KABC will definitely be hearing from me.

Still, there's a secondary point. I think you can be brown, or Sikh, and support a variety of political perspectives.

But I have to wonder how Navraj Singh is able to accommodate his party membership with the fact that others of the same party are the ones who clearly support and agree with Rantel. This rhetoric is coming from one side only, and that side is sending people like Navraj Singh a very clear message - we think you're inferior. How does one stay a member of a party or movement whose members have no problem demeaning you?

It's not like Rantel is the only one, or like this is the first time. Xenophobia is the bread and butter of right wing figures, and anti-brown xenophobia regularly comes from very high places in the party. How does one live with that? How much does it take?

Ah, this is nothing new for Al Rantel, as he is a bigot to the extreme, along with just about anyone else on AM "Hate Radio" in the Los Angeles/Southern California area.

You can contact the station, but in my experience, they won't give a damn. They know who there demographic audience is, and what that audience wants to hear, i.e white middle-class republican males(and an growing number of said females) between the ages of 35 and 60. South Asian Americans just don't fit into their viewer concern.

I will contact them also, but I expect little positive response on their part.

I once heard a Iranian-American call into AM 760 on a Sunday afternoon, I believe on the "Tammy Bruce" show. The conversation was about religion, and namely Islam. This Iranian-American fellow explained that his Mother is a Persian Jew, and his Father a Persian Shia Moslem. He explained that he chose Islam as he personal religious identity for various reasons, though he respected his Mother's background very much.

He was summarily accused of choosing "TERRORISM" by the host of the show...Go figure.

ignorant bloody Americans : p. Rantel is a battyboi wanker : )

Ann Coulter loves talking about ragheads and that is usually cheered wildly by hard core young conservatives.

Al_Chutiya_for_Debauchery Wrote:

"Ann Coulter loves talking about ragheads and that is usually cheered wildly by hard core young conservatives."

Very true.

I actually have had people try and tell me that the term "raghead" is not even a disparaging remark.

The logic behind that just alludes me.

Let me put it another way - who pays for Rantel? Rantel's bigotry makes him money. It makes him money because his listeners like it or tolerate it. Who are his listeners? Xenophobic republicans and non-xenophobic republicans who tolerate bigotry.

Multiply that across the range of talk show hosts, and that tells you something about xenophobia and the party base.

But I have to wonder how Navraj Singh is able to accommodate his party membership with the fact that others of the same party are the ones who clearly support and agree with Rantel. This rhetoric is coming from one side only, and that side is sending people like Navraj Singh a very clear message - we think you're inferior. How does one stay a member of a party or movement whose members have no problem demeaning you?

Republican Party is becoming scary. The xenophobia is out of control. Muslims and Mexicans and anybody who can be confused for them of course being top enemies. Here is a scary report of a National Review cruise.

Ennis and Al Chutiya for Debauchery...You two just hit the nail on the head.

Its what the listeners WANT to hear.

Its just that simple.

Let me put it another way - who pays for Rantel? Rantel's bigotry makes him money. It makes him money because his listeners like it or tolerate it. Who are his listeners? Xenophobic republicans and non-xenophobic republicans who tolerate bigotry.

You forgot a step: It makes him money because his advertisers see that the listeners will tolerate it. If there's enough of a public outcry, if there's talk of boycotts, those advertisers will get worried, and that's when the radio station will start pressuring Rantel. That's what happened with the Don Imus "nappy-headed ho" incident.

Multiply that across the range of talk show hosts, and that tells you something about xenophobia and the party base.

Excellent point. Why are talk show hosts like Medved and Michael Savage so popular?

Sarah Wrote:

"You forgot a step: It makes him money because his advertisers see that the listeners will tolerate it. If there's enough of a public outcry, if there's talk of boycotts, those advertisers will get worried, and that's when the radio station will start pressuring Rantel. That's what happened with the Don Imus "nappy-headed ho" incident."

In theory, I agree with you.

In reality though, I think the Don Imus situation in relation to African-Americans and the situation of South Asians, Middle Easterners, Asians in general, Muslims, Sikhs, Mexicans, etc, is very different.

It is fashionable to hate those demographics right now, for various reasons. There is no "white guilt" in relation to those groups. They are not seen as American by many, and the consequences of hating them not only lack negative blow back, but are even encouraged in the media to a large extent.

Showing hatred towards black Americans has consequences, while showing hatred the brown Americans has reward.

Rantel the ignorant (I shall bestow this title upon him, yes), is gay and the grandson of Italian immigrants. I know that the latter detail is irrelevant, because this country is fine with Europeans choosing to settle here

a minor point, but the immigration act of 1924 discriminated against southern and eastern europeans. and to a great extent that was the intent of those passing the legislation, who wanted to maintain the northwest european ("nordic") character of the united states.

Isn't this classic? Use one minority to hate on another? That way its easy to play the "See, we support diversity, how can we be bad?" card. Rantel seems like the lowest form of mercenary.

what i don't understand about these people using the term"raghead" to denigrate sikhs/muslims: wouldn't all those biblical people be "ragheads"? isn't that how they dressed? are they assuming that if jesus appeared today he would come back in a three-piece suit and tie?

It is fashionable to hate those demographics right now, for various reasons. There is no "white guilt" in relation to those groups. They are not seen as American by many, and the consequences of hating them not only lack negative blow back, but are even encouraged in the media to a large extent.

Showing hatred towards black Americans has consequences, while showing hatred the brown Americans has reward.

That's a really good point. Sickening, but true. I guess the question, then, is how to make it so that hatred toward brown Americans also has consequences. The Day Without An Immigrant protest was a start... multiply that by a major civil rights movement and then, maybe.

I was thinking today about the processes by which immigrant groups become accepted. I was waking up this morning, and through my bedroom window I heard a guy in the street talking about the drug culture in South Philly. He said, "Those Italians are no more than n**gers turned inside out." It was shocking not only for its racism and total lack of logic, but also because who hears anti-Italian racism these days? Italians weren't considered white 75 years ago, and my husband's older relatives have some hair-raising stories about the racism they faced back then. But now Italians are white Americans who can turn around and hate Mexicans and Indians and Iranians without a second thought, and the comment I heard is just anachronistic. I mean, sure, there are complaints about the Sopranos, but compared to the Jena Six or the consistent profiling of Muslims and Sikhs... come on. How does that happen? In another 50 years, will Indians be accepted as Americans and be busy hating on the next wave of immigrants?

Rantel is a jerk, but Ennis--the left has some pretty distasteful characters too.
E.g., the Obama staffer who called Hillary "(D-Punjab)".

In another 50 years, will Indians be accepted as Americans and be busy hating on the next wave of immigrants?

they're human, aren't they?

How does one stay a member of a party or movement whose members have no problem demeaning you?

the world isn't black & white. people have various priorities and various reasons to vote the way they do. we can't go inside the minds of individuals and know the exact details of their circumstances. we can look at groups and wonder why they vote the way they do because the numbers should even out random fluctuations. you look at one super wealthy person and wonder why they vote for the green party...well, i think the operative assumption is that though they have money, that isn't everything. on the other hand, why do jews vote democratic despite their affluence? that's a real question, and there have been various answers to it.

this is like the whole "self hate" question. is it really self hate, or do you simply not understand the totality of the values, motives and interests of a particular person?

Rantel is a jerk, but Ennis--the left has some pretty distasteful characters too. E.g., the Obama staffer who called Hillary "(D-Punjab)".

That's messed up, no doubt, but the right wing actually bases its ideology on this stuff.

Unfortunately, in its attempts to show how 'tough on terrorism' it is, the Democratic party buys into the racist right's rhetoric WAY too often. I don't really even consider the Democrats to be 'the left', personally.

but the right wing actually bases its ideology on this stuff.

are you right wing? is that why you know the basis of right wing ideology? or are you a right wingologist?

i can grant that the american right is gifted with more nativism and racism than the american left. but that doesn't mean essential assertions which reduce a whole political orientation toward one tendency really push the discussion forward.

Whose God is it anyways? Wrote:

- "what i don't understand about these people using the term"raghead" to denigrate sikhs/muslims: wouldn't all those biblical people be "ragheads"? isn't that how they dressed? are they assuming that if jesus appeared today he would come back in a three-piece suit and tie?"

You make an excellent point. I think that most Americans see Jesus Christ, and the majority of those characters and various peoples in the Bible, as ancient incarnations of their modern day selves. This should not be surprising, when one factors in the realization that Christianity has been the religious "cornerstone" of Western civilization, for better or for worse, and that America is regularly viewed and self-labeled as a "Judeo-Christian" society. Add in the fact that people are inherently tribal, selfish, and ethnocentric...

In other words, the term "raghead" or "diaper-head" is a means of labeling the "other", while ironically the religious backbone of American society, which originated in the lands and peoples of that notion of the "other", is conveniently seen as a separate entity with a separate origin.

I would love to hear everyone's input into this matter.

E.g., the Obama staffer who called Hillary "(D-Punjab)".

this is true, but contemporary lefties tend to use racism in a situational/instrumental manner, it is a means toward an end. e.g., consistently referring to bobby jindal as pyush jindal, the democrats know what they're doing and to what element they're appealing. that being said, it's all in the name of the cause. to use a biological distinction most lefty racism in the USA on the political level is proximate, while some righty racism is ultimate (that is, it is embedded in the set of values).

p.s. implicit psychological tests do confirm that conservatives tend to be more racist than liberals. but i said tend, liberals aren't immune from the problem so let's take a step back from the black and white generalizations.

I would love to hear everyone's input into this matter.

i know of people who have turned this around on people. implicitly people turn their gods into projections of themselves, but most american christians know as a matter of fact that jesus was a jew from the middle east. i had a lebanese american friend who was often called "sand n*gger", and she would respond to some of her taunters "like jesus." that usually shut them up because the more religiously devout ones pulled back and looked really confused often.

are you right wing? is that why you know the basis of right wing ideology? or are you a right wingologist?

i can grant that the american right is gifted with more nativism and racism than the american left. but that doesn't mean essential assertions which reduce a whole political orientation toward one tendency really push the discussion forward.

LOL, Razib, I'm certainly not right wing but I've been fighting them long enough that I might be a right wingologist.

I should clarify my statement; that came off as much more general than it was intended. I'm not saying that all right-wingers are racists. They're not. And there's no one basis to right-wing ideology any more than there is to left-wing ideology. But the ideological Republicans (as opposed to the more libertarian-leaning, economics-first Republicans), particularly the Christian right, use racism freely. The Willie Horton incident is a famous example; more recently, the locus of that racism has shifted toward demonizing Arabs and Muslims (while leaving African Americans to die on rooftops in New Orleans). The talk-radio right, the ones who freely compare Sikhs' turbans to diapers and demean black female athletes, are ideological warriors for the Republican party, and the ideology they spout is racist to the core.

I'm aware that there are plenty of conservatives who are into right-wing economic theories, etc., who view talk-radio Republicanism as a cheapening of their philosoph; some of them are people of color, certainly.

So it's ok for people here to sterotype everybody on the right, yet they start crying when they get sterotyped. It kind of funny if you think about it.

Xenophobic republicans and non-xenophobic republicans who tolerate bigotry.

even the very populist dems are pretty xenophobic in their ideas (especially when it comes to outsourcing). probably not racist in the same sense the republican base is, but some of the blue-dogs are no paragons either.

@Sarah:

- "That's a really good point. Sickening, but true. I guess the question, then, is how to make it so that hatred toward brown Americans also has consequences. The Day Without An Immigrant protest was a start... multiply that by a major civil rights movement and then, maybe."

Hey, if you got any ideas, I'm all ears!

- "I was thinking today about the processes by which immigrant groups become accepted. I was waking up this morning, and through my bedroom window I heard a guy in the street talking about the drug culture in South Philly. He said, "Those Italians are no more than n**gers turned inside out." It was shocking not only for its racism and total lack of logic, but also because who hears anti-Italian racism these days? Italians weren't considered white 75 years ago, and my husband's older relatives have some hair-raising stories about the racism they faced back then. But now Italians are white Americans who can turn around and hate Mexicans and Indians and Iranians without a second thought, and the comment I heard is just anachronistic. I mean, sure, there are complaints about the Sopranos, but compared to the Jena Six or the consistent profiling of Muslims and Sikhs... come on. How does that happen? In another 50 years, will Indians be accepted as Americans and be busy hating on the next wave of immigrants?"

You raise some interesting points here, especially how as time changes, the notion of what "whiteness" really is changes as well. Who knows what time will bring? If I had to guess, Indians will assimilate very quickly into this society within a generation or two, and their decedents will be no different than groups before them, through intermarriage and culture assimilation.

I grew up around a lot of Italians, and saw exactly what you were talking about. They were adamant about their classification of "whiteness" in the modern sense of the term in America, regardless of how proud they were of being "Italian", or how "ethnic" or "swarthy" mainstream "white" America may have viewed. Hell, I know plenty of Greeks, Arabs, Iranians and Armenians that follow this pattern as well.

Any thoughts on this? I am actually very curious as to how some South Asian Americans view the notion and consequences of assimilation into the America fold.

Not all Republicans hate browns or Muslims. The surreal love-fest starts around the 5-minute mark. I guess it depends on a person's status, $$, and how much one can donate to the party coffers. :)

It's not like Rantel is the only one, or like this is the first time. Xenophobia is the bread and butter of right wing figures,

Singh describes himself as a semi-regular listener to the show, and says he himself is a conservative Republican.

And this is why these people are amongst the most misguided and confused people around, here they are trotting along thinking their conservative white brethren are with them lock stock and barrel and would do them no wrong, yet at some point mr white conservative reminds mr. non white conservative that he's different, and unwelcome no matter how hard he tows the line.

While conservatism has many flavors, one cannot completely align themselves with them, without themselves possessing a modicum of self hatred.

even the very populist dems are pretty xenophobic in their ideas (especially when it comes to outsourcing). probably not racist in the same sense the republican base is, but some of the blue-dogs are no paragons either.

this is an interesting point re: outsourcing. some people here on SM were concerned in 2004 when john kerry started banging the drums about benedict arnold CEOs. what if in 2008 the democrats swing toward economic populism and favor throwing up trade barriers with india? how much economic damage and suffering would it cause? what is the "right" thing to do for a brown person?

that depends on what your values are as a brown person. i didn't really care that the democrats were going populist on trade because it was a brown issue, i cared because i think free trade makes us all more prosperous. that being said, i voted for kerry for other reasons because trade isn't THAT important to me. if on the other hand i had many cousins employed in IT in bangalore perhaps it would make a difference. that being said, what if a republican victory is bad for you as a brown person in the USA but good for brown people in india because of the trade implications? well, your values determine how the utilitarian calculation plays out, and no one should assume that they know the details of another individual's weighted parameters.

p.s. implicit psychological tests do confirm that conservatives tend to be more racist than liberals. but i said tend, liberals aren't immune from the problem so let's take a step back from the black and white generalizations.

100% agreed. ...no one else has met racist (either overtly or subtly) liberals? i mean, i live in new york city and racism definitely is not extinct here, no matter how much rich white 'progressive' residents of park slope want to convince themselves that they're so multicultural and accepting, blah blah bullshit.

So it's ok for people here to sterotype everybody on the right, yet they start crying when they get sterotyped. It kind of funny if you think about it.

Why is it a stereotype to point out that major figures on the right regularly make these sorts of remarks in a gratuitous way, and they're never called out for it by other right wing folks, and they never apologize. Look at my comments, I review the evidence pretty clearly.

Hell, I know plenty of Greeks, Arabs, Iranians and Armenians that follow this pattern as well.

muslim immigrants to south asia from west asia perceived themselves as white as compared to the native blacks, so some perception of whiteness predates immigration. and the fact is that armenians, arabs and iranians can often "pass" pretty easily. if you changed the names of most american lebanese to those of italians most people wouldn't be able to tell (which explains why tony shaloub has played so many italians in his film career). additionally, people from the middle east are classified as white on the census.

whiteness on the margins is often contextual. if someone has a spanish last name they're not white, but if you switched it to a french or italian one they'd be white. and within their own communities many latinos do make color distinctions between white and non-white, even if they play the game of being colored for anglo consumption (many white cubans are quite racist against non-white cubans in my experience). and of course, 1/2 of american hispanics still put their race as white on the census.

and they're never called out for it by other right wing folks

that's false. grover norquist, who is a major right-wing power broker, has married to a palestinian american muslim, and he's gotten a lot of crap for being "pro-muslim." the general trend is true, but can we chill on unqualified assertion like "never."

razib, i wasn't upset about the outsourcing debate because it was an issue that affected indians in india. i found it distasteful because free trade is the right thing to do in the long term, the protectionist position is morally inconsistent given how much the u.s. has benefited from open markets in a large part of the world, and because a lot of the rhetoric involved pandering to xenophobic tendencies.

independent of this issue, there was very little kerry could have done to make himself less attractive as a candidate to me than bush (unfortunately, that wasn't what a relevant majority of the u.s. felt). i was just making my point in the context of some of the earlier comments.

as for all the victory beat about imus, well, he might have sat out his time in the penalty box, but looks like he will be back soon in some way, shape, or form. bigotry sells. be it in the explicit form that rantel and his cohorts push it, or the soft-focus euphemisms of fox.

razib, i wasn't upset about the outsourcing debate because it was an issue that affected indians in india.

i wasn't pointing to you specifically. but i do recall debates here on SM where on occasion american brown IT workers worried about their jobs got into it with other american brown folk who couched their support for trade specifically in "but is it good for india?" terms. i don't think either camp was "self hating" or working "against their interests." the interests and values just differed.

LOL Anna I just noticed the picture. so cute! whose baby?

and they're never called out for it by other right wing folks

that's false. grover norquist, who is a major right-wing power broker, has married to a palestinian american muslim, and he's gotten a lot of crap for being "pro-muslim." the general trend is true, but can we chill on unqualified assertion like "never."

Coulter is a popular figure, one recognizable to all conservatives. OTOH, I doubt more than 1/20 local republicans could recognize Norquist. He operates at a different level. Still, if I grant your point, I've still never seen him call out Coulter or any other bigot in the party. I keep an eye out for such statements, and I haven't noticed them.

Obama quickly disavowed the D-Punjab crack. I've never heard any right wing figure back away from even a similarly mild statement.

@ Razib:

"i know of people who have turned this around on people. implicitly people turn their gods into projections of themselves, but most american christians know as a matter of fact that jesus was a jew from the middle east. i had a lebanese american friend who was often called "sand n*gger", and she would respond to some of her taunters "like jesus." that usually shut them up because the more religiously devout ones pulled back and looked really confused often."

OH MAN!!! THAT IS A DAMN GOOD COMEBACK!

All I have to say is...You mean like Jesus? It is so simple and to the point. I think I'm going to use that next time I find myself in that situation. It is especially fun, because I bet you get to see "religious types" cringe in shock.

If you or your friend don't mind me stealing that tactic, of course.

P.S...I once played a trick on a bigoted co-worker who insisted on hanging up Evangelical "born again" Christian stuff all over the company bulletin board. It really gave me indigestion having to look at all this prayer stuff everyday. She also HATED anything Arabic/Islamic, which was one and the same to her(An Arab who is not a Muslim, how is that possible???). So, I simply went on-line and printed out the name of Jesus in Arabic(Yeshua), and I even pulled it off of an Arabic Christian website. I posted it on that same bulletin board the next say, and she sure enough tore it down upon seeing it. After which, I naturally told her what it translated into...The look on her face was one of denial and disbelief. :)

Still, if I grant your point, I've still never seen him call out Coulter or any other bigot in the party. I keep an eye out for such statements, and I haven't noticed them.

norquist called in cautioned against the "racism" implicit against the anti-immigrant sentiment in the republican party many a time during the recent debates about immigration reform (he used the precedent of anti-catholicism during the early 20th century and how it lost republicans the white ethnics for 2 generations for make a utilitarian case). in any case, even if coulter is more well known than norquist you must have friends on DC and know that he has orders of magnitude more policy MoJo than coulter. he's not a minor player, he is a major one.

Still, if I grant your point, I've still never seen him call out Coulter or any other bigot in the party. I keep an eye out for such statements, and I haven't noticed them.

norquist called in cautioned against the "racism" implicit against the anti-immigrant sentiment in the republican party many a time during the recent debates about immigration reform (he used the precedent of anti-catholicism during the early 20th century and how it lost republicans the white ethnics for 2 generations for make a utilitarian case). in any case, even if coulter is more well known than norquist you must have friends on DC and know that he has orders of magnitude more policy MoJo than coulter. he's not a minor player, he is a major one.

Coulter has repeatedly made extremely bigoted statements and the best he's done is to "caution"? Heck, Rove has done that much about anti-Latino statements.

The fact that Coulter is a popular figure is important because her remarks show you what the rank and file can tolerate. Norquist's attitudes don't do the same thing, because he doesn't have to maintain a broad base. As a matter of fact, he is reviled by some parts of the base precisely because he is seen as a lackey for "Islamofascism". So he's good evidence of widespread bigotry in the base, and his own tepid reactions to this bigotry do not reject the null that nobody is standing up to the racist element in the republican party.

When you've got a loud racist chunk and no open opposition, that's a recipe for bad things.

@Razib:

- "muslim immigrants to south asia from west asia perceived themselves as white as compared to the native blacks, so some perception of whiteness predates immigration."

That is interesting, as I was not aware of that, but it certain does give a historical context to the notion of "whiteness".

- "and the fact is that armenians, arabs and iranians can often "pass" pretty easily. if you changed the names of most american lebanese to those of italians most people wouldn't be able to tell (which explains why tony shaloub has played so many italians in his film career). additionally, people from the middle east are classified as white on the census."

You also raise two very good points here. Most Americans in fact in the post 9/11 madness, did not really know how or where to find "Middle Easterners" in the U.S, especially if they had no special form of clothing to identify themselves, and they usually did not. Hence, and in part thanks to Hollywood's take on characteristically Arabic/Middle Eastern looks(i.e rather brown), South Asians became the favored targets.

(In my own personal case, my family on my Mother's side really got the "Brown/Asiatic" end of the stick, and as a result, most Americans seem to think they are Hispanic/Mexican. It is rather amusing to see people try an speak Spanish to them.)

- "whiteness on the margins is often contextual. if someone has a spanish last name they're not white, but if you switched it to a french or italian one they'd be white. and within their own communities many latinos do make color distinctions between white and non-white, even if they play the game of being colored for anglo consumption (many white cubans are quite racist against non-white cubans in my experience). and of course, 1/2 of american hispanics still put their race as white on the census."

Good example about the Spanish surname and its relation to being suddenly non-white, and how many Hispanics classify themselves on census returns. How ironic that a name can suddenly denote race, without any other factor or pretext taken into account in the American social landscape. Doubly ironic when one contrasts the notion of "whiteness" in Latin American countries, where many modern day immigrants are originating from.

Logic seems to play little with these various social constructs.

Logic seems to play little with these various social constructs.

the social constructs map onto, and are bounded by, empirical realities. there is non-trivial phenotypic overlap between southern, eastern and marginalized europeans (irish is what i'm thinking here) and the "core" white northwest euro stock. there are italians and jews who can "pass" by changing their name. in contrast, can you imagine the typical south asian "americanizing" their name and playing the white? 99% of the time it is not physically possible (there are a small minority of scythians who can pass as dark europeans). if south asians remain a distinct race and maintain a model minority SES profile then they'll become like japanese or chinese, who have a presence over 150 years in large numbers in the USA but remain non-white. in contrast, arab americans can pass, and have done so. most people don't know that ralph nader is arab american (he is even rather swarthy for a lebanese in my experience). or that the actress marlow thomas is arab american, or that the singer tiffany is of part-arab origin. the salient distinction of arab amerians is when they are muslim and dress differently. but to paraphrase, shave an arab american and put them on a suit and they wouldn't stand out that much from jo-schmo (this is biased by the levantine skew in arab americans, as they are "whiter" than gulf arabs or egyptians on average).

So he's good evidence of widespread bigotry in the base, and his own tepid reactions to this bigotry do not reject the null that nobody is standing up to the racist element in the republican party.

what about the president of the united states? he accused them of being racist at one point if they opposed his immigration legislation!

Coulter has repeatedly made extremely bigoted statements and the best he's done is to "caution"? Heck, Rove has done that much about anti-Latino statements. The fact that Coulter is a popular figure

I've seen it written that she was once engaged to Dinesh D'Souza, clearly she became unhinged when the supply of Ibero-Lemurian love ran dry. She needs to get a membership on one of those Indian matrimony sites

I think bringing up Grover Norquist doesnt really prove anything. I would in fact suggest that Grover is in fact an example of whats wrong with the Republicans as evidenced by their attacks on him for being married to a NOMINALLY Muslim Palestinian woman. Its common knowledge in DC that his wife is not particularly religious.

No one is suggesting that there are no non-racist Republicans. The point I was making (and I believe Ennis was as well) is that the reason right wing talk radio peddles in xenophobia and bigotry is because there is a large segment of the talk radio listening Republican population which agrees with the xenophobia and bigotry. That point has not been refuted on here yet.

The fact that the President is accusing his amnesty opponents of racism is more evidence of the racism in the Republican base.

acd, of course there is more racism in the republican base than in the democratic one, i've admitted that. this is what i object to in ennis' comments:
But I have to wonder how Navraj Singh is able to accommodate his party membership with the fact that others of the same party are the ones who clearly support and agree with Rantel. This rhetoric is coming from one side only, and that side is sending people like Navraj Singh a very clear message - we think you're inferior. How does one stay a member of a party or movement whose members have no problem demeaning you?

it would be strange if most indian americans were republicans. as a point of fact that isn't the case. but what's the point of asking why navraj singh is still a republican? he's probably not a dumb guy, so he knows how most republicans, or at least the social conservative segment, feel about toward heathens such as he. so what? how do you know he doesn't have other concerns? i pointed out earlier on another post that some shia in north india (in UP) have supposedly aligned locally with the BJP against congress because the sunnis dominate that party and there is local rivalry and identity politics at stake. how could a muslim align with the BJP? you know very well what most BJP supporters think of muslims! is it strange that navraj singh is a conservative republican despite the normative bigotry that is not unacceptable in that camp? perhaps not so strange if you asked him his rational, it isn't like democrats are the only ones who have the ability to think straight based on their axioms and make inferences modulated by the weights they assign to each of their values.

we keep bitching about the ignorance of Americans about sikh/iraq, turban/diaper, swastika/hindu-swastika etc etc.
why dont we all try to educate the people around us instead of grouping among ourselves and having a bitch fest ?
How about take a folding chair/table down to the closest commercial street in your neighborhood on saturday morning and having a sign saying "if you want to know about India, ask here"
or something catchy/clear.
I'm sure people will appreciate it and come ask questions and have discussions. It really helps.
Maybe we will learn a thing or two ourselves.

Because this isn't about ignorance, it's about bigotry and bigots have no interest in learning.

Sarah, you said: Italians weren't considered white 75 years ago, and my husband's older relatives have some hair-raising stories about the racism they faced back then. But now Italians are white Americans who can turn around and hate Mexicans and Indians and Iranians without a second thought, and the comment I heard is just anachronistic. I mean, sure, there are complaints about the Sopranos, but compared to the Jena Six or the consistent profiling of Muslims and Sikhs... come on. How does that happen? In another 50 years, will Indians be accepted as Americans and be busy hating on the next wave of immigrants?
All except African Americans, though! They've been in North America for hundreds of years, and yet they are always the lowest part of any racial hierarchy. Once you've been black, you just never come back...

Louiecypher, I heard from someone who talked to Laura Ingraham in a D.C. resteraunt recently and in that conversation, Ingraham apparently said that she used to date Dinesh D'Souza in college. Are you sure you haven't confused her with Coulter? If not, that boy gets around.

but what's the point of asking why navraj singh is still a republican?

because it's a legitamite question.

how do you know he doesn't have other concerns?

I'm sure he does, but when this issue arises (and it seems to arise, all too often, but not exclusively in the conservative camp) it makes for a very conflicted internal position. It's the way the statement in the original post was put, "he was a conservative republican" that is an unqualified statement, he didn't say, "he's a social conservative, or he's against abortion" or something more qualified than that. And it's not a matter of simply 'being racist' its a matter of these racists comments being self-policed by their own group, and that clearly isn't going on in the republican conservative camp. To call yourself a "conservative republican" in an unqualified way is to say "in most points I stand ideologically with this group of people" and yeah, maybe you're response is, "well this is one deviation" but it's a pretty frockin big deviation. Just makes it for a tough membership , thats all.

This incident just goes to show how "persecuted minorities" are not above practicing discrimination themselves. Al Rantel is a gay who according the rainbow-coalition moonbats should know persecution and therefore should not do it to others. Yet this is a stunning rebuttal to this BS theory. And this is not the first time that a gay has been racist. There was a post on SM called Homophobia trumps Racism.
Bottom line: Every race and group looks out for their own. That is why we desis should not care if Mexicans or blacks are discriminated against. Does Al Sharpton or La Reza come to our rescue? No.

Coulter has even dated a Muslim. She has never been married, loves NYC and has no children - such a mirror image of her family values minions;)

Louiecypher, I heard from someone who talked to Laura Ingraham in a D.C. resteraunt recently and in that conversation, Ingraham apparently said that she used to date Dinesh D'Souza in college. Are you sure you haven't confused her with Coulter? If not, that boy gets around.

yes, he dated both of them.

Sharpton has commendably supported a long path to citizenship ( it is not amnesty ) for hardworking undocumented Hispanic immigrants. The Sharpton of today is a very different animal than the Sharpton of many years ago. He has evolved and in a good way. He comes across so much smarter than the O'Reillys and Hannitys when he debates them.

He comes across so much smarter than the O'Reillys and Hannitys when he debates them.

you sir have some standards indeed!

54 · Posterity The Sharpton of today is a very different animal than the Sharpton of many years ago. He has evolved and in a good way. He comes across so much smarter than the O'Reillys and Hannitys when

Posterity--let's get those baseline standards up, on both sides--yeah, you're right in a way, but, boy, are you bottom-fishing!

53 · razib_the_atheist on September 22, 2007 01:36 AM · Direct link

Louiecypher, I heard from someone who talked to Laura Ingraham in a D.C. resteraunt recently and in that conversation, Ingraham apparently said that she used to date Dinesh D'Souza in college. Are you sure you haven't confused her with Coulter? If not, that boy gets around.

yes, he dated both of them.

True that!

coulter commented on the attractiveness of her brown heckler a few years ago, remember? she likes it cinnamon. too bad she looks like a man baby!

Care to elaborate Razib? I mentioned those names because they represent the right wing that frequently ridicules, trivializes and demonizes Sharpton.

both D'Souza & Coulter have gone crazy since the "glory days," when D'Souza was the DbD scourge of pro-Soviet Third-Worldism--now he's a crank pushing for the right to make common cause with the Islamic world on social issues (ugghhh!--about 180 degrees from my conception of "right") & Coulter is just downright an offensive clown.
How the mighty have fallen....

That is why we desis should not care if Mexicans or blacks are discriminated against. Does Al Sharpton or La Reza come to our rescue? No.

Oi, oi, oi.. haven't you ever heard of divide and conquer? Has the fall of India to the British taught us nothing? While we're at it, why don't the Sikhs refuse to help the Hindus who should refuse to help the Brahmins who should refuse to help Marathis who should run screaming from Punjabis and while thus traversing through crazy-land, they should all stand at the border and level gunz at the Pakis.

I once called the NAACP to find out whether they'll help other people of colour. The lady on the phone didn't hesitate. I got an unreserved YES.

All this when Indians have some of the greatest colour prejiduce known to man in their society, and the word "calla" is a stinging insult.

Even if I was white I would stand with black civil rights activists, anyway. Its unfortunate that the principle of the thing means nothing to certain people.

Care to elaborate Razib?

o'reilly and hannity are tards. so yeah, i can believe that sharpton is more intelligent; but that's like being the class valedictorian in a special school for kids with down syndrome

Ennis et al,

The hope of (some of us) Desis on the right is that these crazies like Rantel are just "useful idiots" that are distastefully necessary to putting together a winning coalition that can get a lot of good done, like the free trade and growth that continue to make the US impressive and is really starting to lift Desh out of economic misery--maybe won't work, but (1) we're certainly not deluded, (2) Dems are scary on these issues (e.g., catering to protectionism, high taxes, anti-meritocracy(which seems really anti-Desi), & (3) the "useful idiots" don't really "get" anything they want--e.g., immigration continues, Roe remains valid, etc.

Coulter has repeatedly made extremely bigoted statements and the best he's done is to "caution"? Heck, Rove has done that much about anti-Latino statements.

The fact that Coulter is a popular figure is important because her remarks show you what the rank and file can tolerate.

Exactly!!! People like Norquist might "caution" Ann Coulter, but she is still regularly invited to GOP speaking events. When she infamously called John Edwards a "faggot" she was speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a fairly major gathering of 5000+ conservative activists.

A lot of people asked "Why didn't Republicans/conservatives denounce her more strongly after she said that?" I think the real question should be, "Why exactly did they invite her to speak in the first place?" It's not like they don't know what her schtick is.

I am leery of painting with too broad a brush... I don't mean to suggest that all conservatives embrace Coulter, but the fact that she's still gainfully employed as a public speaker suggets many of them apparently don't have a problem with her.

63 · Mary I don't mean to suggest that all conservatives embrace Coulter, but the fact that she's still gainfully employed as a public speaker suggets many of them apparently don't have a problem with her

Yeah, fair enough-- and a lot of Dem's don't have a problem with Jesse post-"Hymietown" comment.
neither party is pure, you have to hold your nose & go with what has the best overall predicted consequences. I'm no GOP stalwart, but these (true) anecdotes about the seamy side of the GOP hardly impel me to be a Dem--my bottom line is just that party affiliation has little to do with the topics we're interested in here on SM.

o'reilly and hannity are tards.

o'reilly is an extremely loud mouthed tard...

Look at how he talks to dawkins

And in contrast, here is a perfect illustration of how to effectively talk to such unusually loud mouthed tards, who do keep showing up in real life too, every now and then...

to be clear, i think hannity is a born tard, he's just not that bright. o'reilly is so narcissistic that he is devolved to tardishness though he has basic raw material to work with (spent some time at JFK school of gov @ harvard).

@ Razib:

- "if south asians remain a distinct race and maintain a model minority SES profile then they'll become like japanese or chinese, who have a presence over 150 years in large numbers in the USA but remain non-white."

Interesting point that you make, and it leaves me with a question. Do you see the South Asian community as a whole ever completely settling into mainstream America, or do you fully expect South Asians to continue into the remainder of this century as a physically and culturally distinct and somewhat "closed" group with a very high SES, as your examples with the pattern of prior Japanese and Chinese immigration. Also, do you see any difference between Pakistanis and Indians in this stated pattern, or would both groups follow a similar course?

Oh, and I agree with your assertion that Arabs have had a really easy time of it "blending in". My finance's parents are Arabic Christians(Catholics) of Palestinian and Jordanian origin, and her father never had trouble passing as just another "ethnic/swarthy" white American from the Northeast of the U.S, with most people thinking him Italian or Greek. It helped that he also had a very "Christian" sounding first name. This seems to have been the pattern with Levantine Arabs as a whole over the last century, and it benefited them rather well it would appear. As you alluded to, it seems to me that if the majority of Arabs had been Egyptians, Gulf Arabs or Moroccans, and Muslim at that, things may have been a little more difficult in the area of fitting in.

Do you see the South Asian community as a whole ever completely settling into mainstream America, or do you fully expect South Asians to continue into the remainder of this century as a physically and culturally distinct and somewhat "closed" group with a very high SES, as your examples with the pattern of prior Japanese and Chinese immigration. Also, do you see any difference between Pakistanis and Indians in this stated pattern, or would both groups follow a similar course?

the model which i have offered on SM for several years is this

1) one group of south asians preserves 'old world' cultures. e.g., kashmiri brahmins who don't know any indian language still marrying amongst themselves, ismaili gujaratis marrying amongst themselves. to use a jewish analogy this might be the 'modern orthodoxy' option, a people apart in private life but integrated in work life.

2) another group will generate a new pan-south asian (predominantly indian) identity. this will be racially based. the chinese and japanese model works here. i think SM community illustrates some of the basic outlines, e.g., even if ethnically predominantly heterogenous some common touchstones of particular regional cultures become normative, like punjabi bhangra music or the use of hindi slang and idiom. the main issue i see there is religious division, but most american brownz are hindu nominally at least anyway, and i think a secularization process is pretty here too. chinese or japanese have predominantly converted to christianity and generated a racial identified culture. interesting bobby jindal and his wife fit this model, manish told me she was malayali and jindal is punjabi, but they are both assimilated to the mainstream religion of their region (catholicism).

3) and the last group will be part-browns and intermarried people who serve as the nexus point with the rest of american culture. i doubt that in 20-30 years many brown people whose families arrived between 1965-1980 won't have someone in their extended family who is married to a non-brown, or is part non-brown.

of course you will have families where options 1, 2 and 3 play out because of choices by different 2nd generation kids born in the 70s. the proportions of the three groups is, i think, pretty strongly determined by the size and character of the immigrant stream. a large population size makes options 1 more viable. additionally, a large immigrant population will probably reinforce communal norms. option 3 would be at the other end, while 2 would lay at a balance. right now the outmarriage rate for 1.5 and 2nd generation is around 30%. if the immigration stream remains large, increases, or skews lower in the SES scale the rate may drop in the future, though i wouldn't bet against an equilibration. the pattern you saw in the german jewry between 1800 to 1900 was that high rates of outmarriage & conversion by the middle and upper classes was compensated by immigration from eastern europe. in other words, the german jews who were outmarrying at high rates in the 1920s were the offspring of later immigrants, not the original jews of moses mendelsshon's time (his last jewish descendent lived in the late 1800s).

Also, do you see any difference between Pakistanis and Indians in this stated pattern, or would both groups follow a similar course?

oh. well, indians are still 80-90% of american south asians, but it seems many religious pakistanis are identifying as "muslim americans." the white ethnic pattern was for interreligious intermarriage, that is, irish catholic + italian catholic, or german jew + russian jew, and so on. later on (after world war ii) this broke down so that interreligious marriage became prominent, but i think the emergence of a religious identity is probably a 'first step.' in fact, this option is i think for muslim south asians their equivalent of 2 above, that is, while non-muslim south asians (and i'm talking mostly hindus here) who have a community identity tend to marry within race but often outside of customary ethnic group, muslim south asians may marry arabs or southeast asians or white converts (racism will probably limit black-brown marriages). some of them, like the ismailis i alluded too above though would remain separate for various reasons and generate a form of 1. and others will go 3 (from the information i have now at this point i am willing to bet that none of my siblings nor myself will be marrying brown people or muslims).

@Razib:

- "a large population size makes options 1 more viable. additionally, a large immigrant population will probably reinforce communal norms. option 3 would be at the other end, while 2 would lay at a balance. right now the outmarriage rate for 1.5 and 2nd generation is around 30%. if the immigration stream remains large, increases, or skews lower in the SES scale the rate may drop in the future, though i wouldn't bet against an equilibration."

Thanks for the very quick, and I must say incredibly detailed response to my question. After reading it, I think I need a good nights sleep just to think about it. My first thoughts on your assertion that the nature of South Asians as a distinct group in the United States will be heavily effected by the level of continued immigration, seems completely plausible. What throws me for a curve as a "non-Desi" outsider looking in, who grew up around plenty of Indian-Americans, is that various elements within the South Asian community can already been seen taking each one of the three courses you mentioned. Thats is certainly my own personal subjective view, and one open to plenty of misinterpretation on my part(I am no expert in any way, shape or form). Either way, this topic seems just ripe for an analytically based sociological study over the next decade or so.

Thanks for the very quick, and I must say incredibly detailed response to my question.

i'm just repeating what i thought up in my email conversations with manish, v-man and another friend back in 2003. so no wonder the response was quick, i just had to retrieve the structure of my thoughts ;-) in any case, one of the reasons i read SM is to observe the contours of 2, because that is the most fluid and unspecified of the options (i.e., what exact bounds will exist in the new identity? ethnographic research tends to suggest that 2nd and 3rd gen asian americans of chinese, korean and japanese origin most def. see themselves as a coherent cluster at a distance from southeast asians, and most certainly south asians).

@Razib:

- "oh. well, indians are still 80-90% of american south asians, but it seems many religious pakistanis are identifying as "muslim americans."

Razib, I also have noticed this pattern of Pakistani-Americans leaning towards a more "Muslim American" identity over one of a greater South Asian ethnic view to be very much the case. Assuming of course, as you pointed out, they are not a rather isolated ethno-religious group like the Ishmalis. I also can see how it is very much their version of a option #2, i.e a "Pan identity" of sorts.

Again, thanks for answering my rather pestering questions. No offense, but it sure beats annoying the hell out of a Desi buddy of mine with these inquests. He would insist I buy him a shot at the bar for each one asked, and that can get expensive. :)

Razib, I also have noticed this pattern of Pakistani-Americans leaning towards a more "Muslim American" identity over one of a greater South Asian ethnic view to be very much the case.

i used to go to intervarsity meetings to meet chicks in college. there were some brown girls there who were evangelical. i think they were a bit like the pakistani muslims in seeing more commonalities with their brothers and sisters in christ than with other brown people who were after all going to hell (this doesn't seem to be as operative a dynamic among brownz who are from the more localized christian denominations out of the syrian tradition, but i'm going on what v-man and anna have communicated to me).

maybe we should be more sympathetic to rantel. if your life's work involves uncontrolled brain farts and more, headgear does begin to look like diapers.

i used to go to intervarsity meetings to meet chicks in college.

i attended a couple of campus crusades for christ because they had great ice cream. made me a believer in sundae school, for sure.

i attended a couple of campus crusades for christ because they had great ice cream.

the utility of these groups differs from campus to campus. at my university intervasity had become thoroughly parasitized by free riders, but crusade was still hard core and would cramp your style with too much demand for reciprocated jesus talk. of course, when an organization like intervarsity is swamped with other parasites it's pretty worthless ;-) too much competition for low hanging fruit.

Just sent in an e-mail to the station manager complaining about this dude. In the e-mail, I asked the manager how quickly AR would have been fired if he had equated the yarmulke to something offensive.

In any case, how does one find out who advertises on his show?

not sure if the e-mail was delivered. I got two responses, one thanking me for the e-mail and the other saying that the mail was undelivered because "User mailbox exceeds allowed size: alr@kabc.com"

how do you know he doesn't have other concerns?

Here is a similar argument from the perspective of Latinos:

all the Republican presidential candidates, except Sen. John McCain, declined to participate in a debate on the Spanish-language channel Univision, possibly to avoid hostile immigration questioning (the network says it's trying to reschedule). They also ditched conventions earlier this year held by high-profile groups like the National Council of La Raza and NALEO. The Republican National Committee has yet to fill a Hispanic-outreach job vacated last November. "The RNC seems to have just given up," says Samuel Bettencourt, a Hispanic Republican who has handled outreach for nonprofits. (An RNC spokesperson says Sen. Mel Martinez, the committee's Latino chair, is committed to courting Hispanics. Martinez was unavailable for comment.) Recently, Bettencourt found further cause for gloom: a job he'd been offered this summer as executive director of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, a prominent grass-roots group, fell through when the incoming board told him it lacked sufficient funds to pay him. "They have no staff, no office ... [and] were even talking about closing," says Bettencourt. (The RNHA's new chairman, Danny Vargas, says the group will remain operative and is developing fund-raising plans.) Among Latino evangelicals, the portrait's just as bleak. ... "right now, the nativist and xenophobic constituency is in charge of the Republican Party," says the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the evangelical National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. "That's a party the Hispanic-American voter cannot support." [Link]

Before the 2000 elections, I knew a coaltion of conservative non-Christian groups that supported Bush. Muslims, Hindus, even followers of Santeria (believe it or not), all united in their opposition towards gays and opportion and in their suport of school prayer. We know how well that worked out.

Yes, people have multiple goals and weight them differently. But when your political party is personally antagonistic towards your identity, when this antagonism is widespread in the base and stoked by the leadership, you really have to wonder how long you can stay. This was true for a friend, a long time Republican activist in CA, who was Latino. For a decade he said he was willing to live with the xenophobia because he believed the party was right, not just for his sub-group, but for the country. But recently he quit because he said it got overwhelming.

I'm sure some people will stay forever. To take extreme case, there are neo-Nazi groups in both Russia and Israel, which is incomprehensible to me. So if that can happen, then clearly other people are willing to maintain their allegience in inhospitable groups for a while. But still ... you gotta wonder.

The hope of (some of us) Desis on the right is that these crazies like Rantel are just "useful idiots" that are distastefully necessary to putting together a winning coalition that can get a lot of good done, like the free trade and growth that continue to make the US impressive and is really starting to lift Desh out of economic misery--maybe won't work, but (1) we're certainly not deluded, (2) Dems are scary on these issues (e.g., catering to protectionism, high taxes, anti-meritocracy(which seems really anti-Desi), & (3) the "useful idiots" don't really "get" anything they want--e.g., immigration continues, Roe remains valid, etc.

(1) Fair enough, but what do you do when Coulter gets up in front of a room full of the conservative leaders of tomorrow, spews bigotry, and gets applauded?
(2) Except that, according to Alan Greenspan, the Dems were better on these issues. As a matter of fact, if you look over the last few decades, democratic presidents have been considerably more fiscally conservative than Republicans.
(3) They scuttled an immigration bill, and look at the new Supremes w.r.t. Roe.

There are plenty of fiscally conservative democrats, but if you look at the quote above, even Latino evangelical leaders are saying that they are not welcome in the Republican party.

I guess this is somewhat personal for me as a Sikh, because I think this administration handled things far better post 9/11, but since then has really milked xenophobia and thrown away human rights in ways that (a) I really oppose as an American and (b) affect me personally. So I wonder how long guys like Singh will identify proudly as conservative Republicans. For that matter, it bothers me that he used to listen to Rantel. He should have known what Rantel was about long before he criticized Sikhs. You can't be surprised when a guy like that turns on you.

Razib, I also have noticed this pattern of Pakistani-Americans leaning towards a more "Muslim American" identity over one of a greater South Asian ethnic view to be very much the case.

religious identities often get stronger in the diaspora. even abd hindus often acquire a more doctrinal form of their religion than their peers in india. one thing about pakistani-americans ive noticed however is that they tend to speak far better hindustani than their indo-american counterparts. because of this they are actually much more tapped into indian mass media. this is probably because most abds are not of up, bihar, mp, or rajasthan heritage... typically the only other indo-american households using hindustani as the home language are punjabis, sindhis, and dakhni muslims. for the most part all the bong, gujju, telugu ect. -american kids WOULD have known hindi as a second or third language had they grown up in india, but its hard enough retaining the mother tongue in the US for many. point is, language is important to culture and the pak-american kids are in a lot of ways more "desi" than ind-americans even if it is unintentional. i've also noticed more understanding between adb and dbd pakistanis unlike the indian crowd wherein there is often mutual scorn

So it's ok for people here to sterotype everybody on the right, yet they start crying when they get sterotyped. It kind of funny if you think about it.

So criticising racists and their political affiliations is the same as making racist and racially derogatory comments about an entire group of people? Your moniker is perfect --- you're the most clueless halfwit alive.

This guy Al Rantel does a link up show every Saturday morning at 3am GMT across the UK with Mike Mendoza on Talksport Radio . He comes across as an extreme right wing prick, and shits his pants when someone comes on the line to be critical of the American foreign policy he rhapsodises over, or takes issue with the crap he comes out with on a range of subjects. He's always going on about Mexicans and how they're ruining America and grumbles with Mendoza about multicultural Britain (he always talks about how he loves England). I didn't know he was gay, and it's interesting because he and his listeners were outraged when a discussion about gay marriage, which is legal in Britain came up, and he thought that civil marriages for gays would lead to the end of civilisation in America. Weird self loathing gay, but that's always interesting in all circumstances -- -just look at the number of self loathing Uncle Tom house sand-niggers who post on internet message boards. I might call up some time on a future show and cuss the racist prick down.

Interesting that Rantel is gay. His co-host on the international broadcast, Mike Mendoza, was recently reprimanded and suspended by his station for linking homosexuality with paedophilia. They get on like bum-chums on the air.

I might call up some time on a future show and cuss the racist prick down.

And he'll coolly turn the volume slider down on the external audio input while you do it. That's the power he has by having the show and you calling in, this isn't a statement against you, rather more for the person who claimed "we give the media" their power.

Well HMF, he actually does get some eloquent abuse from British callers, on the times I've listened.

point is, language is important to culture and the pak-american kids are in a lot of ways more "desi" than ind-americans even if it is unintentional.

can you elaborate on this? the only example you gave is that they can speak hindustani...and it doesn't seem to me that tamil, gujarati or bengali are "less desi."

then clearly other people are willing to maintain their allegience in inhospitable groups for a while. But still ... you gotta wonder.

but like i said, it isn't necessary a function of ideological nimbleness. sometimes it is simply personal circumstance. singh is a business person, and perhaps he is more on the margins than you might think. so he might simply identify as a republican primarily for local political reasons (sometimes the policies on the local level can determine whether your business profits or not. e.g., in my town there are many service sector jobs with low pay where workers come from the next town over, 2 miles away. activists were pushing for a 'living wage' so these people could live in town, but some of the business people blocked it based on the argument that they simply wouldn't be able to hire help in some cases if the wage