Posted on 06/25/2015 9:35:07 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
On the same day that Bobby Jindal announced he's running for president, The Washington Post published an article implicitly questioning why the Louisiana governor indentifies more as an American than an Indian American.
Jindal's parents were born and raised in India before immigrating to the United States.
"Yet many see him as a man who has spent a lifetime distancing himself from his Indian roots," Annie Gowen and Tyler Bridges reported from Khanpur, India.
The article was reminiscent of Mark Halperin's interview of presidential candidate Ted Cruz in May. Halperin, of Bloomberg Politics, asked Cruz a series of questions seeking to determine whether Cruz was authentically Cuban, such as his favorite Cuban food and favorite Cuban music. He also asked Cruz to speak in Spanish.
Halperin was widely criticized by both liberals and conservatives. The liberal website Think Progress gave Halperin "The Prize For The Most Racist Interview Of A 2016 Candidate." Halperin apologized.
Jindal has an impressive resume. He was a Rhodes scholar, became president of the University of Louisiana system when he was only 28-years-old, served in Congress and chaired the Republican Governors Association.
While there's little mention of those credentials, the Post's article declares that "Jindal's status as a conservative of color helped propel his meteoric rise in the Republican Party. ..."
The article also reveals that Jindal grew up eating Louisiana food, converted from Hinduism to Christianity, wears cowboy boots, enjoys hunting, and considers himself American, rather than Indian American.
"There's not much Indian left in Bobby Jindal," a University of Louisiana political scientist is quoted saying.
The liberal press has generated many storylines that present the Republican Party as appealing to mostly old, white males. When Republicans fail to live up to those expectations, it struggles with how to report the story.
The June cover of The New Yorker magazine had a cartoon of seven of the Republican current or potential presidential candidates. It showed them in a locker room getting dressed. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is looking in through a window.
The message of the cartoon was clear: the Republican Party is the "old boys club" and Clinton is the outsider. The cover did not include Jindal, the Republican black candidate, Dr. Ben Carson, or the Republican female candidate, Carly Fiorina, because those candidates did not fit the storyline the magazine wanted to tell.
In an article for The Federalist, Ben Domenech noted a liberal double-standard: if Bruce Jenner is praised by the Left for identifying as a woman even when he is not, why does the Left think it strange for Jindal to identify as an American when he is actually an American?
"We live in an era where we are supposed to hail the heroism of men who identify as women, and where serious people defend Rachel Dolezal identifying as black. Perhaps Bobby Jindal is problematic because identifying as things is good, unless what you identify as is an American," he wrote.
I said this to one of my girlfriends this morning that I expected the enemedia to dismiss Jindal as “inauthentic” as a way to attack him and here they are doing just that.
I really hate these people.
My Dream 2016 matchup:
Jindal vs. Warren
Indian American vs. American Indian
And, no questions about Zer0’s authenticity?
He can choose his heritage - it’s a choice, right? He can be transracial if he likes just like Dolezal.
They had this attack all pre-packaged and ready to go,just waiting for Jindal to announce.
Of course not! Because he’s one of theirs.
In other words, he did as immigrants (until recently) have done and were expected to do for centuries: assimilate into American society and culture. That doesn't square well with promoters of "multiculturalism" who want ethnic minorities to aggressively maintain their foreign identities and act like a special interest lobby and avatars of the "diversity" cult.
I'm not all that impressed with Jindal as a Presidential candidate (do we really need yet another candidate in the GOP primaries to dilute the non-Jeb pool?), but liberals who obsess with him being insufficiently Indian (or, more generally, insufficient as an avatar of "diversity") are really grasping at ridiculous straws to discredit him.
Oh, NO! (/sarc)
Ironically, Obama didn't get very far in Chicago politics because he was often perceived as inauthentically black by other blacks on account of his mixed-race heritage, his way of speaking, and his Ivy League background. It was only when he started selling himself to liberal whites as the perfect answer to their "guilt" that his political career really started to take off.
Nothing Else.
Not Truth, Lies, Facts, or Feelings.
They want to be the ones of the top and will crush anyone getting it the way of their Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
And remember, these attacks by the Washington compost can’t be considered as ‘racist.’ (semi-sarcasm)
how do they feel about lizzie warren’s ‘heritage’?
Actually this is typical of Liberals. In their view you can’t be authentically American unlesss you’re white. So who’s the real racist? Everybody else is hyphenated and therefore second class at best.
Did they dig into liz warren’s background? 0’s?
They only do this to Republicans and other normal people.
Bobby should show up at the first debate with a feather stuck in a headband, a tomahawk and a scalp dangling from his belt, and a big grin on his face ...
... and then tear into the left on the assimilation vs. tribalism issue, ending with a proud to be an American piece.
What a waste of worry...also a waste of Jindal’s time.
I think it was Polly Pritzer that had him change from his all black district to the upper east side rich white district that saved his career in the Illinois State Senate. She is now sec of labor.
If Bruce can identify as a woman named Caitlyn, why can’t Bobby idenitfy as American?
That could be either of my parents.
Still not my first choice for president, but this goes in the plus column.
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