Joe Biden and his "Indian" comment

So by now most of you have probably heard and/or seen the following comment by Obama's VP candidate, Sen Biden:

In case you missed it his comment was the following:

"I've had a great relationship. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."

My first reaction when I heard this was that he better hope the doctor in that ER (if he's ever there) is not an Indian! ;)

But apparently this one has a happier ending per this article from The Times of India:

Obama-Biden ticket has a "slight Indian accent".

Quoting from the Times of India article:

"I was making the point that up until now in my state, we've had a strong Indian community made up of leading scientists and researchers and engineers," Biden explained later. "We're having middle-class people move to Delaware, take over Dunkin' Donuts, take over businesses, just like other immigrant groups have, and I was saying that ... they're growing, it's moving."

"I could have said that 40 years ago about walking into a delicatessen and hearing an Italian accent in my state," he added.

Most Indian-Americans in Delaware, where indeed there has been a boom in small business growth by the community, did not take Biden's remark amiss. Many of them, expecially those involved in businesses related to motels, liquor stores, and gas stations, are Biden supporters and contributors who have held fund-raisers for him and reeled him into events like the local Navratri garba hosted by the Gujarati community.

"He's a great guy, very experienced. We love him," Pravin Patel, president of  the Delaware Asian-American Business Association, said on Saturday after news broke of Biden's selection.

Hmmmmm. So I think the following:

1) How come Senator George Allen who two years ago made the following "macaca" comment did not fare as well?

When he also had Indians rushing to his defense as the following quote shows from a Washington Post article:

Allen's defenders rushed to his side, saying the comments, though careless, do not reflect what is inside the senator's heart. Sudhakar Shenoy, an Indian business executive from Fairfax who has known Allen for years, said he "has been an incredible friend to Indians" and is not a racist. "I'd stake everything I have that George is not that kind of a guy," Shenoy said.

Could it be that he's a Republican and therefore we let some stereotypes, beliefs and such come into play and sway some of us into a certain direction?

2) Isn't it funny that in Sen Biden's explanation the same statement but w/ the "italian accent" would not have generated the same kind of "oh this is inappropriate" buzz? We assume that a comment made about Indians in that way is inappropriate but when made about Italians - it's ok. Does that mean that we are too sensitive as Indian-Americans or as the media? Or perhaps the Italians went through a similar experience 40 years ago ... I hypothesize the latter.

3) We all have internalized many-a-beliefs about all kinds of people, places, professions and so on - our brain does that to help us categorize and process information efficiently. In the new book Sway, the Brafman brothers write: "All of us have certain lenses, or constructs, that we use to sift through the endless flow of information we encounter. For example, when we meet new people we may judge them on whether they dress well or poorly, whether their shoes are polished or not, whether they seem to be liberal or conservative, whether they are religious or secular, hip or nerdy. These constructs are useful insofar as they help us to quickly assess a situation and form a temporary hypothesis about how to react. Forming initial opinions is one of the ways in which we try to make sense of the world given limited time or information. But we have to be careful not to rely too much on such pre-emptive judgments, as they can short-circuit a more nuanced evaluation. They can narrow our perceptions and make us more apt to get swayed by a hasty diagnosis."

Perhaps, neither Sen Biden nor Sen Allen meant anything bad. Perhaps they both displayed a hint of something they feel deep down inside. How we perceive what they said is really driven more by who you are, rather than who they are. Isn't that interesting?

4) To end on a lighter note, or not if you get offended, here's the Indian 7-11 guy from the Mind of Mencia :)

"Now, get the purk out of my blog!" ;)

How can I import my movie/book reviews from facebook to my blog?

Any help is appreciated.

thanks.

18 Aug, 1988

On 18 August, 1988 I came to the US. I flew from Hong Kong to San Francisco on a United Airlines flight. It was a long flight and I think I cried most of the way here. I was excited to go to college, but leaving home turned out to be a bigger fear than I had imagined. This was the first time I was leaving home. And I wasn't going closeby. I would be 6000 miles away. That can be a little disconcerting for an 18 year old. Well, it was for me. So there.

It also didn't help that immediately before I left I was really really sick. So sick that I was in the hospital in HK just 2 days before I had to leave. I had a viral infection while we were vacationing in India in July of 1988. And sometime after we passed through Jhansi and ended up in Lucknow, I got real sick. Until then, I was having a great trip as always, but even more so since I was headed off to college after returning to Hong Kong. I remember staying up many a nights and talking w/ my close friends and my cousin(s) who I grew up with. We talked a lot about going to college - which is really code for "girls". Yup, that's pretty much what we spoke about. :)

In Lucknow though, I fell sick. Real sick. Dr didn't know what it was - so I was on a bunch of medicine. I remember going out sightseeing one day since we were leaving Lucknow soon - and I hadn't been out of the house at all. We went to see the Bada Imambara and Bhool Bhulaiya. Amazing stuff. 

Can you believe that was the last time I went to Lucknow? It was also the last time I was in India with my family and friends until I returned in 1994 for my wedding. Wow. I never even for once thought that it'd be another 6 years before I would return and that too for my wedding. Incredible, what turns life holds for you.

So sick I stayed, from Lucknow to Bombay. 2 days in Bombay. A business class flight on Swiss Air back to Hong Kong. Still running a high fever and by this time I had lost a lot of weight. A whole lot. In Hong Kong, I was admitted into a hospital about a week before I was supposed to leave and move to Austin.

In this hospital, the Dr gave me no medicine. He just made sure I drank a whole lot of water. Since this was a viral infection, apparently that's all I needed. 2-3 days later, I was good to go. Still a lot thinner, but ready to go. A heck of an alternative to "weight watchers" - don't recommend it to anyone!

August 18th, 1988. I land in San Francisco. I am really hungry since I pretty much didn't eat much on the plane. My dad's with me and I still remember we both got a chili dog. It was huge! And we loved it. If only my mom were to know that the first meal in my new home country was topped w/ a hearty topping of beef! ;) Oh well, I think she gave up on keeping me a vegetarian long ago. And especially in HK - where my dad, my sister and I (everyone but my mom who is still a pure vegetarian) pretty much ate everything. And I mean everything. That's a whole other post, right there.

From SF, my dad and I got on an AA flight to Dallas. I still remember flying into Dallas, as we flew right by downtown. I was sitting by the window looking outside, filled with curiosity. I remember staring at the Reunion Tower with the bright lights lighting up the globe. I remember 

seeing the tall building w/ the green lights. Little did I know that almost 20 years to the day later, I will be sitting in a house in that very city next to my wife (whom I met in this city) and my daughter (who was born here) writing about that moment on my blog. 

Another short hop on AA and we are in Austin. It's now probably around 10pm. I come out of the plane into the terminal and carefully inspect what looks like a very very small airport. Shit! I thought - this looks tiny. When the main airport you know of is Hong Kong's (at that time) Kai Tak - the Austin airport to me looks very empty and small-townish. My immediate reaction was, if the airport is this small what could we say about the city? And I'm committed to spend at least the next 3-4 years of my life here. Crap.

But then, as I walked towards the exit I saw this big banner: 

"Welcome to Austin. Live music capital of the world."

Hmmm. I thought, it can't be all that bad, eh?

And of course, it wasn't. It's Austin. The best college experience ever, in one of my favorite cities in the world. 

20 years ago, I left my parents, my sister and my home in Hong Kong and I came to the United States.

20 years later I am from Texas, ya'all!

Olympics NBC Style

As much as some of the Olympic stories are a little cheesy specially the way NBC "dramatizes" things, I can't help but get drawn into them. I think it helps me get a back story on the individual athletes and they become more than just an athlete. They become human beings w/ a history who are trying to achieve things that many of us can only dream of.

I could be critical of the over-dramatization, but then I grew up on a steady diet of Bollywood flicks, so who am I to judge? :)

Keep them coming. I love the olympics. I just love them. The back-stories - well, ok. Keep them coming. There are lots of closet-admirers ... ;)

Singh is King, babby and so says Snoop D-O-Double-G-DOGG

Saw this movie last night. Mindless, silly and made me laugh out loud quite a few times! :)