Under the pseudo-scientific early 20th C understanding of 'race', where everyone has to be Caucasian, Asian, African (and I can't remember if Native Americans got their own race or counted as Asian), subcontinental Indians count as Caucasian. That'd probably get dragged out as an 'everyone educated knows that' kind of thing.

I think we're getting past the definitions based on readings from a light meter. It's positions on affirmative action, lawnorder, illegal vs undocumented aliens, and such that determine "race" and the reactions to it.

I agree that he would probably end up more or less considered white, but that also has a lot to do with him being Christian. A guy of Indian heritage who a Hindu or a (gasp!) Muslim would still be scary brown.

^was

People from the sub-continent get special attention on the whole racial category thing in yer pseudo-scientific racism game. Sometimes some Indians are Aryan Indo-Europeans (Sanskrit is a marker) and others are Negroid Dravidians*. Sometimes the Aryans have been so corrupted by the Dravidians that they don't count as Indo-European any more (which common Orientalist theme is this?).

Depending on exactly who is doing the pseudo-science you get even more fun with stuff like the martial races (Gurkhas, Sikhs) vs. weasly Bengalis and the like.

Good Indian culture is Indo-European, but bad Indian culture is corrupted Dravidianism.

* Caste comes into this; the dalits are generally seen as Dravidians.

It is all very mucky, and the worst present day part is the Hindu nutters who take it all seriously.

What? Being dalit doesn't have to do with being Dravidian.

Fuck, no. Sorry, dalit is seen as being related to being aboriginal.

Shit., yeah. no.

(Don't try and have two thoughts in your head at once folks!)

Had Yglesias been there, it sounds like he would have agreed with my hypothesis: that by the end of the race people of South Asian descent Republican affiliation like [Jindal] would be considered to be "white".

Fixed that for you.

I'm semi-serious here. Look at Steele -- the harder he tries to be black, the more painfully honky he seems.

(And if anyone has any better knowledge, all my stuff comes from books on the Vedas which aren't exactly unbiased sources. Sort of similar to getting most of your knowledge about the Ancient Near East from Biblical exegetes.)

I once built a tree for American racial-ethnic categories.

1. Black-not black, the master distinction
2. White-not white: excludes Native Americans, most Hispanics, and East Asians. South Asians and Middle Easterners didn't fit into my tree; they've only shown up much in the last 30 years.
3. Christians-not Christian: excludes Jews (and maybe Muslims and Hindus, who are still being negotiated on)
4. Protestant-not Protestant: excludes Catholics and Orthodox.
5?. Dark- not dark. Do Irish and Polish Catholics have an advantage over Italian, french-Canadian, and Arab Catholics? Not sure.
6. British- not British: excludes Dutch, Germans, adn Scandinavians.
7. WASPS.

This misses the south-north division.

In general I think that the dividing line is now between 2 and 3. In my youth, it might have been between 5 and 6, and certainly was in 1910. It's been a long time since the Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians were discriminated against, and only locally and until they learned English well.

The one-drop rule only applies to black, and prejudice against East Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans varies geograhpically a lot.

3: But no one has accused Jindal of being a "secret Hindu" the way they have accused Obama of being a secret Muslim.

The one true, eternal false dichotomy is Us versus Them. Color is just a transitory instantiation. That's why the ultimate question is always "What's this we shit, man?"

John, you should probably combine your 5 and 6, since the Irish tend to be pale.

The one true, eternal false dichotomy is Us versus Them. Color is just a transitory instantiation. That's why the ultimate question is always "What's this we shit, man?" What you mean 'we' kemosabe?"

Good Indian culture is Indo-European, but bad Indian culture is corrupted Dravidianism.

I'm not sure whose perspective you're talking about, Keir. For example, the Tamil language is a Dravidian language not closely related to Sanskrit, and it's considered one of the most culturally important in India, with a rich and ancient literary and scholarly history.

I'm not sure whose perspective you're talking about

British and German racists with a knowledge of their 19th century pseudoscience.

And with that last burst of commenting, I'm going to make dinner.

14: Thank you. The problem with being old enough to have read that when it came out in Mad is that I'm too old to remember it corrctly.

British and German racists with a knowledge of their 19th century pseudoscience.

Yeah -- it is all nonsense when you actually stop and think about it, especially the languages as proxy for race stuff.

Somebody just told me that Karen O was half Korean earlier this week. She doesn't look super asian.

Uh, yeah, Keir--no offense, but that generalization is over the top even for the usual generalizations desi-ana has to deal with. This Weasly Bengali thinks it might be better to focus on the actual dynamics of desi-America.

Ta-Nehisi Coates thinking of Karen O as just white is a lot different from Karen O thinking of herself--or people like her--as just white. In my aquaintance even the hapas who can easily pass as classic European will never call themselves white and will even deliberately refer to themselves as nonwhite. Yglesias's generalizing from his Hispanic/Jewish experience to other non-Wasp groups ignores too many other factors.

It doesn't take a lot of digging to find that while plenty of desis appreciate both Jindal's brownness and his values (there are many desi conservatives, after all, ), plenty--plenty *more* I'd wage--do not appreciate Jindal's conservatism, his values or (less fairly) his conversion or nickname. And the latter group is highly unlikely to see itself as "white" anytime soon. If they seem him as white, it will probably be a liability, not an asset.

Plus Obama really has deep and multilayered loyalty in the South Asian community. His affection for Hanuman, his first memoir (where he specifically bristled against his Kenyan sister's stereotypes about desis, and specifically took comfort in desi company), his many desi appointments, and his father's story are big plusses with all sorts of South Asians; his main minus with the Pakistani community (being at least rhetorically willing to tackle Pakistan's disorder) is a major plus with the Indian community (and possibly now Sri Lankan); Jindal is unlikely to to offer a clear alternative for the Pakistani community anyway. Plus he's a hella skinny dude.

ogged (pbuh) considered himself "not white," while my honey considers himself basically "white," although they are both Iranians. ogged is darker-skinned than my honey, partly because of the swimming; my honey is fairly damned WASPy in many ways. I do wonder whether my honey's considering himself basically "white" hasn't had real material benefits: on his behalf I worried much more than he did about discrimination and crap like airport security. Perhaps another distinction is milieu: how many black people live in ogged's neighborhood?

"well, kiss my ass/I've bought a boat/I'm going out to sea."

As for Keir's distinctions, I'm really not certain that they mean much in the US. It might be different in England, given the long relationship with Indian culture, but in the US, the caste system doesn't seem very important (to non-Indians, obviously). It probably factors into educational levels and employment for the first generation, maybe even the second, but Americans by and large aren't going to give two shits about some foreign hierarchy.

But no one has accused Jindal of being a "secret Hindu" the way they have accused Obama of being a secret Muslim.

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here, rob. Does this somehow attenuate my claim?

Uh, yeah, Keir--no offense, but that generalization is over the top even for the usual generalizations desi-ana has to deal with. This Weasly Bengali thinks it might be better to focus on the actual dynamics of desi-America.

Of course it is fucking over the top; it is offensive bullshit; it is all wrong. However, it is a rough indication of a certain racist way people used to think, and a certain way of thinking which still strongly influences scholarship on Indian religion, although generally nowadays in reaction, as far as I can tell.

(It isn't even supposed to have any particular connection to America; it is mainly stereotypes based on the British imperialist assumptions about the people they ruled which was heavily self-serving and duplicitous.)

But, you know, you're right, I don't pretend they've any applicability to your situation, or the situation of Jindal. The point was rather that `people from the subcontinent are Caucasian' is not in fact a general assumption of pseudo-scientific racism.

And that was far too bitchy; I misworded my original statement, and I should have been far more careful in both my claims and my presentation. I'm sorry.

12: The one true, eternal false dichotomy is Us versus Them. Color is just a transitory instantiation. That's why the ultimate question is always "What's this we shit, man?"

Identity politics is impolitic in this day and age. I expect, with respect to Jindal, that people don't have a ready "them" to identify Indians with, while they obviously do with respect to Obama. So sure, Jindal's Christianity and Republicanism make him more plausibly one of "us".

As far as identifying as white goes, it's a trend one sees more and more of. It's actually a sad development, insofar as it suggests that the only categories to remain will be "white" and "non-white."

Blume: You attributed the perception that Jindal is White to his Christianity. I was just noting that this didn't help Obama.

We are probably all talking past each other tonight. I'm sure people misunderstood Kier.

I'm listening to the first album by fIREHOSE, does anyone remember that? Turns out it still rules.

Ah, I didn't mean it that strongly. Not that people would perceive him as white because he's Christian, but that he certainly couldn't be perceived so were he Hindu or Muslim.

how many black people live in ogged's neighborhood?

Maybe one or two.

Jindal has performed a freaking Catholic exorcism, whereas Obama went to a scary Black Nationalist church* - these are not equivalent things. No one has ever accused Clarence Thomas of secret Islamism or being white. If Jindal were Hindu, I can't imagine him being acceptable to the current Republican party as a national candidate.

* Obviously I'm talking about perception

ogged (pbuh) considered himself "not white,"

Iranians, the opt-in honkies.

||

I was kind of disgusted by what I was reading about this new Seth Rogan movie, but then I saw the r-rated trailer at Jezebel, and I'm kind of freaking out. It's not just the date rape* - it's the Tasering-as-a-gag, the absolute depravity of it.

WTF is wrong with this country?

* which, to be clear, is more than awful enough

|>

We are probably all talking past each other tonight. I'm sure people misunderstood Kier.

Eh -- I probably (certainly) was offensive, and I probably should have shut up sooner; and if in fact my point was correct but my phrasing was wrong, that isn't much better.

I certainly should have made it quite clear that my statements related to turn of the century racism, not modern migrant Indian communities and the popular perceptions of them. (I really doubt Joe the Real American gives a damn if Jindal's family spoke an Indo-European or a Dravidian language back in the day; unfortunately, British colonialists would have.)

(Given that my racist flatmates called a African guy `Punjabi or Pakistani looking', I should be very surprised if yer average racist knew the difference between Indo-European and Dravidian.)

I'm technically white.

As is Yglesias.

||

On a separate WTF? note (note the cig and the Steelers blanket; so fucking Pittsburgh).

|>

Also, I'm not sure why Yglesias assumed Sanchez was Cuban just because he was a white-looking guy with a Spanish name.

Technically?

Is there a swatch somewhere against which you compare yourself?

(Given that my racist flatmates called a African guy `Punjabi or Pakistani looking', I should be very surprised if yer average racist knew the difference between Indo-European and Dravidian.)

No, but the ghosts of older racisms live on in modern ones. I think it is good to know the history of racism.

I'm now listening to The Dukes of the Stratosphear, which has also held up well.

Iranians, the opt-in honkies

I wouldn't be at all surprised if attitudes towards that tracked with identification with the ancien régime; the first Pahlavi Shah invested quite a bit in the whole Iran=Aryan nonsense.

Jindal has performed a freaking Catholic exorcism

He has? I didn't know he was a priest.

Learn yer stereotypes, JRoth.

33: From David Edelstein's review on "Fresh Air" this morning, it almost sounds like the film's trying to make the same point as you are; Edelstein compared Rogen's character to Travis Bickle.

After listening to his review, though, I have no idea if he liked the movie or not.

Obligatory link to the official categories.

44: Except that Taxi Driver wasn't billed as a comedy.

In practice, of course, I'm extremely white.

I didn't actually mean all that emphasis.

46: Bu6 every tragedy gets to repeat itself as comedy.

I got the impression from Edelstein's review that the movie was *trying* to test your ability to sympathize with the hero.

I recently read Robin Wood's essay on incoherent narratives, which covers Taxi Driver. He attributes the ambiguity of the story to a straightforward conflict of authors. Scorsese, the director, was a liberal who thought of Travis as a villain; Paul Schrader, the writer, meant to tell a story where Travis was the hero.

46: Right. Edelstein was saying "this is basically Taxi Driver if it were done as a comedy, and the only reason it's funny is because the actors are all hysterical". His read was that it's basically a test to see just how repulsive a main character in a movie can be before the audience stops rooting for them.

42: He isn't. He probably just exercised the spirit.

William Paul Quinn (1788-1873) was the fourth bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Quinn was born in Calcutta, India.

The source for that wikipedia article says Quinn was born in Honduras. Guess it's a mystery.

The new Seth Rogen movie is made by the same guy who does Eastbound and Down which was pretty consistently hilarious and, sometimes, genius-like in walking the line between funny and horrific. (the scenes where he listens to the book-on-tape of his own autobiography "You're Fucking Out, and I'm Fucking In" are particularly awesome) Plus, Rogen is a good comic actor and Anna Farris is a great comic actress. I'm willing to spot this movie a bunch of goodwill going in, although of course it could be awful; I certainly think the filmakers are likely to be smarter than the goddamn Jezebel writers.

54, 55:

According to an affadavit issued in 1851, his mother was Egyptian and his father a Spaniard engaged in the mahogany business. This document would have been essential to him in the days before the Civil War to prove that he was not a runaway slave.

What about Quaque?

It would have been nice if the source in question cited any of its own sources.

His read was that it's basically a test to see just how repulsive a main character in a movie can be before the audience stops rooting for them.

The critic from Time is rooting for him all the way.

The Supreme Court disagreed with the anthropologist as to the whiteness of Caucasians.

I can definitively answer this question. I had a sweet little old aunt who was a completely reliable bellweather for the average public opinion (she watched a lot of TV). I once dated an Indian woman, which was dispreferred, but did not get me disowned. It was communicated to me that the two unforgivable sins would have been: dating a black woman, or dating a man.

46, 51: Haven't seen the movie (obvs.), but I've seen the TD comparisons, and don't buy it. The R-rated trailer is simply vile, and I'm just not interested in these too-clever-by-half justifications for misanthropic and misogynistic "comedy."

61: whoa. I was only mildly bothered by the trailer, but that review is shocking, and disgusting.

I certainly think the filmakers are likely to be smarter than the goddamn Jezebel writers.

Jezebel was just the source of the trailer; my impression of the movie was coming from various reviews + majikthise.

Also not putting a lot of stock into comic actor==moral paragon.

Well, it's a little silly to have the discussion without having seen the movie. As I say, it could be awful. I think it's unlikely to be playing a date-rape scene for simple haw-haw laughs. If that's what's going on, obviously, that's both horrible and stupid.

In the abstract, is it possible to include an ambiguous drunken sex/date rape scene out in an aesthetically responsible way as part of a comedy, particularly a black one? Maybe; it really depends a lot on how careful and coherent the film is, what the structure is like, and how smart the filmakers are, how the actors play it, etc. Black comedy can get both laughs and aesthetic mileage out of horrible situations. So, based on past work, I'm willing to spot these particular folks the small benefit of at least a non-premature condemnation. That said, the review in Time reveals a pretty gross side of the reviewer, and I guess it's far more likely than not that a mainstream Hollywood movie is sexist and not any good at all.

Really, though, I'm just shilling for Eastbound and Down which I have seen, and which is great.

I know that trailers can be made such that they grossly represent the movie, so maybe it is a really black comedy. But the trailer doesn't play that way to me. Definitely not interested enough (/already a little too repulsed) to go see the movie to find out.

In the abstract, is it possible to include an ambiguous drunken sex/date rape scene out in an aesthetically responsible way as part of a comedy, particularly a black one? Maybe

I'll agree to this. It's an experience that's happened to enough of us, and it isn't always necessarily high tragedy.

What I really hated in that Time review was the snobbery. "Trailer-park America"? Jesus Christ, dude.

Actually, thinking about it, pushing the Judd Apatow "man-boy" archetype to the point where the immaturity becomes actively and obviously repulsive would be a pretty cool thing to do, in the right movie. Maybe that's what this movie does. Or, maybe it totally sucks. Who knows?

I finally read Yglesias' post (is anyone else having problems getting thinkprogress to load?). This struck me as a bit odd, given the whole white/non-white Hispanic designation:

Which is to say not "white" at all, but "Hispanic."

On the other hand, most people probably do frequently think of "Hispanic" as non-white, census notwithstanding.

72: On the other hand, most people probably do frequently think of "Hispanic" as non-white, census notwithstanding.
Doesn't this depend mostly on region? In Texas and the Southwest there are a lot of people with Hispanic surnames and ancestry who are light-skinned, monolingual-in-English and (to all appearances) totally integrated into local power structures. Here in the Upper Midwest, that's totally not the case.
I wouldn't be totally surprised if similar geographically-marked distinctions arose over the next couple of decades with regard to South Asian people in various parts of the US.

I, for one, definitely think of "Hispanic" as non-white, census notwithstanding.

Also notwithstanding 73, which is totally true at least regarding the Southwest.

Also, after looking at just one picture of Karen O, I thought "she looks obviously like she has East Asian ancestry." Chalk one up for takes one to know one racial profiling, I guess.

When I worked in a service job, with my darker skin and hair, I was often addressed in Spanish and treated as "Hispanic," by both whites and Hispanics. Based on the way (white) people treated me, I'm going to say that the majority of people definitely think of Hispanic as non-white, and not in a good way. Then again, it was layered in with class as well, because of the job. In my current life, no one thinks I'm anything but generic "white."

It is hard to identify Karen O's ethnicity because it is all too obscured by Kick Ass

No, wait, this is the right link.

Based on the way (white) people treated me, I'm going to say that the majority of people definitely think of Hispanic as non-white, and not in a good way. Then again, it was layered in with class as well, because of the job.

I think the "class" and "job" factors were what made people think of you as lower than them.

Also, I'm not sure why Yglesias assumed Sanchez was Cuban just because he was a white-looking guy with a Spanish name.

A white right-wing guy with a Spanish name.

80: Asking me if I speak English or speaking at me loudly and slowly as though they automatically expect me to not speak English is perhaps a complicating factor, though. And there was a difference between the way I (and other, legitimately Hispanic workers) got treated and the more obviously white people. The job might perhaps matter most, but in California I'm pretty sure that there's a distinct overlap between our expectation of what being Hispanic means and the service sector, and I don't think it's all about class.

81: That goes a long way toward explaining it; thanks. I'd never heard of Sanchez before so I didn't know he was a right-winger.

Also, I'm not sure why Yglesias assumed Sanchez was Cuban just because he was a white-looking guy with a Spanish name.

I'd wondered that too until I'd read 81.

Also, this may not be an issue in the U.S., but I'd always understood that in many South American countries there were fine distinctions between relatively whiter (pure Spanish) people, more mixed people and the original inhabitants/"Indians" of the region.

(I'm v. becks style, so ---!)

but 84 is pretty correct; see Evo Moreales.

morales, sorry.

10:
Yeah, when I was younger I would claim to be proud of having only Scandinavian blood; way better than the other kids, who probably had some German or Irish in 'em. I also emphasized my Swedish-ness and downplayed my Norwegian-ness.

---

Darn, 'Observe and Report' sounds great and, perhaps, just like what I wanted to write when my roommate and I were thinking about writing a tv show. Your basic 'terrible people doing terrible things to each other', but with a cast that you can't help but like -- tension! An extension, I suppose, of Haneke or Solondz, but without any attempt to edify (inside or outside the text). Plumbing the depths of human depravity just to make the audience feel absolutely awful. Then there'd be no debate or confusion (or so I'd hope). "Are we supposed to laugh?" "No, what are you, a monster!? Just because it's Rogen (or whomever) doesn't mean you're supposed to enjoy it."

We didn't end up writing anything, I think our visions for the project were too different. His band writes pop songs along the lines of "fuck you, audience!" and I come up with black metal/noise songs about birds and making out. Diff'rent strokes.

I come up with black metal/noise songs about birds and making out.

Just to be clear, we're not talking about the sort of blissed-out shoegaze drone with a tinge of buzzsaw and feedback (such as my as-yet-nameless group with rfts will traffick in (sample lyrics "life has a certain special savor / when one is metal on fire")), but actual "virulent" (as aquarius records never fails to call it) blackened black metal, all Cajun style? Because that's awesome.

88:

I like "abyssal", but yeah, definitely the latter. (Not that I don't enjoy tunes of the former stripe, I'm just not talented enough to write/play more complex stuff. Maybe some day.)

Having Scandinavian blood is definitely a plus for a black metal artist, as long as you've avoided becoming a Christian.b