Thuppal: Forgiving Time’s columnist for ‘racist’ India piece

The July 2 issue of Time Magazine featured a controversial column by Joel Stein called… The July 2 issue of Time Magazine featured a controversial column by Joel Stein called “My Own Private India,” causing some upset in the South-Asian community over his use of racist humor. Although not extremely offended by the piece myself, I have to wonder why Time was willing to publish something that would assuredly enrage an entire race of people.

In short, Stein’s piece was an extensive lamentation on the current state of his hometown: Edison, N.J. In the past two decades, Edison has been the destination for many Indian immigrants, who, in turn, have turned it into a thriving Indian-American community.

When Stein graduated from high school in Edison, he left behind a mostly white, suburban community, where he learned how to shoplift and sneak into R-rated movies. But with the influx of Indian immigrants who’ve taken over those businesses, the Joel Steins of today have been deprived of such pleasures.

Stein’s commentary starts off innocently enough — I’ve always been a fan of his humor — but takes a turn that many have deemed racist and xenophobic. He believed that all Indians were geniuses until “the not-as-brilliant merchants brought their even-less-bright cousins, and [he] started to understand why India is so damn poor.”

After reading it in full, it’s easy to understand why Indian-Americans were so offended by Stein’s column. He points out the irony of a town named for the United States’ most famous inventor becoming a haven for immigrants, but probably takes it a bit too far when he mentions the missed opportunity for jokes about “a group of people whose gods have multiple arms and an elephant nose.”

Not surprisingly, Indians have lambasted Stein across the board. Actor Kal Penn, of the “Harold and Kumar” movie series, responded with a fuming denouncement that made Stein seem no better than Glenn Beck with his rant on the “lack of flush toilets” in India.

Another response, published in the Atlantic, demonstrated “how to make fun of Indian-American immigrants.” The author, instead of simply critiquing Stein, also provided a detailed explanation of what types of Indian-based humor was acceptable. In essence, you have to be Indian if you want to make fun of Indian people, according to this entry.

But when viewed from afar, the response to Stein’s article seems a bit much, even for me, as the kind of person he was writing about.

Additionally, Stein’s feelings were understandable. They’re probably the same ones my parents might have upon revisiting their hometowns and seeing how they’ve changed. In his article, Stein makes it clear that he is not against the evolution of his community. He is simply observing the shift from his childhood days.

Sure, his choice of words could’ve been better, but his opinions are probably commonplace in the living rooms of his former neighbors from Edison.

In fact, even I was under some of the same beliefs that Stein held about Indians. Having grown up in this country, I also “assumed all Indians were geniuses” until I came to realize that wasn’t the case.

If anything, I found fault with Time for publishing Stein’s article as it was. I have a hard time believing that they didn’t expect this kind of backlash.

I would’ve let Stein off the hook, claiming that he was only being truthful. But his course of action following the reaction to his column should’ve been an apology, not the following reply on Twitter: “Didn’t [mean] to insult Indians with my column this week. Also stupidly assumed their emails would follow that Gandhi non-violence thing.”

Well, I guess Stein and Time finally came to their senses and issued an apology in the form of an appended statement to the column on July 2. But I can’t say the same for the South-Asian community.

The general resentment for Stein has continued past his apology.

I think my Indian brethren might just need to calm down and see this situation for what it actually is: a miscue on the part of Time for publishing someone’s real, unabashed feelings, not an attack on our way of life.

E-mail Hay at hat23@pitt.edu.