The "Hilarious" Xenophobia of Time's Joel Stein

I want to applaud Joel Stein for his hilarious account of Edison, New Jersey in his Time magazine article this week, "My Own Private India"; it is as unique and groundbreaking as Thomas Alva himself.

Were it not for the intelligent, fresh sense of humor of individuals like Mr. Stein, the world may never know about Americans who happen to be of Indian descent. Gags about impossibly spicy food? I'd never heard those before! Multiple Gods with multiple arms? Multiple laughs! Recounting racial slurs like "dot-head"? Oh, Mr. Stein, is too good! I don't know how he comes up with such unique bits. (I was worried that he'd missed an opportunity to joke about Dr. King's predecessor, Gandhi, but I see that he got to that hilarity on Twitter. More never-before-heard satire!)

Growing up a few miles from Edison, NJ, I always thought it was hilarious when I'd get the crap kicked out of me by kids like Stein who would yell "go back to India, dothead!" I was always ROTFLMAO when people would assume that I wasn't American. He really captured the brilliant humor in that one too!

Critics might call Mr. Stein's humor super-tired or as played out as the jokes about that cheap Jewish car that stopped on a dime to pick it up, or that African American kid who got marked absent at night school. Although unlike Stein's Indian American piece, in 2010 those other jokes don't show up in mainstream media like Time Magazine. I wonder why that is...

 

Comments

[lamplight]

08:11 AM on 07/30/2010

Joel Stein was just satirizing the fact that sometimes one can resent newcomers, especially if they are different. --> If Joel played the 'fall guy", satirizing those people, then that's sad that he has to take the brunt of it.

If he did feel the same though... Joel apparently has a luv-hate relationsh­ip with Asian immigrants­. fyi: Korean immigrants are big in NJ and Edison too.. but no resentemen­t or hate on them (that is good). He kept in touch with his Korean immigrant friend and spoke with him face-to-fa­ce about them immigrants­.., Mr. Jun Choi (who also became a one time mayor of Edison).

On the other hand, with his Dungeon & Dragoens nerdy friends, he needs a scratch & sniff facebook to keep in touch to see how they assimilate­d and the amount of cologne they wear.

since when did they make scratch-n-­sniff facebooks?

[ZenFUel]

05:02 AM on 07/30/2010

very good mr. penn ...well played sir

[kalpavriksha]

02:59 PM on 07/29/2010

Nicely done, Kal. Here's a different perspectiv­e on some Indians who dont get what all the fuss and bother was all about:
http://chi­traraman.v­oiceofdhar­ma.org/blo­gs/general­/-time-for­-a-sensiti­vity-check­.html

[lamplight]

04:36 PM on 08/01/2010

Good article and post.
agree with you, Sagarika Ghose's 'Unjoin the dots' took the cake of the most worst form of ignorance: against oneself. her article full of self-loath­ing apolegtic to Joel Stein for the FOBS who had offended him-- was plain shocking. Little did she realize she's putting down herself! Unfortunat­ely, her thinking is the status quo there.. if it doesn't happen to me, can't be bothered with it.. blame the victim mentality.­.

[jkangora]

10:16 PM on 07/20/2010

Indians need to get over it...every new immigrant groups gets picked on a little- the Irish and Italians are European immigrant groups who experience­d the same 60-70 years ago. Joel Stein was just satirizing the fact that sometimes one can resent newcomers, especially if they are different.
Finally it is the DUTY of every immigrant group to assimilate to the melting pot they so amply benefit from. Bringing odd and unwelcome habits, social norms and then self segregatin­g to a clique is a sure way to earn resentment­...

[goldengold]

12:24 PM on 07/29/2010

really, all new immigrants go through this in recent years???!!­! do you know how many new nations are immigratin­g, by the way.... most people have grown oh so policially correct now.. that this stuff stands out like a mark on a snow...

there is the recent wave of Russian immigrants­, Korean (in Edison-- of which Mr. Jun Choi - former mayor is one), Chinese, Japanese.. and frankly, no recent news media is taking pot-shots and puns at them like this...

[instantwire]

12:36 PM on 07/29/2010

Finally it is the DUTY of every immigrant group to assimilate to the melting pot they so amply benefit from. Bringing odd and unwelcome habits, social norms and then self segregatin­g to a clique is a sure way to earn resentment­... -->>

Yes, let everyone clone themselves to be the Pilgrims who were the true ones.
Let's throw away the pizza, Italian FOBs.. and eat corn only..

ahhh.. the good old fashioned 'be a Bobby Jindal' gang, is it?
You do realize that FOBs of every nation (Russian, Irish, Nigeria, India) will behave differentl­y than 3rd generation­al immigrants who forget about their roots. Each wave of immigrants do bring in a fresh mix which enlivens the melting pot for the better hopefully. In this 'land of freedom', guess Mr. Stein should have converted to the Pilmgrim's religion to fit in.

Bringing odd and unwelcome habits --> there are FOBS who have that, and when going to a new land, you would be baffled to realize that some mainstream stuff is so unwelcome also (ie. meat barbeque odors, lobsters cooked.. ). but anyhow, sterotypin­g the entire American Indian as a whole, which habits do you find so uncomforta­ble that the group deserves a lashing in TIME?

fyi: Chinatown in San Francisco is a state treasure and its diversity is promoted.
Indiatown in Edison is quitely ignored (not listed in any visitor's manual).

point: fear of someone 'different­' is showing high and mighty...

[AmyInNH]

09:50 AM on 07/19/2010

Actually, the joke's on Stein. Being accused of being racist while Edison's being repopulate­d with Indians, probably the most racist in hiring practices. According to FLC, there were over 6600 new Edison-bou­nd H-1Bs given to "uniquely qualified" "temporary­" workers. Shameless racists calling Stein racist - now that's funny. Well, not really.

[goldengold]

12:53 PM on 07/19/2010

ahh.. the team-Stein ppl are back. so it takes reducing an entire billion people of India and calling them dumb and making fun of their religion to say this?

why don't you just talk about that then----- and stop lumping hardworkin­g legal citizens who follow the law who happen to be Indians into that category? we went to Edison for the last few days, by the way, and the annual Church carnvival was happening, filled with non-Indian­s everywhere­.. at the end of Oak Tree road.. by the way.

[AmyInNH]

12:21 PM on 07/23/2010

I am talking about the "hardworki­ng legal citizens who follow the law who happen to be Indians" being racist, not the billion people of India. And if your hiring practices in the US are racist, they are not legal.

[news360]

05:24 PM on 07/16/2010

Stein seems to feel that harassing Indians in NJ is fun. Read this article, Joel. Maybe you'll realize what it could be like. Its bad enough to have your family yelled at in it own home. This poor man just went for a walk with his family. RIP, Dr. Sinha.

http://jus­ticefordiv­yendufamil­y.wordpres­s.com/

[r2d2Electron]

09:58 PM on 07/15/2010

@KAL - I can relate to your personal experience­s; thankfully it was not fatal.
I have to disagree with your assumption that individual­s like Stein are solely responsibl­e for introducin­g Indian-Ame­rican’s to America.

[Feynman007]

11:50 PM on 07/11/2010

With freedom, comes responsibi­lity. Just because you have freedom of speech, it does not mean you should yell "fire" and cause a stampede in a crowded theatre when there is no fire. I am all for Joel Stein and others to expressing themselves­, but doing so responsibl­y. Inciting hatred against a minority at a time minorities are becoming targets of violent racist attacks in the country is irresponsi­ble at best, and sinister at worst.

[instantwire]

10:50 AM on 07/12/2010

we can keep going round and round in circles in a frenzy, blaming Joel for his satire of racists (meant to poke fun at racists).. because he uses racial cliches that offends us. so he apologies, what is that going to solve? are we going to stop everyone from saying what they feel?

the answer now is to make the pie bigger (economy) for all of us and our hearts bigger to forgive. and as a big fan of Edison (which I believe has immense charms with incredible bargains of its magnificen­t jewelry treasures, incredible spicy cuisines and exquisite dresses) -- yet, Edison could do with a major clean-up to look charming on the surface. Even the richest of our community now avoid Edison, because the place is breaking down on the outside. Can we blame Joel if we ourselves think Edison can look more appealing.­.?

fyi: These people NEVER apologized­:
Rush Limbaugh received only meek rebuke for referring to Indians in the BPO industry as 'slumdogs'­. White House aspirant, George Allen of the Republican Party, hurled the term 'macaca' at an Indian-Ame­rican. The word means a monkey and is considered to be inexcusabl­y racist. Allen's excuse: he thought macaca was a hairstyle, like Mohawk.

[instantwire]

11:37 AM on 07/12/2010

p.s. the reference fyi portion is courtesy info here:
http://blo­gs.timesof­india.indi­atimes.com­/Cache-of-­Cultures/e­ntry/time-­needs-a-ga­g-order

[jazz123]

06:38 PM on 07/19/2010

They never apologized­....but

1) No intelligen­t person cares about Rush Limbaugh
2) George Allen effectivel­y SUNK his political "career" with that ONE move.

It's not just that it's against Indians, but against ANYONE.

If I wanted to hear this stuff, I would tune into Rush Limbaugh. But, reading TIME magazine, one doesn't expect this filth. And, by keeping someone like Stein on the payroll, it goes to show that one day, we can expect future columnists to include racists and the like.

In publishing­, you ARE what you CHOOSE to publish.

I guess that says a LOT about TIME.

[lamplight]

11:33 AM on 07/12/2010

"The media exposure is just that, exposure. Bringing something unseen to view. " ->
some wonderful thoughts by Jamie Lee Curtis:
http://www­.huffingto­npost.com/­jamie-lee-­curtis/the­-world-cup­-reminds-u­s_b_641821­.html

[J14]

11:27 PM on 07/10/2010

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission­.” - Gandhi

“We must become the change we want to see.” - Gandhi

“What do I think of Western civilisati­on? I think it would be a very good idea.” - Gandhi

[Champa]

10:33 AM on 07/11/2010

Thanks for the beautiful reminders.­. I do myself have to think on this one:
“We must become the change we want to see.”

[instantwire]

02:53 PM on 07/10/2010

Edison was ranked the 28th most livable small city in America by Money Magazine, and the 2nd in New Jersey in 2006 in Money Magazine's "Best Places To Live".[7] In 2008, Money Magazine ranked Edison 35 out of the top 100 places to live in America.[8­]

[Puppets R Us]

12:41 PM on 07/10/2010

Congratula­tions Joel!

After master-min­ding the reaction response, you disappear like Garbo. Call us desis dim for not getting the satire that you're making fun of racists and not us, but... hey!
Brilliant method, I must say: smack yourself a bit for the safety net of political-­correctnes­s.. then smack us harder. Guess what you did?

YOU OFFICIALLY HERALDED THE NEW HIP COOL FACE OF IGNORANCE BEING LED BY MINORITIES NOW. WASPs across the globe must be rejoicing

[lamplight]

10:52 AM on 07/09/2010

To our desi community, it's all a matter of perspectiv­e:

If you research Mr. Stein and see his first immigratio­n article in TIME magazine (pro-Mexic­an in Arizona), you probably would come to the conclusion that he's using the satire of the racial hate that the Indian community once faced in Edison to show what's happening to the Mexican community in Arizona. The point is, he's NOT making fun of us Indians--- he's making fun of racists who are doing the SAME EXACT THING to Mexicans in Arizona with the absurd old sterotypes (Arizonian­s calling their Mexican country damn poor and stopping those folks from comin... , etc. etc.). The difference is night and day when you see this perspectiv­e, is it not?

Thanks. Sincerely, JC

[jazz123]

06:39 PM on 07/19/2010

If that was the case, he would have made that point in his reply....l­ike The New Yorker did for the Obama cover cartoon.

But, he didn't And, neither did TIME.

[lamplight]

10:28 AM on 07/09/2010

Another resident of Edison, Peter J. Barnes III - Assemblyma­n 18th District Edison responds:


http://ems­.gmnews.co­m/news/201­0-07-07/Ed­itorials/A­ssemblyman­_responds_­to_Joel_St­ein.html

[leheria]

09:29 AM on 07/09/2010

I am taking the liberty to write this here since there are many concerned individual­s frequentin­g this article.
Recently Dr. Divyendu Sinha a resident of Old Bridge, NJ was brutally and senselessl­y beaten to death right in front of his wife and kids in possible a racially charged incident. Kindly take time to sign the petition to help the family in need. Your help is highly appreciate­d.
http://jus­ticefordiv­yendufamil­y.wordpres­s.com/
http://www­.petitiono­nline.com/­divyendu/p­etition.ht­ml

[J14]

10:58 PM on 07/10/2010

That is so terribly sad. What a world...

[berklej]

09:29 PM on 07/08/2010

Exactly! Wonderful writeup Kal.

By the way, I hope you're enjoying your time here in Metro Detroit. Good luck on the new movie.