current republican party chairman michael steele, who's generally not one of the more irritating conservative blowhards, had an interview with chris sliwa on abc radio. now, if you've been following steele the past few weeks since he was christened with his new title by his GOP peers, you've no doubt been hearing a lot of crazy shit (bling bling in the stimulus?)
but this one...i don't know about this. the interview is focused on the party's so-called "hip-hop strategy". here's an excerpt i found striking, via ben smith's blog on politico.
sliwa asks steele about louisiana governor bobby jindal, who gave an extremely patronizing rebuttal to barack obama's address to congress last week:
SLIWA: now, using a little bit of that street terminology, are you giving him any slum love, michael? ... because he is — when guys look at him and young women look at him — they say oh, that's the slumdog millionaire, governor.
STEELE: i love it. (inaudible) ... some slum love out to my buddy. governor bobby jindal is doing a friggin' awesome job in his state.
*coughs*
this is ridiculous on so many levels, but let's try to point out a few.
first, who in the hell is referring to bobby jindal as the 'slumdog millionaire' governor? i don't really see how that works. oh wait ... he's of indian descent and the movie is about (gasp) people from india! and all indian people must be exactly alike!
in my personal experience (and i'm sure in the experience of many others) this just doesn't jibe. cultural heritage is something that should be appreciated, but it doesn't trump personal individuality. furthermore, jindal will never be a little cutie like dev patel.
plus, bobby jindal wasn't raised in the slums. he said so himself. didn't they catch his opening anecdote? perhaps chris mattthews' prescient comment before jindal began speaking prompted sliwa and steele to tune out.
(it's fair to note that jindal expanded on his narrative this past weekend on '60 minutes'. thanks to MM for giving me the highlights. it's easy to see that bobby jindal is what happens when assimilation goes horrifically wrong.)
not to be outdone, ann coulter decided to get in on the racist fun! she wrote a response to jindal's rebuttal adding in parentheses at the end of one paragraph:
wasn't bobby great in 'slumdog millionaire'?
so ann coulter only knows JUST ONE indian movie (we know her uptight ass hasn't seen 'kama sutra') and JUST ONE indian person. since her feeble brain is capable of making only the most narrow of associations, we can see how she arrived at such an imbecilic conclusion.
poor GOP. it appears their collective ignorance could be their undoing. we shall see.
ta-nehisi coates and the good folks at racialicious also have interesting takes on these comments.
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