Winking at Aziz at the MTV Movie Awards

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Hey Aziz Ansari! I’m gonna be one of those infamous seat fillers at this year’s MTV Movie Awards 2010 on June 6th! You better be winking at a brown face you see in the audience, because I’ll be winking back…!

First of all, how did Aziz Ansari get a gig like hosting the 19th Annual MTV Movie Awards? I mean we’ve written about his rise in fame here, and here, and here… but damn! A national awards show? Is it possible that he could just be the first Desi to host a national televised award show? Moving up. Second, how precious are those baby pictures? (h/t Ami)

Stephen Friedman, the general manager of MTV, said Mr. Ansari’s pop-cultural tastes made him an ideal embodiment of the millennial-generation viewers whom the channel wants to reach.

“He’s playing with music, our sweet spot, but doing it in a way that creates a visceral connection with everyone in our audience,” Mr. Friedman said. “This guy gets us in a much more immediate way than other comedians. He’s grown up with the audience.”

What Mr. Ansari won’t do is exploit his minority status for laughs, or make it the focus of his comedy. You won’t hear him opining about his parents’ background as Tamil Muslims from India, and he said he’s tired of people’s assumptions that he encountered rampant racism growing up in the South. [nyt] Continue reading →

The Manchurian Gobi Candidate

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There is so much to love about Senator Knott’s recent ode to ragheads in America. I mean this seriously.

I adore how he’s open about this feelings for “f#!king ragheads.” This guy is a Southern Conservative straight out central casting, he’s racist, bigoted, xenophobic and stupid although not uninformed. He actually knows who Sikhs are and where India is, that just doesn’t stop him from saying “We’re at war over there,” demonstrating he’s not a bigot because he’s ignorant, he’s ignorant because he’s a bigot. This can’t be cured by education. All ragheads are the same to him, and before the non-Sikh readers get too smug, he probably hates you as well.

But all of this is just the sundae. The cherry on top, my absolute favorite part is this:

Knotts says he believed Haley has been set up by a network of Sikhs and was programmed to run for governor of South Carolina by outside influences in foreign countries. [link]

ZOMG! She’s the Manchurian Candidate, the sleeper Sikh!

What I can’t figure out is what he’s so afraid she’s do once she’s activated. After all, the original Manchurian Candidate tried to whack the POTUS, and something tells me you wouldn’t be unhappy about that at all.

What will she do that would make you unhappy? Will her father attend her inauguration in a turban? Will she take down the confederate flag and replace it with the Indian one? Will she start teaching evolution in schools? Will she refuse to be sworn in with her hand over the bible and hold an ardaas instead?

Or maybe … she’ll invite DJ Rekha to the Governor’s mansion to play … Bhangra! Whoops, sorry Senator, the Raghead-in-Chief has already done that in the White House, the nations’ political bhangra-virginity has already been lost:

“I want to thank DJ Rekha who’s been spinning a little East Room Bhangra for everybody mixing a hip-hop beat with the sounds of her heritage; making a uniquely American sound that may not have been heard in the White House before,” Obama said amidst laughter and applause. [link]

Although, maybe you do have a point. That first Bhangra in an executive residence was soo good, that we want to do it again and again, promiscuously, with different executive residences, in all fifty states around the country! Next stop, Louisiana, where Piyush is going to Bhangra the BP blues away!

Sorry Senator, you lost the civil war and you’re going to lose the culture war too. In fact, your raghead comment just caused the former county GOP chair to declare her 2012 challenge to you [link]. But thank you for playing, and thanks for all the laughs! Continue reading →

SM’s paper bag test

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I would think it’s obvious that Nikki can pass much better than Jindal can. In case you need convincing, look at the two images below. They’re grabbed at random to show each candidate side by side with somebody white.

Here’s Bobby, clearly much darker than Kenneth the Page:

Here’s Nikki in a girl scout troop:

Nikki pretty much fits in, while Bobby stands out.

Continue reading →

Nikki’s pagan past and pious present

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[UPDATE: See a fuller copy of Knott’s remarks where she alleges Haley is a secret Sikh who is being elected by a cabal of Indian interests [link]]

One of the interesting differences between Jindal and Haley, two politicians with so much in common down to their Punjabi parents, is that Jindal makes his conversion central to his political identity whereas Haley does not.

1 One reason for this is color. Bobby Jindal is very clearly brown, he is married to a brown woman with a “foreign” name. He couldn’t hide his ancestry if he tried, so instead he emphasizes his conversion from the alien Hindu faith to the more familiar Catholic one.

Haley doesn’t have that burden, she’s a light skinned woman married to a white man, with a familiar sounding name. Heck, I got a number of emails last week from friends (desi and non-desi) all saying “Nicky Haley’s desi?” For her, talking about her conversion is not just unecessary, it would remind people of what’s alien about her and so it would be counter-productive.

I think this is why the attacks on her religion have been fairly tame in the past (in 2004 anonymous fliers claimed she was a Hindu but she still went on to beat the most senior member of the State House [link]) and present [link], they just have a hard time sticking, even though this is a state where anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon attacks have worked in the past [link].

2 The other reason why she doesn’t stress her conversion as much is that it doesn’t seem to have been as abrupt. Her campaign strongly stresses her Christianity today, but this was not true in 2004 and reflects a strong increase in Christian language in her campaign materials [link].

In 2004, seven years after her conversion, she was quoted as saying she attended both Methodist and Sikh services [link] and even now her spokesman will admit that “She attends Sikh services once or twice a year in respect for her family… Like millions of others, she honors her mother and her father” [link].

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That’s the Raghead-in-Chief to you (updated)

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[Update: See below the fold for much more extensive coverage of what Knotts actually said. It’s far more offensive and inflamatory than the first reports revealed]

On a political talk show Thursday night, State Senator Jake Knotts said (about Nikki Haley):

“We already got one rag-head in the White House, we don’t need a rag-head in the governor’s mansion,” [link]

I’d love to show you the video of this clip, but it was either pulled from the archive or “Republican political operative and show co-host Wesley Donehue …forgot to hit record” [link].

After being soundly reamed by Haley for his remarks and more mildly criticized by the SC GOP, Senator Knotts “apologized” saying

my “raghead” comments about Obama and Haley were intended in jest. Bear in mind that this is a freewheeling, anything-goes Internet radio show that is broadcast from a pub. It’s like local political version of Saturday Night Live, which is actually where the joke came from,” Knotts said. “Since my intended humorous context was lost in translation, I apologize. I still believe Ms. Haley is pretending to be someone she is not, much as Obama did, but I apologize to both for an unintended slur [link]

Get that?

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How NOT to Date an Indian

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Dear Ms. Miller,

On June 1, you posted a most excellent and helpful piece in The Huffington Post’s Living section called “How to Date an Indian (Advice for the Non-Indian).” As someone whose bio states that she has “lived in Mumbai for three years,” and who is in a relationship with a man of Indian descent, you are especially well-qualified to advise the rest of the world on the best means to bag a brown man/woman. Or as you write, “my husband… is from New Delhi, which, in addition to providing me with lots of Indian friends and in-laws, have given me a pretty good perspective on the desirability of the people from the world’s largest democracy — and how to woo them.”

Thank you again for pointing out that we are the chosen ones. I tend to agree with you about our superior good looks and other redeeming qualities. As a brown woman myself, I wanted to personally testify as to the truth of your points. Continue reading →

Ack! They are Back!

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I was the biggest Badmash comicstrip fangirl. Biggest. So it was with giddy excitement that I opened up my e-mail announcing a new Desi comicstrip hitting the interwebs by Badmash boy Sandeep Sood. ACK! (“Amar Chitra Katha”) is a “comic that places two bit characters from the Mahabharata into modern-day Jersey.” With a plot line like that, how can you not be just a wee bit curious? ACK-2-final-texture.jpg

See Issue 1 to Ack! right here. The comic strip is only two weeks in, so who really knows where the story can go from here. At this rate, just about anywhere. Who woulda thunk of Jersey-fiying the Mahabharata? What was Sandeep thinking?

I first learned about Hinduism through comic books…So, like a good, inclusive Hindu, I allowed these stories to merge with the other epics I followed on Saturday mornings and then recreated during the week. Continue reading →

Flotilla to Gaza: Facts and Meditations

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If you have been following Facebook, Twitter, or the news, you have probably heard of the flotilla that was captured by the Israel military sometime our Sunday night. Six boats filled with humanitarian aid deporting from several European countries were headed to Gaza. Organized by the umbrella organization Free Gaza, the ships were trying to break a blockade and bring much needed supplies.

The flotilla aimed to deliver aid to Gaza, to break an Israeli and Egyptian blockade on the territory. According to the UN, Gaza receives about one quarter of the supplies it used to receive in the years before the blockade was tightened in 2007. The ships were carrying 10,000 tonnes of goods, including school supplies, building materials and two large electricity generators. The activists also say they wanted to make the point that, in their view, the blockade is illegal under international law. (BBC).

I found this video rather helpful to explain who and what the mission was trying to do. But the flotilla had to abort the mission when the Israeli Defense Force boarded the ships in international waters, killing 10 people and wounding 30. The boats were captured and taken to Israel. Though there are two sides to the debate, the attack was brutal – no side can deny that. Upon boarding the ship (armed and w/ body protection), the military began shooting the civilians. The soldiers said they were being attacked, (though technically since the soldiers jumped on the boat in international waters, the soldiers were the attackers). The aid workers carried no ammunition on the boats; the video evidence (from the Israeli side) shows slingshots and sticks (link). Video evidence from Al Jazeera shows gunshots going off even after the boat raised the white flags.

There has been an international outcry about the attack and the disappearance of the 700 people on the boat. Yesterday, within 24 hours of the attacks, protests were happening all around the world. This interactive map shows just how many people hit the streets as soon as this happened. Here in Los Angeles, people rallied in front of the Israeli Consulate – I went to go see what it was all about and gather some interviews while at it.

Only just this afternoon has the Israeli government released information on the the well-being of the passengers. Though most of the people on the passenger list were European, there were also some Desis on board the ships. Continue reading →

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Our Sepia Mutiny admin team needs extra help

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Our website administrators Chaitan and Kunjan need some extra help improving the functionality and features here on Sepia Mutiny. We are looking to add two highly skilled volunteer developers to our team. If you are a developer who is also an avid reader and wishes that we had this, that, or the other feature on our website, please email us. Sepia Mutiny has always attempted to keep up with the cutting edge in terms of blog readability, usability, and aesthetics. Joining us will also give you a chance to show off your skills on a website that gets a lot of traffic.

These are the basic coding skills you should have:

Required: PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript

Preferred: Linux (CentOS), Apache, MySql, Perl

Bonus points: Git or SVN

MOST IMPORTANT PRE-REQUISITE: Time. If you don’t have at least 8-10 hours a week to spend improving SM, please don’t apply to this. Being a part of SM is a significant (but rewarding) commitment. All the bloggers here see this as a labor of love and carve out time to put their effort into this. You should have the same type of commitment in mind.

Please use our contact form to apply. Thanks in advance.

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Chuck Schumer’s “Outsourcing Tax”

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Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who many say aspires to be the Senate Majority Leader should Nevada’s Harry Reid lose his election or step aside, has proposed a new bit of legislation that may be of interest to SM readers:

In an effort to slow the exodus of U.S. telephone work to overseas services, Sen. Charles Schumer is introducing legislation that would impose an excise tax on companies that transfer calls with American area codes to foreign call centers.

The measure would also require telling U.S. customers that the call is being transferred and to which country.

Companies use call centers to give customers technical product support, answer billing questions or provide other information. They often use several operators.

The fee would be 25 cents for calls transferred to foreign countries. There would be no fee for a domestic call center. Companies would have to report quarterly their total customer service calls received and the number relayed overseas. [BusWeek]

The 25 cent fee isn’t ideal. It is anti-business and too nativist for my taste, but this is a tough economy and the Senator is engaging in a bit of phony “I feel your pain” to protect his right flank. What I really don’t agree with is the second part of the proposed legislation,which requires a company to announce which foreign country the call is being transferred to. Turning that into a law does nothing but encourage the worst in people. What’s next, pass a law that requires the call center worker to use their real names and accents as well?

In a survey of American economists in 2006, Robert Whaples found nearly 90 percent agreed the U.S. should eliminate remaining protectionist tariffs and trade barriers, like the new one Schumer is proposing, that there are lower costs and a net gain from free trade. Most also agreed the U.S. should not restrict American employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. [BusWeek]

And India of course is the main outsourcing punching bag. It doesn’t matter that Ireland and Israel are the beneficiaries of a great deal of outsourcing as well. Only countries like India and the Philippines get the bad public image.

Please let Schumer know that proposing stupid legislation, just to protect himself from a Republican opponent that is a “terror warrior,” is not the right way to get the South Asian American part of his base to turn out on election day or open their checkbooks for his campaign.

You can contact him here.

Continue reading →