Whiteness Is Still a Proxy for Being American

by confuzzled dude Mon Jul 28, 2014 4:58 pm

Anyone can make a fool of himself. So it’s tempting to dismiss last Thursday’s mega-gaffe by Florida Representative Curt Clawson as indicative of nothing more than the fallibility of the human brain.

But think about the nature of Clawson’s goof. Sitting across a congressional hearing room from Nisha Biswal, an official at the State Department, and Arun Kumar, who works at the Department of Commerce, Clawson addressed the two Indian-Americans as if they were representatives of the government of India. Which is to say: He had trouble recognizing that two Americans who trace their ancestry to the developing world are really American.

In today’s Republican Party, and beyond, a lot of people are having the same trouble. How else to explain the fact that, according to a 2011 New York Times/CBS poll, 45 percent of Republicans think President Obama was born outside the United States? Is it because they’re well versed in the details of which kind of birth certificate he released and when? Of course not. It’s because they see someone with his color skin and his kind of name and think: Doesn’t seem American to me.

It’s not just Obama. In various ways in recent years, conservatives have questioned the Americanness of American Muslims. Michele Bachmann suggested that Huma Abedin and other Muslim-Americans serving in the national-security bureaucracy might be more loyal to foreign Islamist movements than to the United States. Another former Republican presidential candidate, Herman Cain, in 2011 said he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet because “Muslims in this country, some of them, try to force their Sharia law onto the rest of us.” A Public Religion Research Institute poll that same year found that 63 percent of Republicans believed Islam contradicts American values.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/a-florida-representatives-indian-american-gaffe-is-revealing/375121/

by confuzzled dude Mon Jul 28, 2014 5:02 pm

Clawson: I am familiar with your country. I love your country. And I am hopeful with the new change in regime that the future and the land of promise and the land of opportunity of India can finally become so….

So, I’m enthusiastic about working with you all and anything I can do to make the relationship with India better….

So, just as your capital is welcome here to produce good-paying jobs in the U.S., I’d like our capital to be welcome there and there to be free enough capital so that both sides are on the same territory. And I ask cooperation and commitment and priority from your government in so doing. Can I have that?

Biswal: I think your question is to the Indian government and we certainly share your sentiments, and we certainly will advocate that on behalf of the U.S. government.

Clawson: Of course. And I’m asking your opinion of how they view….

Biswal: Like I said, I think we have heard a lot of positive signals, a lot of positive intentions. And we will be engaging both through the state department, through the commerce department, through our USTR, through our treasury department to make sure that we are engaging on those issues and looking for the concrete steps forward.

Clawson: Okay, let’s see some progress.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/07/28/curt-clawsons-cringe-worthy-case-of-mistaken-identity/?hpid=z5

by MaxEntropy_Man Mon Jul 28, 2014 5:07 pm

LOL! can't wait for jon stewart's take on this.

by nevada Mon Jul 28, 2014 5:11 pm

confuzzled dude wrote:Clawson: I am familiar with your country. I love your country. And I am hopeful with the new change in regime that the future and the land of promise and the land of opportunity of India can finally become so….

So, I’m enthusiastic about working with you all and anything I can do to make the relationship with India better….

So, just as your capital is welcome here to produce good-paying jobs in the U.S., I’d like our capital to be welcome there and there to be free enough capital so that both sides are on the same territory. And I ask cooperation and commitment and priority from your government in so doing. Can I have that?

Biswal: I think your question is to the Indian government and we certainly share your sentiments, and we certainly will advocate that on behalf of the U.S. government.

Clawson: Of course. And I’m asking your opinion of how they view….

Biswal: Like I said, I think we have heard a lot of positive signals, a lot of positive intentions. And we will be engaging both through the state department, through the commerce department, through our USTR, through our treasury department to make sure that we are engaging on those issues and looking for the concrete steps forward.

Clawson: Okay, let’s see some progress.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/07/28/curt-clawsons-cringe-worthy-case-of-mistaken-identity/?hpid=z5

Just read about the Biswas faux pas in this article on TheHindu

hindu.com/news/national/desi-diplomats-dont-have-it-easy/article6258867.ece?homepage=true

by Propagandhi711 Tue Jul 29, 2014 11:11 am

if you think this congressman is an idiot, google louie gohmert texas. he's the dumbest ever

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Whiteness Is Still a Proxy for Being American

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Re: Whiteness Is Still a Proxy for Being American