All Her Life, Nikki Haley Was the Different One

New York Times ^ | June 13, 2010 | SHAILA DEWAN and ROBBIE BROWN

[Still Thinking]

The story about the beauty pageant is a little amusing. It does not surprise me that she has been a contestant. She is lovely.

I don't get why they would disqualify her, though. If they thought that Indian-looking girls wouldn't be appealing enough to win then they didn't need to do anything, and if they thought they WERE, what the heck were they doing disqualifying them? They're just inviting (justified) accusations of racism for no return.

[Still Thinking]

She looks like a hard-edged, thin-lipped white woman with a tan. Not to my taste at all but to each his own.

I loaded the thread and happened to see the picture at #6 before reading the article or knowing she was Indian. My first thought when I looked at the picture was "She looks Indian". I looked at the Wiki picture and, like you, didn't have the same reaction. Not really my cup of tea either, but my point is that in certain photos she does come across as recognizably Indian.

[Scanian]

The trick with photographing a woman like that is to give it a soft focus.

I think I’ll try to maintain some semblance of chivalry here and just drop the subject!

[Scanian]

That’s right...the person who asked the question used the word “Caucasian” so I just followed along with it.

I realized the inconsistency after posting but I didn’t think anyone would notice. I should have known better — FReepers never miss a trick!

[Scanian]

Also, back then some “experts” would characterize Australoids and Dravidians as “old white” groups withing the Caucasoid family.

[MontaniSemperLiberi]

Some are, some aren’t. Central asia is a mixed bag. I believe her parents are Punjabi which are. Khosla, one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems, is also Punjabi, I think.

[MontaniSemperLiberi]

“I hold with the original dfn.”

Me too. Some in the thread have talked about the current effort at genetic testing. It will be interesting to see where all these tribes originated from, who they are related to, how much interracial births there were, etc. etc.

The history of central asia will be re-written in the next twenty years.