They don’t represent Americans. They represent nutjobs.

I feel you, but there are about 30 million self-proclaimed evangelical Christians in America. And that's not counting all the non-evangelical __________s who also feel the same way about polytheistic, non-Christian religions, etc. They are a force to be reckoned with and they hold a lot of sway in politics, we can't ignore that.

But yeah, I wish they were just fringe crazies too.

Jaan Stewart is cute. Hook me up Manish :)

Insafi, Nina’s got good reason for it as her gorgeous, painstaking Sitayana work has been attacked by wingnuts.

yeah i was poking around her website and noticed that...she has some really nice work there.

but that's my point with any of these types of conversations - (a) don't let the extremists get you down and shut you up BUT (b) at the same time, respect what people who are within the "oppressed" group are saying and don't discount it b/c you have been attacked by those within the group. it's like, i'm not going to stop advocating for disability rights b/c a few quite extreme disabled rights activists told me that i was a fraud and didn't know what i'm talking about b/c i'm not disabled (my brother is). i will throw my support around various legislation, etc. that is pro-disabled rights, but on the other hand, i'm not going to discount the words of anyone who is actually disabled and i'll let them speak for themselves b/c they're actually living it.

it's frustrating....like when men tell women that catcalling is harmless, that is so annoying!

Many Americans do have experience with Indian-Americans, many are Indian-Americans, and in that context the Simpsons holds up pretty well.

i live and work in manhattan. in my experience, beyond my tiny grad-school educated clique (and even then it's no guarantee) the vast majority of americans still don't know the difference between hindu and hindi, india and iran, etc. we're not talking about burundi here. india is a large country with a huge population. let's not even get started on pakistan and bangladesh. merely interacting with south asians doesn't magically erase stereotypes. sure, they may recognize i may not talk like "that," but why is it that i'm always the "exception" in their minds? and like manish said, it's a FAKE accent.

and many americans are NOT indian-american...we're like less than one percent of the population.

But why listen to me? I’m just a dumb, white, midwestern gal.

well, yeah, it is kind of pointless asking white people to speak about racism, isn't it? it's like asking men to speak authoritavely about sexism. but why preclude yourself totally from the conversation? sorry, i don't know who you are and am judging you based on your comments, but it is a major pet peeve of mine when any dominant group (white, male, christian) almost puts on a "no one wants to hear what i have to say, i'm constantly being attacked" attitude. grow up! you strike me as being very defensive.

concatenatrix,

they're laughing at us, not with us.

i don't think you're understanding that what's happening is that real people are being reduced to caricatures...dehumanization...just like the media portrayals of vietnamese manicurists (gossipy ppl who can't speak english who OF COURSE are ALWAYS talking shit about the white female client when speaking in their native tongue, etc.).

Rahul sahib

please start your own blog, you are very funny!

insafi