Vote Pompeo.” [link]

If you have any stories from the polling places today please email or tweet us.
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Who’s That … Brown?

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The San Fransisco Bay Guardian has an easy to read voting slate that you can take to the polls when voting today! But as I looked through it, I did a double take. It looked like a slate of all white faces. But wait a second, is that Kamala Harris in the middle? The Kamala Harris running for Attorney General with a Jamaican father and Indian mother? Kamala Slate.jpg

What is up with the white washing? She looks whiter than the other folks on the slate. Who actually are white. Do they really think people in San Francisco have that much of an implicit racial bias that they had to make her this washed out to get their vote? I’ve seen this Kamala photo used several times on the materials here and find it disturbing. This campaign photo reminds me of the campaign photos of Bobby Jindal and President Obama where their skin color was messed with.

After working a candidate campaign this election cycle and understanding how much of a person’s image is sieved before public exposure, I find it hard to believe these pictures were not touched up deliberately by a consultant or two. But…why? Don’t they know brown is beautiful? Don’t they know we have a black President?? Kamala with Obamas.jpg See? Here’s a picture of Kamala Harris with the Obamas. A photo where she actually is brown! What was that? Who’s That? Brooown!

Today is Election Day. GO VOTE. Whether for a white guy named Brown or a brown girl washed white. Go to smartvoter.org for your polling location, you have the right to ask for a provisional ballot, you can contact 1-866-OUR-VOTE if you have polling issues and you can read my 2008 Election Day post if you need more voting rights info. Continue reading →

Letter to a Young Islamophobe

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Ayaan Hirsi AliAP061001023052-thumb-400xauto-4681.jpg Dear Young Islamophobe:

You will do well to start with any of the books written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Her best-known work is Infidel. Her latest book is Nomad. She has also written a few other things. Anything written by Hirsi Ali will do; they all say the same things about the terror of Islam.

I read Nomad recently. It is littered with stories like the following: “In February 2009 in Buffalo, New York, a forty-seven-year-old Muslim businessman who had set up a cable TV station to ‘promote more favorable views of Muslims,’ beheaded his wife, who was seeking to divorce him.”

This is a short short-story. You can narrate it at parties. Imagine the shock (but perhaps not the silence, because these days everyone, it seems, has a story to tell about Islam). But you should also learn from Hirsi Ali’s style of writing. Continue reading →

Famous Desi People Want You to Vote

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This week I tweeted about how we need to get Desi famous folks to make a “Get Out the Vote” PSA for November 2nd’s election. I’ve brought this up before on Sepia Mutiny on how the only voting PSA I was able to find with a Desi person is from the infamous Sunny Leone.

Well, the famous Desi folks have heard my appeal. Ok, they may have been working on this PSA before I tweeted at them. Aziz Ansari and Kal Penn (along with other famous people) are featured in the below Funny or Die video which I stumbled upon at 99Problems.org.

Like Aziz says, “Do you realize how motivated stupid people are? Work up a little energy. Go vote.” Along those lines, I’m dressing up like the Chai Party this Halloween as I go Trick or Voting for my campaign. Does anyone have costume ideas?

And just in case you needed a reminder…

Famous Desi people! Infamous Desi people! Non-famous Desi people! I want to see your videos telling the South Asian American community to get out the vote! Kthxbye. Continue reading →

From Macacas to Turban Toppers…

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I have been flipping through the thorough new report released on Wednesday by South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) titled, From Macacas to Turban Toppers: The Rise in Xenophobic and Racist Rhetoric in American Political Discourse. The report catalogs a great many derogatory statements directed at South Asian Americans. The vast majority of the statements cited are examples of anti-Islamic bias by elected officials, but recent examples include statements against South Asian Americans running for Congress (which was also touched upon in this good NPR story from Wednesday morning).

With the midterm elections round the corner, SAALT’s report, From Macacas to Turban Toppers: The Rise in Xenophobic and Racist Rhetoric in American Political Discourse, documents intolerant remarks made by elected officials and those running for office. According to the report, since September 11, there has been an unprecedented rise in xenophobic statements that have specifically targeted South Asians, Arab Americans, Muslims, and Sikhs…

“The details in this report are extremely helpful not only to the South Asian community but to the rest of the country as well”, said Hilary Shelton, Director, Washington Bureau of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), one of the speakers at the briefing. Shelton compared the experiences of Muslims, South Asians, Arab Americans and Sikhs to those of African Americans, who have also been dehumanized and marginalized by a racist political climate.

Reflecting on the current climate of Islamophobia, lawyer, commentator and founder of themuslimguy.com, Arsalan Iftikhar, noted that “‘Muslim’ has become the accepted slur in America… Race, xenophobia, bigotry have now become a permanent political wedge issue in America.” [link]

Many of the examples cited in the report are incidents we have blogged about here on SM. To see them all cataloged in one place though results in an even more disturbing narrative. This is why it is important to vote.

Check out the full report and let us know what you think.

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Pondering Obama and the Golden Temple

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Last week, the White House decided that Obama would not be going to the Golden Temple, even though this was tentatively on his schedule for his trip to India in early November.

As the story was reported, the White House pulled out because Obama was told he had to cover his head with a bandana rather than a baseball cap, and White House Staff were afraid this would make it look like Obama was wearing “Muslim garb.” [See NYT, Daily Beast]

The problem is, I find that story absurd. I’m pretty sure it’s wrong, and here’s why:

  • Sikh religious authorities have said outright that a baseball cap would be fine:

any covering, even a baseball cap, would be acceptable. “We would welcome President Obama as long as he covers his head while inside Harimandir Sahib (Golden Temple). Caps or hats are not barred by Sikh dharmik maryada (religious code of conduct). After all even Queen Elizabeth wore a western hat when she came to the temple”

  • The Queen of England wore a hat when she visited the same site. (Photo is of Anadpur Sahib not Harmandir Sahib, but her garb was the same in both places)
    • MiriPiri-QueenVisit[1].jpg
  • People wear all sorts of hats to the Golden Temple, including baseball caps, and this has never been a problem. 
  • The President would look dopey wearing a baseball cap to a religious site. He could, however, have worn a cowboy hat, something which seems to have been OK with everybody, and which would have looked marginally more dignified.

But here’s my biggest issue with this narrative: a bandana on Obama’s head would have made him look gangster or hipster, but certainly not Muslim.

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