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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Open Thread: Dinesh D’Souza, Meet Jeet Heer

Open Thread: Dinesh D’Souza, Meet Jeet Heer

by Anne Laurie|  February 20, 20155:27 pm| 209 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Open Threads, Post-racial America, Even the "Liberal" New Republic

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One thing I could've talked about in D'Souza piece is how pre-existing colorism from sub-continent shapes immigrant racism.

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) February 20, 2015

Jeet Heer’s twitter feed is alway worth reading, but whoever hired him to write at TNR deserves a bonus, because now he’s got a reason to say more about American politics. Heer’s cover story for the first issue of the revamped TNR (“Whitewash: TNR’s Legacy on Race“) was rightly lauded. And now he’s handed Mr. “Obama the anti-colonialist doesn’t love America” D’Souza his… pants, in “How to Make It In Conservative America (If You Aren’t White)“:

… Anti-black racism, I’ve often thought, is one of the more unwholesome manifestations of assimilation. If blacks are near the bottom of the perceived racial hierarchy across North America, some enterprising immigrants find it useful to step on blacks as a way of climbing higher.

Racism among South Asians has some peculiar qualities; it’s not so much hatred of the other but the hatred of the almost-the-same, akin to a sibling rivalry. At the heart of this sort of immigrant racism is the desire to differentiate oneself from the group one could easily be identified with…

D’Souza’s racism makes sense if we view it as part of his long effort to succeed in a right-wing milieu that is both anti-Indian and anti-black. Within that context, D’Souza has given saliency to anti-black racism to compensate for a potentially embarrassing background as a Mumbai-born immigrant. Is D’Souza sincere in his beliefs or simply an intellectual mercenary? It’s impossible to know for sure. What can be said with certainty is that as an Indian willing to voice anti-black sentiment, D’Souza has carved out a lucrative niche for himself, enjoying a national audience from the time he was an undergraduate…

One of the saddest things about D’Souza’s racism is that it’s clearly built on some element of self-hatred. By aligning himself with figures like Hart and Burnham, he chose a form of upward mobility that required abasing himself before those who despised his heritage…

A mark, that will surely leave.

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Reader Interactions

209Comments

  1. 1.

    Patricia Kayden

    February 20, 2015 at 5:31 pm

    Great post by Mr. Heer. I was shocked when I learned that Gandhi was anti-black during his early life in South Africa.

    http://www.gandhism.net/gandhiandblacks.php

  2. 2.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 5:35 pm

    A mark, that will surely leave.

    D’Souza will probably just use it to ask for more money from his marks.

  3. 3.

    Cacti

    February 20, 2015 at 5:37 pm

    D’Souza provides the exact services the white, right wing political establishment desires from racial and ethnic minorities in its ranks:

    Cheerleading for white supremacy, and guard dogging against racism accusations.

  4. 4.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 5:40 pm

    D’Souza wishes he was white. I said this in an earlier thread about him.

  5. 5.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 5:41 pm

    @Patricia Kayden: His attitudes towards women and untouchables were quite patronizing too. He was a creature of his times.

  6. 6.

    Chris

    February 20, 2015 at 5:41 pm

    Racism among South Asians has some peculiar qualities; it’s not so much hatred of the other but the hatred of the almost-the-same, akin to a sibling rivalry. At the heart of this sort of immigrant racism is the desire to differentiate oneself from the group one could easily be identified with…

    Well, in all fairness, there are a lot of White Anglo-Saxons that make me want to differentiate myself from them as emphatically as possible.

  7. 7.

    trollhattan

    February 20, 2015 at 5:47 pm

    intellectual mercenary

    Stolen, and thanks.

  8. 8.

    burnspbesq

    February 20, 2015 at 5:47 pm

    I’m waiting patiently for the first time that Jeet Heer has anything useful to say on any subject.

  9. 9.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 5:48 pm

    Isn’t Heer doing what he is accusing D’Souza of? Badmouthing all South Asian immigrants to ingratiate himself to the white progressive intelligentsia?Even his name, Jeet Heer sounds like Mindy Kaling a truncated Indian name. Not much different from Bobby Jindal, isn’t it? At least Jindal doesn’t call himself Jind or something like that.

    ETA: BTW he can call himself whatever he wants and I am only criticizing him because he deems to speak for all south Asian immigrants.

  10. 10.

    BGinCHI

    February 20, 2015 at 5:48 pm

    Coolest thing is that “Jeet Heer” means “Fuck You” in Dutch.

  11. 11.

    lahru

    February 20, 2015 at 5:49 pm

    Happening in my hometown this weekend is the 35th Anniversary of 1980 Olympic Hockey Team victory. NBC is in town and will cover it Saturday night. Where were you when Eruzione scored the winning goal.

    NBC takes a look.

  12. 12.

    BGinCHI

    February 20, 2015 at 5:50 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: What??

    You think his real name is “Bobby”?

  13. 13.

    Tree With Water

    February 20, 2015 at 5:50 pm

    Alternet.com is reporting:

    “Preventing the Keystone XL pipeline has become a rallying point for the environmental movement, which has won over President Obama who has said he will veto efforts by Congress to force an approval.

    However, one pol who has been curiously silent on the issue is presumptive 2016 Democratic contender Hillary Clinton.

    A look at many of the major donors to the Clinton Foundation may just offer an explanation. From CommonDreams:

    According to a voluntary disclosure from the Foundation, in 2014 the not-for-profit received between $250,000 and $500,000 from Canada’s Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Development department, which has pressed for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline..”.

    Is anyone surprised?

  14. 14.

    medrawt

    February 20, 2015 at 5:51 pm

    I don’t know if this is what Heer’s tweet about pre-existing colorism is implying, but I think anyone trying to understand where D’Souza is coming from should bear in mind that he was raised a Catholic and has a Portuguese last name; his family comes from a specific slice of Indian culture that had a specific relationship to European culture and colonialism. I don’t know nearly enough to say anything more about the position of Goans in India-at-large, but D’Souza was already coming from a different place than the average kid born in Mumbai.

  15. 15.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 5:51 pm

    @burnspbesq: Are you watching the World Cup?

  16. 16.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 5:52 pm

    @BGinCHI: No but it is Jindal, he hasn’t shortened his last name unlike Mr. Heer.

  17. 17.

    Chris

    February 20, 2015 at 5:54 pm

    @medrawt:

    Yeah, my impression about D’Souza’s racism is that a lot of it was inherited from a background which, in colonial days, was considered by the whites as “above” the teeming masses of non-Christians. Explains his hangup over why it’s such a bad thing to be “anti-colonial.”

  18. 18.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 5:54 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:
    @BGinCHI:

    But how is Jeet Heer badmouthing all South Asian immigrants? And I think Heer did note that we cannot see into D’Souza’s mind, but did observe, correctly I think, that there is seems to be a special niche of minority bashing among minority experts that show up in places like Fox News, which is observable, as the state of D’Souza’s mind is not.

    And, if Jeet Heer really is a pseudonym that means “Fuck You” in Dutch, well that is an interesting career choice for anyone who wants to make career points by ingratiating themselves with anybody.

  19. 19.

    lurker dean

    February 20, 2015 at 5:55 pm

    well said by jeet. the only problem i see is that i’m not sure d’souza is capable of shame. i would love to think that in a quiet moment, this would affect d’souza deeply, but i just don’t see it happening.

  20. 20.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 5:56 pm

    @jl: He is generalizing based on his family anecdata that South Asian immigrants hate on blacks. I am sure some do and some don’t.

  21. 21.

    BGinCHI

    February 20, 2015 at 5:57 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: What is your argument? That Heer is hiding his ethnicity behind a curtain of racial attacks?

    Really?

  22. 22.

    les

    February 20, 2015 at 5:57 pm

    @burnspbesq:
    And teh damn grapes were sour, anyway.

  23. 23.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 5:57 pm

    @BGinCHI: All I get is ‘Mr Jeet’: FU BGinCHI.

  24. 24.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 20, 2015 at 5:58 pm

    Oliver Sacks has terminal cancer :(

  25. 25.

    BGinCHI

    February 20, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    @jl: Check the batteries in your snark meter.

    Also, I didn’t say Heer was “badmouthing all South Asian immigrants.” Read more carefully.

  26. 26.

    les

    February 20, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Isn’t Heer doing what he is accusing D’Souza of? Badmouthing all South Asian immigrants

    Is he? Or is he saying racism exists in that community, and can look like…I don’t see “all…immigrants.”

  27. 27.

    BGinCHI

    February 20, 2015 at 6:00 pm

    @jl: Stay classy. I can’t even tell what you are talking about.

  28. 28.

    Cacti

    February 20, 2015 at 6:00 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Maybe you could e-mail him and explain what the south Asian immigrant experience really is.

  29. 29.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 6:00 pm

    @BGinCHI: I have already answered that question in response to JL. He is not hiding his ethnicity just making it more palatable by truncating his name.

  30. 30.

    BGinCHI

    February 20, 2015 at 6:01 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I love what he said when he learned about what he was facing.

    I love his work.

  31. 31.

    BGinCHI

    February 20, 2015 at 6:02 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Um, OK. But that is a far cry from what D D’S and Jindal are doing in practical terms.

  32. 32.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 6:03 pm

    @Cacti: Well he can speak for himself why generalize? I am not the spokeskitteh of anybody’s experience, immigrant or otherwise except my own.

  33. 33.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 6:03 pm

    @BGinCHI: I agree, they are far worse than JH.

  34. 34.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 20, 2015 at 6:04 pm

    @BGinCHI: Me too. He’s an insightful, cool guy. Loved “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” and his essays on psychedelia.

  35. 35.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 6:05 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    ‘ some do and some don’t ‘

    Seems to me that is what he said.

    And I think it is true that bigotry and racism exists in all communities of every racial, ethnic, religious and cultural stripe.
    I have had various minorities talk some trash about other minorities too me, sometimes confidentially in a near whisper, and particularly about African-Americans and Hispanics. Maybe because I am a white guy, they think I will be receptive?

    What Heer says rings true to me from my experience.

    And D’Souza puts out more than Murray-style generalizations. Heer put anything out about rednecks and chitlins or grits? Anything like the laughably dumb tweet about Obama and his supposedly ghetto and ‘vulgar’ ‘selfie-stick’ schtick on what is essentially a humorous public service ad spot with a touch of self-satire? Interesting that D’Souza cannot see the self-satire in the Obama spot.

  36. 36.

    Mike in NC

    February 20, 2015 at 6:06 pm

    Pretty sure that when our good buddy Dinesh first applied for a driver’s license, he put down “blue” for eyes and “blond” for hair. Ditto Michelle Malkin.

  37. 37.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 6:06 pm

    @les:

    Racism among South Asians has some peculiar qualities; it’s not so much hatred of the other but the hatred of the almost-the-same, akin to a sibling rivalry. At the heart of this sort of immigrant racism is the desire to differentiate oneself from the group one could easily be identified with.

    He is generalizing .

  38. 38.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 6:09 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    ” Check the batteries in your snark meter. ”

    Same to you, buddy. Look, if you are going to advertise cool new ways to say ‘fuck you’, that is pretty serious business. Nothing to joke around about.

    /snarkysnarksnarkitysnark

  39. 39.

    GregB

    February 20, 2015 at 6:11 pm

    We need to support all forms of diversity.

    I will defend the right of Shit-heel American Dinesh D’Souza and his antiquated world views.

  40. 40.

    joel hanes

    February 20, 2015 at 6:12 pm

    If you have a friend from India, you might find it instructive to ask them why Lord Krishna is normally given blue skin in iconography.

  41. 41.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 20, 2015 at 6:12 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: To be fair, I’d wager that all of my first-generation South Asian friends would say the same of their own parents, and many of them have in fact already expressed that opinion unprompted.

    “Racism among South Asians” only applies to racist South Asians, anyway. I don’t know that it counts as a generalization.

  42. 42.

    BGinCHI

    February 20, 2015 at 6:13 pm

    @jl: Pistols at dawn.

    On second thought, how about 10:30? Long week. And maybe bacon instead of guns.

  43. 43.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 20, 2015 at 6:13 pm

    @lahru:

    Where were you when Eruzione scored the winning goal.

    Germany. Probably sleeping at the time. Or eating breakfast.

  44. 44.

    les

    February 20, 2015 at 6:15 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Racism among South Asians

    He’s generalizing about the form of racism, not about all South Asians. Not the same thing; although yeah, it’s a generalization, but not the one you said he was making.

  45. 45.

    SatanicPanic

    February 20, 2015 at 6:17 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: I think you’re misreading. “Racism among South Asians” might be ambiguous, but I take that to mean, where there are racist South Asians, they think like this. OTOH if you’re objecting to him generalizing about racist people… oh well that’s not something I can really get up in arms about.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 6:17 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    I don’t read him regularly, but I kind of agree that this excerpt doesn’t give me a reason to.

  47. 47.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 20, 2015 at 6:17 pm

    Completely OT, but this is an open thread:

    Anybody got experience with a buffer overflow utterly destroying an EC2 instance?

  48. 48.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 6:19 pm

    @joel hanes: Krishna means black in Sanskrit.
    Yes, light skin is prized in India, mostly I think that it is the legacy of colonial rule. Also typically upper castes are lighter skinned, since they don’t have to work out in the sun. That doesn’t translate that immigrants from the subcontinent are anti-black.
    Immigrants of Indian origin voted overwhelmingly for Obama more than 80%, is what I remember reading. D’souza is not typical and Heer is making it seem so.

  49. 49.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 6:22 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    mostly I think that it is the legacy of colonial rule. Also typically upper castes are lighter skinned, since they don’t have to work out in the sun.

    Even well before that, from when the light-skinned Aryans invaded India and interacted with darker skinned natives.

  50. 50.

    beltane

    February 20, 2015 at 6:23 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I would actually take the generalization further and apply it to most non-white or marginally white immigrant groups, e.g. Italian-Americans. People do not immigrate to this country in order to be perpetually despised members of the “out-group”. They naturally want to be part of the in-group, i.e. whites, and they sense that one way of getting a seat on the “white bus” is to crap all over anyone darker than themselves. In any case, the focus shouldn’t be so much on the immigrants, who are merely aping the attitudes of those who were here before, but on the fact that racism is one of America’s essential features, present since this country’s conception like some kind of damaged chromosome.

  51. 51.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 20, 2015 at 6:24 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: @Baud:

    Even well before that, from when the light-skinned Aryans invaded India and interacted with darker skinned natives.

    Indeed. The colonialist legacy aspect is a bit of a myth. But the British were certainly able to take advantage of the skin/caste system.

  52. 52.

    Mandalay

    February 20, 2015 at 6:26 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Bummer – he is a great human being.

    This is a good interview with him from a couple of years ago: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rl304

  53. 53.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 20, 2015 at 6:27 pm

    @beltane: My in-laws aren’t racist, but then again they’re Vietnam war refugees, so it’s not like they chose to come here.

  54. 54.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    February 20, 2015 at 6:27 pm

    @Baud: Lighter complexion is also preferred in Korea. A darker complexion is associated with being “of the land” and poor.

  55. 55.

    Console

    February 20, 2015 at 6:28 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Yes, yes, we know, pointing out racism is the same thing as being racist. Thank you for your valuable contribution to public discourse

  56. 56.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 6:29 pm

    @Baud: Besides in India in a single family you will find individuals of every shade. Very dark, darker than most black people in the US and light skinned with hazel eyes, could pass as someone from Southern Europe.
    Lighter colored individuals are thought to be more beautiful but a lower caste lighter skinned person is still lower on the overall scale than a dark skinned Brahmin. Indian colorism is different animal than racism in the US.

  57. 57.

    joel hanes

    February 20, 2015 at 6:30 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    mostly I think that it is the legacy of colonial rule

    My informant speculated that it had to do with successive waves of lighter-skinned conquerers from the north, and reflected the attitude of the ruling newcomers to the “tribal” pre-Vedic aborigines.

    Heer is making it seem so.

    This seems a stretch to me, but then, my perceptions are just that.

  58. 58.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 6:31 pm

    @Console: I did not call Heer a racist, don’t put words in my mouth.
    All I am saying is that D’souza is not representative of South Asian immigrants. He most decidedly has said obnoxious and racist things about President Obama.

  59. 59.

    Cacti

    February 20, 2015 at 6:33 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Besides in India in a single family you will find individuals of every shade. Very dark, darker than most black people in the US and light skinned with hazel eyes, could pass as someone from Southern Europe

    You should probably share this valuable insight with Jeet Heer.

    I doubt he’s aware of it.

  60. 60.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 20, 2015 at 6:34 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: South Korea also has that weird plastic surgery fetish going on… bleh.

  61. 61.

    Cacti

    February 20, 2015 at 6:34 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    All I am saying is that D’souza is not representative of South Asian immigrants.

    Of what is he representative then? The tooth fairy?

  62. 62.

    beltane

    February 20, 2015 at 6:36 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I didn’t want to imply that most immigrants are racist. However, there is something of an aspirational quality to this type of racism when it does exist. The mistake is to claim that this phenomenon is unique to South Asians when it could be applied to any immigrant group striving to fit in with white America.

  63. 63.

    Gvg

    February 20, 2015 at 6:37 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Sorry, that sounds like a perfectly normal Dutch name. it is not Americanized. It’s just unfamiliar to you and you are jumping to an incorrect conclusion. I don’t know enough about him to make any judgements but his name is just his name.
    I have a tiny smidge of Dutch ancestry, just enough to pay a little attention when I see a Dutch name in books. they used to have a merchant colonial empire to rival the British in slightly different areas and their history has a lot of the same dirty deeds. their colonies mostly became independent after WWII.

  64. 64.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 6:38 pm

    @Cacti:

    Of what is he representative then? The tooth fairy?

    Felons?

  65. 65.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 6:38 pm

    @Cacti:So because D’souza is from India, it follows that all South Asians immigrants are racist?
    Regarding his views about the President D’Souza is definitely an outlier in SA community, given how overwhelming they voted for him both the times he ran.

  66. 66.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    February 20, 2015 at 6:39 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: The double eyelid surgery is pretty common, Koreans born with the double eyelids have long been thought to be more attractive. My wife has the double eyelids by birth, her daughter doesn’t and is envious.

  67. 67.

    Console

    February 20, 2015 at 6:39 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    It’s the weird parallelism that you end up making between Heer and D’souza. D’souza’s sin isn’t generalization. It’s racism. They aren’t on the same plane. Calling racists racist might be a progressive shibboleth, but it’s not an analogue to the conservative phenomenon described by Heer.

  68. 68.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 6:39 pm

    @BGinCHI: It can get ugly in the snark trench warfare of BJ. Oh, we’ll have stories to tell the grand kids.

  69. 69.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 6:40 pm

    @Gvg: He says he is Punjabi, I drew my conclusions from that but he could be Dutch as you say. In which case I take my criticism back.

  70. 70.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 6:40 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    It’s different because of castes, but not that different. In the U.S., class is typically mixed up with race.

  71. 71.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    February 20, 2015 at 6:41 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    President D’Souza

    I think you needed a comma there; without one, it’s a scary thought.

  72. 72.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 6:41 pm

    @Console: I am not equating what Heer said to what D’Souza has said and done.

  73. 73.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 6:42 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I didn’t realize he was Punjabi. I also assumed from the name that he was Dutch or Danish or something like that.

  74. 74.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 20, 2015 at 6:42 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Per capita, it’s the plastic surgery capital of the world. Also popular is

    ugh

    cheekbone shaving

  75. 75.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 6:42 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Oops my bad. Typing too furiously, replying to Heer’s fanboys.

  76. 76.

    Cacti

    February 20, 2015 at 6:43 pm

    @beltane:

    I didn’t want to imply that most immigrants are racist. However, there is something of an aspirational quality to this type of racism when it does exist. The mistake is to claim that this phenomenon is unique to South Asians when it could be applied to any immigrant group striving to fit in with white America.

    This.

    Being “white” in America is as much a tribal marker as it is a racial category. Used to be that Europeans from Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox christian countries were most definitely not “white”. Only anglo-saxon protestants were allowed at the country club.

    The fact that a man with the surname Giuliani talks about someone named Obama not being “raised like you and me” just drips with irony.

  77. 77.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    February 20, 2015 at 6:43 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: It just popped out at me.

  78. 78.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 20, 2015 at 6:45 pm

    @beltane: Sure, I agree with that. Was just defending the tribe :)

    Ooh, we’re doing Tet tomorrow, that’ll be fun.

  79. 79.

    SatanicPanic

    February 20, 2015 at 6:45 pm

    @beltane:

    However, there is something of an aspirational quality to this type of racism when it does exist.

    First you get the 4 bedroom house, then you get the Benz, then you start complaining about those people moving in.

  80. 80.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    February 20, 2015 at 6:46 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Some take it to extremes, as some do here. Beverly Hills? But the eye surgery is pretty common, even here. The kid’s sister had it; and if the kid could afford it, she probably would as well.

  81. 81.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 20, 2015 at 6:50 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: It just kind of makes me sad, I don’t know. They’re trying to look white… Or at least that’s how it started, now it’s maybe a zeitgeisty thing.

    Their eyes are fine the way they are.

  82. 82.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 6:50 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    ” because D’souza is from India, it follows that all South Asians immigrants are racist? ”

    I don;t see where Heer says that. He does generalize about the type or racism among racist South Asians, but that is different.

    ” Regarding his views about the President D’Souza is definitely an outlier in SA community, given how overwhelming they voted for him both the times he ran. ”

    But Heer very explicitly acknowledged that in his article.

    Edit: I do have some quibbles with Heer’s article. I think he uses the word ‘racist’ and ‘racism’ too broadly. As a commenter above said, there is ‘aspirational racism’ which can be a pose of racism that is really more an attempt to join a certain tribe. Not sure the results for those disciminated against are any better, but he portrays ‘racism’ with too broad a brush.

  83. 83.

    lamh36

    February 20, 2015 at 6:54 pm

    From BJ’ fav Dave Weigel.

    @daveweigel
    I didn’t actually hear any racial overtones in what Rudy was saying. Seemed to be the classic D’Souza “anti-colonial thinking” case.
    https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/568862658860064770

    Hard to tell if Weigel is snarking here, but then I’m not one of the BJs who likes him…so I’m not inclined to give him any benefit of doubt.

  84. 84.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 6:56 pm

    @lamh36:

    It’s just D’Souza being D’Souza. Y’all too sensitive.

  85. 85.

    Roger Moore

    February 20, 2015 at 6:56 pm

    @beltane:

    They naturally want to be part of the in-group, i.e. whites, and they sense that one way of getting a seat on the “white bus” is to crap all over anyone darker than themselves.

    This. We’ve seen this basic process work out again and again through American history. American racism isn’t just white vs. black, it’s also about a hierarchy within whites about which ones are better and worse. Only the aristocratic English at the very top of the heap could look down at everyone, and the people in the middle were always trying to act a bit better than somebody else, even if that meant climbing higher on the ladder by pushing others down. It’s as American as apple pie.

  86. 86.

    Roger Moore

    February 20, 2015 at 6:59 pm

    @Cacti:

    Of what is he representative then?

    Himself. It’s folly to try to understand an entire group based on the behavior of a single member of that group.

  87. 87.

    Tenar Darell

    February 20, 2015 at 7:01 pm

    I saw a tipped feral limping along the street near my father’s earlier. Wouldn’t come near me. I hope he has access to one of these shelters tonight.

  88. 88.

    Mike in NC

    February 20, 2015 at 7:10 pm

    @Cacti: Not so many years ago, both Mario Cuomo and Rudolph Guiliani were widely ridiculed for having names that were not acceptable to “Real Americans” regarding aspirations to higher office.

  89. 89.

    beltane

    February 20, 2015 at 7:14 pm

    @Mike in NC: Even now, I’m not sure someone with an “ethnic” sounding last name would win the Republican nomination.

  90. 90.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 7:17 pm

    @Baud: Maybe it’s Wiegel’s a little joke? I can’t think of anything else.

  91. 91.

    Mike in NC

    February 20, 2015 at 7:18 pm

    @Roger Moore: I can recall the 1988 presidential campaign where the media contrasted the impeccable WASP George H. W. Bush versus the lowlife Greek (meaning hardly qualifying as white) Michael Dukakis. That was well before FOX News.

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    February 20, 2015 at 7:22 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    All I am saying is that D’souza is not representative of South Asian immigrants.

    As far as I can tell, neither is Heer. What he’s saying is that D’Souza is representative of racist South Asian immigrants (or, if you prefer, representative of South Asians who are racist). He’s identifying D’Souza as a specific kind of racist, not saying that all South Asians are racist.

    If you think white Americans and South Asians are racist in the exact same way, I think I may want to see some links.

  93. 93.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    February 20, 2015 at 7:25 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Yep. My aunts have vivid memories of being called “dagoes” and “wops.” It didn’t make them any more sympathetic to people below them on the ladder, though — it just made them want to move up.

  94. 94.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 7:30 pm

    Looks like next stage of Rudi’s insight will be the ‘race card’ battles. Below is the second skirmish I have read about.

    Fox Analyst: Giuliani’s Obama Remark ‘Invites All Kinds Of Racial Tension’

    ‘ “Let me just tell you something: This is divisive. This invites all kinds of racial tension,” Williams said during an appearance on the Fox News show “The Five.”

    Jesse Watters, a correspondent for the Fox News show “The O’Reilly Factor” who was also appearing on “The Five,” quickly objected and tried to cut Williams off.

    “No one introduced the race card until you just did,” Watters said to Williams.

    Williams responded by suggesting that Giuliani’s comments about Obama’s upbringing had racial overtones.

    “So If you don’t grow up — I don’t know where you’re supposed to grow up and be exactly like this to be an American,” Williams said. “But gosh, so difference is not allowed?”

    “This doesn’t have anything to do with race,” Watters said. ‘

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/juan-williams-rudy-giuliani-racial-tension

    Those interested can go to link to see how Watters follows up.
    I think that Jesse Watters is O’Reiily’s henchperson. If so, from the clips I have seen of him, Watters seems a true creeptastic creepy creep. And I hope I am playing no race or gender card in playing the creep card with Watters.

  95. 95.

    Tree With Water

    February 20, 2015 at 7:31 pm

    “..By aligning himself with figures like Hart and Burnham, he chose a form of upward mobility that required abasing himself before those who despised his heritage…”.

    It’s a fairly apt description of Log Cabin republicans, too. Or hoodwinked poor southerners…

  96. 96.

    aimai

    February 20, 2015 at 7:32 pm

    @Patricia Kayden: Really, you were shocked? The public face of Gandhi really has nothing to do with the reality of Indian racism/casteism.

  97. 97.

    Roger Moore

    February 20, 2015 at 7:32 pm

    @beltane:

    Even now, I’m not sure someone with an “ethnic” sounding last name would win the Republican nomination.

    Just because the most “ethnic” sounding name for a Republican nominee so far has been either Roosevelt or Eisenhower?

  98. 98.

    srv

    February 20, 2015 at 7:33 pm

    Rummy Rumsplains it for you people:

    RUMSFELD: I think it is a shame the way it’s been handled in both Afghanistan and Iraq. I mean, I have never believed that the United States should or could serve as policemen for the world, nor do I believe that we’re capable of nation building. I do think that we are making a terrible mistake by pulling back, telling the enemy what we plan to do and don’t plan to do, leaving a vacuum, and allowing that vacuum to be filled by people that are hostile to the United States and hostile to our values.

    is that clear enough for you?

  99. 99.

    aimai

    February 20, 2015 at 7:35 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: No, he’s not badmouthing “all” Indian immigrants and he’s not doing it to ingratiate himself with the left because the left/intellectuals don’t have a dog in that hunt. Anti-immigrant and Anti-Asian attitudes are not constitutent parts of liberalism. Anti-Republican and anti conservative attitudes are so you could argue that Jeet Heer is giving liberals what they want by pointing out some interesting aspects of D’souza’s particular form of racism but so what?

  100. 100.

    AxelFoley

    February 20, 2015 at 7:36 pm

    @Cacti:

    D’Souza provides the exact services the white, right wing political establishment desires from racial and ethnic minorities in its ranks:

    Cheerleading for white supremacy, and guard dogging against racism accusations.

    Bingo. He wants to be white so bad it eats at his soul.

    I hope it consumes the muthafucka.

  101. 101.

    srv

    February 20, 2015 at 7:40 pm

    Look, Joe Biden says some dumb things sometimes and Rudy is 70, so lets just lay off of Americas Mayor. Old people should not have to apologize everytime they make some gaff.

    Liberal’s rage against the 1st Amendment protections is getting scarey.

  102. 102.

    notoriousJRT

    February 20, 2015 at 7:40 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Now that IS ironic.

  103. 103.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 7:42 pm

    @Roger Moore: beltane may have a point. The Dutch and Germans were among the first to join the ‘white’ club in the US who originally were not in. When Franklin started his public career, Germans were definitely an ‘Other’ class. Worked too damn hard, gonna compete the good and genteel English out of their rightful place, stingy, not community minded, etc.

    And are you sure we originally emulated Aristocratic English. Maybe English, but not Aristocrats, except the debauched version that has been quite the fashion in some parts of the South.

  104. 104.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 20, 2015 at 7:43 pm

    @srv: The hell are you trying to say?

  105. 105.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 7:47 pm

    @srv: Yeah, think I got it now.

    But, hey,who was the idiot who decided that we should invade, but any ‘nation building’ was for wimps, not real Warriors, and maybe all Civil Affairs Officers were wimps, not real military, and real Marines would never waste their time understanding the country and people they were occupying? WTF had the Marines ever occupied, anyway? They were real military who came in, killed bad guys, blew up their stuff and left, right?

    So, we should not insult our soldiers by expecting them to do any of that wussie nation building. They would kill and blow up just enough to invade the country, and then leave, like real soldiers. Not some nanny-corps.

    Who was the dope who thought up that nonsense? The name was just on the tip of my tongue…

  106. 106.

    Woodrowfan

    February 20, 2015 at 7:51 pm

    @joel hanes: If you have a friend from India, you might find it instructive to ask them why Lord Krishna is normally given blue skin in iconography.

    he’s cold? He’s part Smurf?? He’s from Munchkin Country??

  107. 107.

    Roger Moore

    February 20, 2015 at 8:00 pm

    @srv:

    is that clear enough for you?

    My translator says that translates to, “Everything Obama may or may not do is wrong.” What do I win?

  108. 108.

    jake the antisoshul soshulist

    February 20, 2015 at 8:09 pm

    @srv:
    The first amendment infers nothing about speech being exempt from criticism.

  109. 109.

    Marc

    February 20, 2015 at 8:16 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    He is not hiding his ethnicity just making it more palatable by truncating his name.

    Except Jeet Heer is his full name. “Jeet” is a common first name and “Heer” is a common surname in India and Pakistan.

    Dumbass.

  110. 110.

    Marc

    February 20, 2015 at 8:21 pm

    @Baud: And as luck would have it, “Heer” is a common (and not truncated) surname in Punjab, and “Jeet” is a common (and not truncated) first name for Hindus.

    It’s almost like Jeet Heer knows his own name and culture better than you and schrodinger’s cat do. Imagine that!

  111. 111.

    cokane

    February 20, 2015 at 8:22 pm

    how is it that now journalism at the New Republic is basically indistinguishable from a dailykos post?

    No offense to the GOS, kos serves a valuable purpose. But how is this piece even journalism? Here’s some things about my own racist family and then I will project them onto D’Souza… I’m not here saying that Heer’s conclusions are wrong, but this kind of shoddy journalism doesn’t belong in a magazine. Where’s the attempt to contact DSouza? I know people here will push back on me for writing this since it was a psychologically satisfying takedown on a deserving target, but frankly standards need to be raised.

    This stood out: “Is D’Souza sincere in his beliefs or simply an intellectual mercenary? It’s impossible to know for sure.”

    I dunno … you could maybe try calling him? Or messaging him? Or someone who knows him?

  112. 112.

    Josie

    February 20, 2015 at 8:23 pm

    @srv: Like being 70 is some kind if excuse? I am 71 and still in full command of all my faculties, and I resent your implication that age makes one stupid. What he said was racist, and his follow up explanations just dug him in deeper. It’s like I have said before. They are who we thought they were; nothing has changed in all these years.

  113. 113.

    patrick II

    February 20, 2015 at 8:24 pm

    @srv:

    Old people should not have to apologize everytime they make some gaff.

    So, you are stereotyping old people as making a lot of gaffs? You shouldn’t excuse either Biden or Giuliani’s because of your prejudice against old people.

  114. 114.

    Marc

    February 20, 2015 at 8:27 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Even his name, Jeet Heer sounds like Mindy Kaling a truncated Indian name.

    Here, LMGTFY.

    BTW he can call himself whatever he wants

    Or whatever his parents named him, dumbass.

  115. 115.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 8:31 pm

    @Marc:

    I’m not sure what your point is. I’ve never come across that name before. I couldn’t care less where he is from.

  116. 116.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 8:38 pm

    @cokane: Not only that from his anecdata he has concluded that D’Souza’s attitudes are representative of South Asian immigrants.

    It’s tempting to dismiss D’Souza as an outlier. He’s aligned with the right-wing of the Republican party, while the vast majority of American South Asians identify as Democrats. Still, anyone who spends time among South Asians will recognize the popular currency of attitudes like D’Souza’s.

  117. 117.

    Marc

    February 20, 2015 at 8:41 pm

    @Baud: This thread is filled with lots of ugly and poorly-informed assumptions about Jeet’s name and origins. Mostly from schrodinger’s cat, to be sure, but you added your bit.

  118. 118.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 8:44 pm

    @Marc:

    That’s dumb. If a name is unfamiliar, it’s not unusual or offensive to misplace the origin. Nothing ugly about being Dutch.

  119. 119.

    Steeplejack

    February 20, 2015 at 8:48 pm

    @jl:

    The Dutch and Germans were among the first to join the “white” club in the U.S. who originally were not in.

    Could you provide some citations or references for this? This has come up here before, and I don’t understand the formulation that “not white” = “anybody the English don’t like.” The Dutch and the Germans (and the French) were in America from early colonial times, and, no matter how much the English detested the frogs, the Huns and whatever they called the Dutch, I haven’t seen any primary sources where they said they weren’t white. It seems like kind of a modern academic construction. Please illuminate me if I’m wrong.

  120. 120.

    raven

    February 20, 2015 at 8:50 pm

    @Steeplejack: Hey, thanks for your info back yonder.

  121. 121.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    February 20, 2015 at 8:50 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I still see that as “D’Souza is typical of a South Asian who is racist,” though, not, “South Asians are racist.”

    We can all guess what a typical white racist is likely to say, right? Why is it weird to say that a particular person seems to be a typical racist of his specific ethnic group?

    I really think you misread Heer.

  122. 122.

    Mike in NC

    February 20, 2015 at 8:51 pm

    @srv: Just eat shit, you moron.

  123. 123.

    JPL

    February 20, 2015 at 8:52 pm

    @beltane: I don’t agree. If you stand with the Koch’s views of America, you can win the primary. IOKIYR

  124. 124.

    Marc

    February 20, 2015 at 8:54 pm

    @Baud: Do you think there’s nothing unusual or offensive about assuming a name has been truncated when it’s not? Or assuming someone is using that (non) truncated name to ingratiate themselves to whites? Or just assuming you know his culture and its names better than he does? Because that’s what you signed on to.

  125. 125.

    Mike J

    February 20, 2015 at 8:54 pm

    @Baud:

    Nothing ugly about being Dutch.

    Spoken like somebody who never had his door sawn in half.

  126. 126.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 8:55 pm

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): The only Indians I have known who yearn for the bygone colonial rule like D’Souza are Indians who actually worked for the British when they ruled India, like my grandfather and his contemporaries. Most of them are either dead or very old. So I don’t agree with your interpretation of Heer’s quote.

  127. 127.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 8:58 pm

    @Marc:

    All I said was that I didn’t realize he was Punjabi and thought the name sounded Dutch. I didn’t “sign on” to anything.

  128. 128.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 9:00 pm

    @Marc: I am not from Punjab so I will bow before your superior knowledge of Punjabi names.

    ETA: I have never heard of Heer as Punjabi last name.

  129. 129.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 9:04 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    Here is something I could find on short notice.

    Ben Franklin on “Stupid, Swarthy Germans”

    ‘ The other objection that Ben Franklin had to German immigrants was their “swarthy complexion”, which was an affront to the “purely white people” who originally settled America: ‘

    http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2008/02/ben-franklin-on.html

    I’m did not mean to suggest that any ‘racial’ or ethnic bigotry against other Europeans was as thorough and deep seated against Germans, or Scandinavians, or Fins, or swarthy alpine types, or Italians, Jews, Polish, etc. were as they were against blacks and Hispanics (including, back in the day, Spaniards). But they were not considered ‘white like us’.

    Maybe the prejudice was as deep seated against the Irish for awhile.

    Edit: This was the younger Franklin, and interesting he thought the English ‘originally’ settled America, forgetting about some other folks who had been here quite a while.

    Edit: I put ‘racial’ above in quotes because the idea of an Englishperson talking about Germans in any way shape or form as if they were a different race with really noticeably different type of race, seems absurd today, as it should. Just as I believe all talk about different races at all will be seen as absurd pretty soon.

  130. 130.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    February 20, 2015 at 9:04 pm

    @raven:

    No prob. Did you catch the follow-up comments?

  131. 131.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 9:08 pm

    @jl:

    Bart: Ladies and gentlemen! Whacking Day is a sham! It was originally conceived in 1922 as an excuse to beat up on the Irish.

    Old Irishman: ‘Tis true. I took many a lump, but ’twas all in fun.

  132. 132.

    Marc

    February 20, 2015 at 9:09 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Then maybe you should have thought twice before offering your expert opinion?

    I’ve known Jeet for about twelve years now. I’m sure he would be surprised to learn he is a) truncating his name, b) doing it to ingratiate himself to whites, or c) Dutch.

  133. 133.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 9:14 pm

    @Marc:

    Well I would hope he would know what he is. I also hope he’s sane enough not to be offended if someone who had never heard his name before innocently mistook its origin.

  134. 134.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 9:15 pm

    @Baud: Hey, I am almost half Irish. Do need to keep an eye on those people.

    I remember reading an old farm management book that belonged to one my ancestors. How to manage a California farm back in the 1870s. Had summaries of how to handle all sorts of work gangs, including Sikhs and Hindoos (who were indeed a sizable community in CA even back then). The Irish were very violent and would wreck up your stuff, need to really keep an eye on the boozing. Man, after reading that, I realized the Irish are a rum bunch. Damn fools would maim and kill each other and wreck your stuff.

    The great grand oldster who owned it was Irish himself. I wonder what he thought when he read about the dangers of hiring an Irish work gang.

  135. 135.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 9:18 pm

    @Marc:Ok so my assumption about his name was wrong but it was just a guess It was never offered as an expert opinion.

  136. 136.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 9:25 pm

    @jl:

    You got better.

  137. 137.

    Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)

    February 20, 2015 at 9:26 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I don’t think D’Souza is going around calling Barack Obama a “boy” because he longs for the days of colonialism. I think he’s doing it because he’s a racist. The colonial longing is a culturally specific aspect of that racism, but it’s not the whole story.

    And, yes, I have heard some South Asian (and East Asian, and Latino, for that matter) people express racist sentiments about African-Americans. That doesn’t make me think all South Asians are racist, but it does make me think that being a minority yourself doesn’t make you immune to picking up the racism in the broader culture and running with it.

  138. 138.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 9:30 pm

    More on the absurdity of true born English ‘Anglo-Saxon’ racism.
    I didn’t know about this poem until a commenter posted excerpts here a while back.
    Daniel Defoe had it nailed in 1701

    The True-Born Englishman (except)

    Thus from a mixture of all kinds began,

    That het’rogeneous thing, an Englishman:
    In eager rapes, and furious lust begot
    Betwixt a painted Britain and a Scot.
    Whose gend’ring off-spring quickly learn’d to bow,
    And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough:
    From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came,
    With neither name, nor nation, speech nor fame.
    In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran,
    Infus’d betwixt a Saxon and a Dane
    While their rank daughters, to their parents just,
    Receiv’d all nations with promiscuous lust.
    This nauseous brood directly did contain
    The well-extracted blood of Englishmen.

    Which thronged in Pious Charles’s restoration.1
    The royal refugee our breed restores,
    With foreign courtiers and with foreign whores,
    And carefully repeopled us again,
    Throughout his lazy, long, lascivious reign;
    With such a blest and true-born English fry,
    As much illustrates our nobility.
    A gratitude which will so black appear,
    As future ages must abhor to hear,
    When they look back on all that crimson flood,
    Which streamed in Lindsay’s, and Carnarvon’s blood,
    Bold Strafford, Cambridge, Capel, Lucas, Lisle,
    Who crowned in death his father’s funeral pile.
    The loss of whom, in order to supply,
    With true-born-English nationality,
    Six bastard Dukes survive his luscious reign,
    The labours of Italian Castlemaine,2
    French Portsmouth,3 Tabby Scot, and Cambrian.
    Besides the numerous bright and virgin throng,
    Whole female glories shade them from my song.
    This offspring, if one age they multiply,
    May half the house with English peers supply;
    There with true English pride they may contemn
    Schomberg and Portland,1 new made noblemen.
    French cooks, Scotch pedlars, and Italian whores,
    Were all made lords, or lords’ progenitors.
    Beggars and bastards by his new creation
    Much multiplied the peerage of the nation;
    Who will be all, ere one short age runs o’er,
    As true-born lords as those we had before.
    Then to recruit the Commons he prepares
    And heal the latent breaches of the wars;
    The pious purpose better to advance,
    He invites the banished Protestants of France:
    Hither for God’s sake and their own they fled,
    Some for religion came, and some for bread;
    Two hundred thousand pair of wooden shoes,
    Who, God be thanked, had nothing left to lose,
    To Heaven’s great praise did for religion fly,
    To make us starve our poor in charity.
    In every port they plant their fruitful train,
    To get a race of true-born Englishmen;
    Whose children will, when riper years they see,
    Be as ill-natured and as proud as we;
    Call themselves English, foreigners despise,
    Be surly like us all, and just as wise.
    Thus from a mixture of all kinds began,
    That heterogeneous thing an Englishman;
    In eager rapes and furious lust begot,
    Betwixt a painted Briton and a Scot;
    Whose gendering offspring quickly learned to bow,
    And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough;
    From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came,
    With neither name nor nation, speech nor fame;

    The True-Born Englishman
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True-Born_Englishman

  139. 139.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 9:32 pm

    @jl:

    and
    http://www.luminarium.org/editions/trueborn.htm

  140. 140.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 9:42 pm

    @jl: Sorry, didn’t realize the excerpt I chose was so long. I wanted to put in the part where Defoe explains that the miscegenation rot started right from the royal top. Anyway, the poem is long litany of mongrel horrors of the English, so there is plenty more for aficionados.

  141. 141.

    Mayur

    February 20, 2015 at 9:45 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: I must disagree. Great-grandfather was a loyal British subject and grandfather was a general in HRM’s army pre independence, and neither ever struck me as particularly nostalgic for colonial service, so my anecdata does differ from yours. That said, the whispers of “kallu” and billboard ads for Fair and Lovely skin cream, etc are pretty strong anecdata for a kind of colorism that goes beyond mere nostalgia for an Indian raj. The number of times I’ve heard someone described as “dark, but attractive”; the looks that my (beautiful) African-American classmates got when they visited Bangalore, and a mountain of other experiences has confirmed a definite strain of colorism that is peculiar to more bigoted South Asians. Jeet heer isn’t saying that South Asians as a whole are more or less racist than Swedes, Amazonians, or Japanese; he’s pointing out that d’souza’s comments do resonate with a particularly south Asian style of anti-black racism. Have we forgotten Mississippi Masala so soon?

  142. 142.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 9:46 pm

    @Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): I agree with what you say. The thing I take issue with is Heer’s assertion that D’Souza ‘s views are popular among South Asians Voting patterns point evidence to the contrary.

  143. 143.

    Tree With Water

    February 20, 2015 at 9:49 pm

    @jl: “The great grand oldster who owned it was Irish himself. I wonder what he thought when he read about the dangers of hiring an Irish work gang”.

    I, too, am a son of Eire, a mere few generations removed from its blessed green sod (“toy, toy, toy”…)*.

    My guess has is he agreed with a lion’s share of their foreboding.

    *(Disclaimer: I have never heard any other Irishman than Barry Fitzgerald utter that phrase, if indeed a phrase it is. For all I know, he made it up).

  144. 144.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 9:49 pm

    @Mayur: I was being facetious. I haven’t heard anyone who is 75 or younger be nostalgic for the Raj.

    ETA: MM was a great movie. Also love Monsoon Wedding.

  145. 145.

    Violet

    February 20, 2015 at 9:51 pm

    From the article:

    D’Souza grabbed attention this week for a tweet

    This was the whole point of D’Souza’s tweet. Striving for attention. Desperate to stay relevant and stay on the wingnut gravy train.

  146. 146.

    Violet

    February 20, 2015 at 9:55 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    The thing I take issue with is Heer’s assertion that D’Souza ‘s views are popular among South Asians Voting patterns point evidence to the contrary.

    From the final paragraph of the article:

    Most South Asians do not follow such a dim path.

  147. 147.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 9:55 pm

    @Mayur: And somehow, that Indian colorism has not translated to disdain for President.

  148. 148.

    Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)

    February 20, 2015 at 9:56 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Again, I’m not seeing what you’re seeing. I’m seeing Heer say that D’Souza’s views are common among racist South Asians, not all South Asians. I honestly don’t think he’s saying or even implying that most South Asians are racist. He’s saying that the South Asians who are racist have some views in common with each other that they don’t have with racists from other groups. That’s not the same thing as saying that South Asians as a group are racist.

  149. 149.

    mai naem mobile

    February 20, 2015 at 9:56 pm

    I always assumed Jeet’s first name was Jeetendra or something similar and shortened it to Jeet. Its easier for westerners to pronounce. Not uncommon with Indians. Jayant/Jayesh/Jaykar become Jay and Ashok/Ashish/Ashwin become Ash. I have a feeling if Dinesh D’Souza’s first name had been Devesh he’d have shortened it to Dave.

  150. 150.

    J R in WV

    February 20, 2015 at 9:56 pm

    Reporting successful shoulder joint replacement, home to recuperate, not too uncomfortable.

    Thanks to those who were thinking of me. Hard to do so many things with one left hand for a while. Think of pullling up a pair of jeans!?

  151. 151.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 9:57 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: To be fair, it is possible to be racist without being a D’Souza level racist.

  152. 152.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 9:57 pm

    @Violet: See also Heer’s quote in comment 114

  153. 153.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 9:59 pm

    @J R in WV: Wear a kilt instead.

  154. 154.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 9:59 pm

    @J R in WV: I wasn’t thinking of you, but I am now. Hope you have a speedy recovery.

  155. 155.

    raven

    February 20, 2015 at 10:00 pm

    @J R in WV: Do you have one of those braces that circulates cold water around the shoulder?

  156. 156.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 10:01 pm

    @Baud: Racist Indians are smart enough not to vote against their own self interest? Anything is possible. Unlike Jeet, I only speaks for myself and the Ceiling Cat.

  157. 157.

    mai naem mobile

    February 20, 2015 at 10:03 pm

    Here’s what I don’t get about RWingers talking about Obamas anticolonial upbringing. When the fuck did Americans become so pro-colonial? George Washington’s got to be spinning in his grave. Is George Washington now considered anti-American?

  158. 158.

    Violet

    February 20, 2015 at 10:04 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: I don’t read that the way you seem to be interpreting it. I think he’s saying the views are common enough that they’re something people in that group (South Asian) will recognize, but not something done by the majority. Like the cousin he mentions. Or the equivalent of the crazy uncle you see at Thanksgiving who spouts Limbaugh talking points.

    Also, a particular strain of South Asian racism doesn’t mean those in that group will vote with the bigger racist group. In this case, Republicans. Not sure racism and voting patterns are as strongly correlated among minority groups.

  159. 159.

    Mayur

    February 20, 2015 at 10:04 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Glad to hear it.

    The bigger point to take away is that white Americans are not the only racists. I know that conservatives sometimes use that assertion to minimize white American racism, but it’s still worth keeping in mind for liberals. There are horrible strains of religion-, caste-, and color-based bigotry in India that have real effects (witness the rise of the BJP). I feel like we’ve really been more lucky than anything else with South (and other) Asian voting patterns in the US; the current strain of Republican religious and racial bigotry is too obvious to let them vote GOP in good conscience. But I’ve certainly heard things from family friends in the more suburban contingents (Edison NJ; suburban Long Island) that sound not much better than the stuff that comes out of Peter King’s (or hell, Louie Gohmert’s) constituents.

    I know we’re big into the doom and gloom thing around here and I don’t want to encourage it, but anti-Black racism (in the vein of “the Democrats spend too much of our taxes on handouts to those people) isn’t a 100% loser message to Asian constituencies, hate it we may.

  160. 160.

    raven

    February 20, 2015 at 10:05 pm

    @Mayur: Or Cubans.

  161. 161.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 10:09 pm

    @Mayur:

    Conservatives will turn around a push anti-immigrant memes on black folks as well. Hasn’t changed voting habits, but divide-and-conquer is a well-worn and all-too-often successful strategy.

  162. 162.

    Chris T.

    February 20, 2015 at 10:13 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s as American as apple pie.

    But during National Brotherhood week, National Brotherhood week
    New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans ’cause it’s very chic.
    Step up and shake the hand
    Of someone you can’t stand.
    You can tolerate him if you try.

  163. 163.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 20, 2015 at 10:18 pm

    @Violet: Truth be told I found his playing the Indian/South Asian whisperer a tad annoying. It is an essential feature of all Punditubbies, though.

  164. 164.

    Southern Goth

    February 20, 2015 at 10:21 pm

    @mai naem mobile:
    I’ve wondered that myself.

    Does it have something to do with Vietnam?

  165. 165.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 10:21 pm

    @mai naem mobile:

    ” Is George Washington now considered anti-American? ”

    He grew ‘hemp’ and I read some documentary evidence once he worried about proper nipping of the buds (for medicinal purposes of course, one hopes!). He freed his slaves way too soon. He was a Hamiltonian and agreed with Alex that those lazy ass westerners should pay some money taxes to get them to work.

    Wadda you think?

  166. 166.

    Howard Beale IV

    February 20, 2015 at 10:22 pm

    You can thank that ubertroll William F. Buckley for inflicting that douchecanoe Dinesh D’Souza on us. Another reason to piss on Buckley’s grave.

  167. 167.

    Howard Beale IV

    February 20, 2015 at 10:23 pm

    @Chris T.:

    Tom Lehrer wants his royalties.

  168. 168.

    Baud

    February 20, 2015 at 10:29 pm

    @Southern Goth:

    I always assumed it was a dog whistle meant to invoke black Africans kicking out white European powers, and all the imagery that brings up for the base.

  169. 169.

    Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)

    February 20, 2015 at 10:30 pm

    @efgoldman:

    I second the motion. The “open threads” today have stayed strangely on topic.

  170. 170.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    February 20, 2015 at 10:31 pm

    @Howard Beale IV: His and Howard Jarvis’s gave. Old Howard’s grave it now far from the BillCave. If I was still drink’n, I might be game for that.

  171. 171.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    February 20, 2015 at 10:33 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I think the eye envy pre-dates their exposure to the west. As I said a percentage of Koreans are born with double eyelids.

  172. 172.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 10:35 pm

    @jl: Oh, I forgot that, not only did Washington free his slaves in his will, but his will also endowed a huge amount for what amounted to a private affirmative action education training and job placement program for the freedmen.

    Implication is that he intended these black freed slaves to mess up our nice white country.

    Case closed. How many of our enlightened even semi-liberal billionaires would pour funds into something like that today? Gates, maybe, but would Gates touch something as controversial as that today? I remember reading how Washington had to really and truly lawyer up to the max to write that will juuusssst right so it would survive years of litigation and challenges.

    Oh, yeah, he was a violent anti-colonialist. Very violent. The blood of the deaths of thousands upon thousands on his hands.

    Washington, I am afraid, is not like us. He is not like you or me or Rudi. I am not being racist when I say this. Look, Washington had white parents on both sides. Not racist at all. I’m just saying that his values were outside the mainstream of American values. Is all.

  173. 173.

    Howard Beale IV

    February 20, 2015 at 10:39 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Jarvis is extremely popular amongst the anti-government Liberterian crowd. Those folks I keep a mental picture in my head and If I see them in a horrible accident, I will render no aid to them.

  174. 174.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 10:41 pm

    @jl: Sucker was cool with employing atheists.

  175. 175.

    SFAW

    February 20, 2015 at 10:45 pm

    @mai naem mobile:

    When the fuck did Americans become so pro-colonial?

    First of all, it’s only real Americans, not those … others.

    Second: it’s not universal pro-colonialism, it’s only places like Kenya and Rhodesia. Now, if I could only figure out why it’s only places like that. Hmmm … thinking …

  176. 176.

    SFAW

    February 20, 2015 at 10:47 pm

    @jl:

    Little known made-up fact: Washington’s middle name was “Jomo.”

  177. 177.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 10:48 pm

    @SFAW: The Tarantino biopic is gonna be wild.

  178. 178.

    SFAW

    February 20, 2015 at 10:53 pm

    Whose ear will he have Washington cut off?

  179. 179.

    Southern Goth

    February 20, 2015 at 10:54 pm

    @Baud:

    Okay got it now.

    It’s supposed to be “Kenyan, anti-colonialist worldview” which translates from Upper Wingnut to “Obama hates whitey.”

    My wingnut is getting rusty.

  180. 180.

    Gwangung

    February 20, 2015 at 11:02 pm

    @jl: as a non shite type, I understtod Heer as you.

  181. 181.

    Ruckus

    February 20, 2015 at 11:20 pm

    @J R in WV:
    Had a friend who broke both wrists at the same time. He said he was extremely lucky that his then girlfriend actually liked him as pulling up his pants was the least of his issues. Doing the finishing touches after doing your business in the smallest room in the house was one example he used.
    Have had both hands in casts and shoulder surgery, fortunately none at the same time. You’ll be just fine.

  182. 182.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    February 20, 2015 at 11:27 pm

    @J R in WV: This is Balloon Juice, we don’t need no stink’n pants.

  183. 183.

    xenos

    February 20, 2015 at 11:28 pm

    “Anti-colonialist” is just another version of “premature anti-fascist”. Ie., a bunch of jerks who are briefly on the right side of history for all the wrong reasons.

  184. 184.

    jl

    February 20, 2015 at 11:37 pm

    Glad O’Reilly cleared that mess up about his sketchy war stories. But now, other questions arise…

    O’Reilly Cites His ‘Novel Of Television And Murder’ To Prove His War Zone Creds
    Brendan James, TPM blog

    ‘ In an odd move on Thursday, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly answered charges of embellishing his war zone experience by citing one of his books-a work of fiction. ‘
    …
    ‘ O’Reilly insisted he had always said he was in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, with the rest of the American press.

    When asked about whether he had ever written or said he was in the Falklands, O’Reilly said he “laid this out” in his first book, “Those Who Trespass.”

    The 1998 book, a crime thriller about a journalist who ends up murdering his former colleagues, was a work of fiction. ‘

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/oreilly-cites-novel-mother-jones

    Emphasis added.

  185. 185.

    PurpleGirl

    February 20, 2015 at 11:38 pm

    @mai naem mobile: I think calling President Obama anti-colonial is a way of tieing him to his father and making him more Kenyan and foreign.

  186. 186.

    Tree With Water

    February 20, 2015 at 11:47 pm

    @jl: If Memory Serves: Lincoln confidant and Illinois congressman Elihu Washburne road part way to Richmond with General James Longstreet after the surrender at Appomattox. He assured Longstreet that Lincoln was the South’s greatest ally, and that prominent northern individuals- whose names Washburne stated would astonish Longstreet- were on board a radically liberal proposal to alleviate the economic catastrophe inflicted by the war on the southern people. John Wilkes Booth killed more than Lincoln that night.

  187. 187.

    PurpleGirl

    February 21, 2015 at 12:03 am

    JC – we need some pet pix.

    And a new thread.

  188. 188.

    Redshift

    February 21, 2015 at 12:15 am

    @PurpleGirl: Absolutely. “Anti-colonial” refers to those darker-hued people who committed terrible acts against good white people (and were Marxists, to boot.) The ‘Murican Revolution wasn’t anti-colonialism, it was just us asserting our awesomeness and exceptionalism to the world.

  189. 189.

    eric k

    February 21, 2015 at 12:30 am

    @schrodinger’s cat:
    no he’s not, he is basically the saying the same thing you are, but you either didn’t comprehend it or are deliberately misreading it so you can bash liberals

  190. 190.

    Little Boots

    February 21, 2015 at 12:34 am

    why exactly would we imagine that every non-white feels some bond to every other non-white? dinesh is about as self-hating as every texan is self-hating for despising their fellow north americans in mexico?

  191. 191.

    Little Boots

    February 21, 2015 at 12:38 am

    like most of the easily diagnosed, dinesh suffers from excessive self-love, nothing self-loathing about it. why do we always play this game on the left?

  192. 192.

    Anne Laurie

    February 21, 2015 at 1:21 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: One of the weird things about Japanese anime, for us Westerners, is that characters who are supposed to be beautiful and/or upper-class are drawn with chalk-white faces… because good-looking people are supposed to be paler than us normals. Sometimes it looks like such “beautiful” characters are wearing clown-white face makeup, it’s so distinctly colored!

    As you said… elite people, lords & scholars, stayed out of the sun to protect their delicate complexions. Poor peasants were out in all weathers, getting tanned. It’s an almost universal concept that money makes its possessors prettier.

  193. 193.

    Anne Laurie

    February 21, 2015 at 1:41 am

    @Major Major Major Major: SRV is a troll, of the ancient & honorable lineage. S/he says lots of stuff designed to bug True Progressives and O-bots, because it’s fun to watch them (us) puff up and be outraged.

    But SRV is, at least, an honest troll — all sniper hits, on widely scattered topics. Not a stalker, a copypasta’d obsessive, or a moran.

  194. 194.

    Anne Laurie

    February 21, 2015 at 1:49 am

    @J R in WV: Congratulations, and here’s hoping for a speedy recovery!

    I remember when Cole memorably broke his right shoulder, he complained about stabbing himself in the palate with his toothbrush. And I think he switched to sweatpants for the first couple weeks of his recovery — when he couldn’t get away with just boxers & his bathrobe…

  195. 195.

    sm*t cl*de

    February 21, 2015 at 4:02 am

    He was a Hamiltonian

    Washington was an operator within a quantum system determining the system’s total energy? Now you’re just being silly.

  196. 196.

    Tommy

    February 21, 2015 at 4:38 am

    @Anne Laurie: Recover well. A few years ago I got hit by a car on my bike. Broke my collar bone. Separated shoulder. I had no idea the pain nor how important my shoulder was. It was like half of my body didn’t work.

  197. 197.

    Matt McIrvin

    February 21, 2015 at 6:44 am

    @mai naem mobile:

    Here’s what I don’t get about RWingers talking about Obamas anticolonial upbringing. When the fuck did Americans become so pro-colonial? George Washington’s got to be spinning in his grave. Is George Washington now considered anti-American?

    There’s a big difference between rebel colonizers and rebel colonized. In old American popular culture, the former are “noble patriot Minutemen” and the latter are “savage Indian raiders”.

  198. 198.

    Lurking Canadian

    February 21, 2015 at 8:07 am

    @Steeplejack: It was said in the time of the height of Empire that the wogs start at Calais.

  199. 199.

    Saint Timonious

    February 21, 2015 at 8:24 am

    Isn’t D’Souza’s schtick the premise of the book “How the Irish Became White”? And why are the Fox News talking heads (O’Reilly, Kelly, Hannity) all Irish: are they part of some exclusive club ?!

  200. 200.

    Plantsmantx

    February 21, 2015 at 9:41 am

    I now be heading to play golf.

    It’s always funny when anti-black racists try to make fun of the use of the habitual be in black American dialects, and in the process, reveal that they can’t grasp the concept of the habitual be, or its usage. No one would ever say “I now be heading to play golf”.

  201. 201.

    dp

    February 21, 2015 at 9:47 am

    Late to the party, but Bobby Jindal much?

  202. 202.

    Suzanne

    February 21, 2015 at 11:18 am

    I don’t know why Heer’s assertion is so controversial around here. It’s the same with every marginalized group. There are racist white feminists, misogynist gay men, homophobic black people, and plenty of those people also get their hate on for the poor, fat, ugly, disabled, transgender, etc etc etc.

    One might think that we would have realized that we are stronger if we keep the common enemy in mind, but plenty of people in marginalized classes have noticed that they can elevate their own social status by shitting on others. It is what it is.

  203. 203.

    Tree With Water

    February 21, 2015 at 11:51 am

    @mai naem mobile: You sound just like Ho Chi Minh circa 1946.

  204. 204.

    Plantsmantx

    February 21, 2015 at 2:08 pm

    @Suzanne:

    homophobic black people

    Don’t forget anti-black black people.

    The careers of D’Souza, Jindal, and Haley carry an implicit message: Racial minorities can advance in the GOP by erasing their ethnic identity and/or attacking other minorities.

    On the other hand, black rightists tend to attack other black people.

  205. 205.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 21, 2015 at 2:56 pm

    Not just South Asians, Irish had the same attitudes. And Irish attitudes in Boston towards Blacks reminded me of sibling rivalry. “Not fair! I wanted that!” “Wait, you said I could have this job!”

  206. 206.

    Chris

    February 21, 2015 at 3:12 pm

    @Plantsmantx:

    Thus confirming, if any confirmation was needed, that black people are still at the bottom of the American pecking order.

    Even then, though, “punching other groups” was still a thing. Herman Cain got plenty of mileage out of cracking jokes about frying Mexican immigrants at the border and not letting Muslim doctors work on him, and suggesting extra loyalty oaths for Muslim government employees. For Allen West, of course, his big claim to fame is “I tortured a hajji!”

    Don’t know whether they got more mileage out of that than they did out of being Republicans’ Black Friends, though.

  207. 207.

    jl

    February 21, 2015 at 4:14 pm

    @sm*t cl*de: Hamilton was a Washingtonian, in La Grange, you say? I don’t know about funny stuff that went on in barns back then.

  208. 208.

    Plantsmantx

    February 21, 2015 at 6:39 pm

    @Chris:

    I have no doubt that they get the most mileage out of being Republicans’ Black Friends.

  209. 209.

    Wally Ballou

    February 22, 2015 at 12:32 am

    @Lurking Canadian: Read “Calais” as “Cialis”, and conjured up a picture of dusky-hued couples in claw-footed bathtubs.

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