This all overblown. Can't we make fun anymore without it being racist?.

Simply put, Bobby was creepy because he spoke to America as if we were all kindergarteners. He was nerdy, awkward and gawky, not because he is Indian and we are racists, but because he is a nerdy, awkward guy.

It's not rocket science, and if you asked anybody he went to grammar school with as a kid, they probably remember him getting his ass whupped.

The GOP has nerds in it. What's the big deal?

BOBBY & SARAH IN 2012 & 2016, LOVE IT, LET THEM STAND FOR THE RELIGIOUS CONFEDERATE REPUBLICANS... :)

Point well taken. I grew up in Alabama in the 70s and I can't remember many Indian kids in school with me? For that matter, many kids from any parts of Asia? I am sure Gov Jindal wanted to fit into his community.

Coming from a white female perspective, I am the child of an immigrant parent. My mother is first generation German. I would guess because she I am white, the issue of my roots never comes up?I suspect the thought never crosses their mind because of my white skin? Skin color doesn't equal who you are, it is what is inside that makes the person.

When I tell my Asian clients that my mother was an immigrant, I think they feel a kind of kinship to me? The thing I find interesting is like all assumptions, it never occurs to them that I would come from an immigrant background.

As a kid who grew up in the South, if one of the kids had a different or funny first name, we gave them a nickname. It was just the way it was. I am sure for Gov Jindal it was the same kind of thing, As a kid he wanted to fit in.

His religious views are personal and his own, that is not for me to discuss.

Again, from my perspective, I don't look at Gov Jindal as snubbing his Asian roots, but saying, "hey look, just because I come from somewhere else, I am as American as you are."

Afterall, isn't that what America was built on and what America is all about?

It's not that he looks like an Indian man, it's that he looks like Howdy Doody. And moves like a marionette. In addition, he's too Southern, and southern is out right now. When will these people get over the Civil War and accept their responsibility for trying to destroy the United States.

Given your own ethnic background, your response is understandable. However, I turned off Bobby Jindal's speech because he sounded like a parody of a used-car salesman. I would like to hear some of his widely touted off-the-cuff articulate responses on Meet the Press, to balance out that awful performance and gain a more informed perspective on Jindal as a (formerly?) rising Republican star. In my opinion, it's racist to blame racism for the almost universally negative reaction to the speech. Some people see racism everywhere because of their own racist tendencies, and that applies to people of all races -- think of Al Sharpton and others who claim racist discrimination because they expect all whites to hate all blacks.

This certainly is not yet a postracial society, but sometimes -- well, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and in this case Jindal's speech was just Jindal's awful speech.

Thanks for your insight. This was a very thought-provoking post.

Ms. Kashyap's comments about "race" are interesting, because they highlight the fact than in the U.S. race is about skin color as much as anything. Actually, Jindal is a Caucasian by race and his skin color an adaptation to "India's sunny clime." His ancestors are the Aryan tribesmen who invaded India in the bronze age. (Hitler stole the term and the swastika for his racial myth/lies.)Jindal probably has a better claim to being a "pure-blooded Aryan" than any of Hitler's blond minions. But skin color and nationality do add up to race in America.

the author is right that all-one/melting-pot talk is of a previous time, and jindal talks in past terms personally. his humane resume and personal tone didn't add up that night, and was off-putting; is religion the imbalancing issue? racist assumptions is also of a previous time.

just as we viewed obama as an individual with unclassic physical characteristics leaning to the endearing, jindal's similarly unclassic physical characteristics leaned toward distancing.

we see and judge the individual, not the race.

Very interesting post. I had similar opinions watching the speech. The whole speech was kind of odd but by far the oddest section was the beginning when he started by really self-consciously addressing the symbolism of Barack being black and giving the address. It was so two months ago in this really profound way. Partly because Barack's race was not what was really germane to the moment unlike at the inauguration but also because Jindal was so clearly uncomfortable. It was really squirm inducing.

I think you're right, when you spent your whole life consciously eradicating all the difference out of yourself, it's really difficult to pivot when that difference becomes attractive to other people. One of the interesting things about Obama's story is that he spent a lot of years coming to terms with his ancestry and accepting it as an important part of himself, you get the sense that Jindal has never spent comparable time and so he looked ridiculous when he concentrated on that part of his identity. If felt generic and awkward and we've gotten used to someone whose journey seems profound.

i should clarify that in this case we saw and judged the individual, not the race.

re: chuckv's interesting race post, we often use "race" when other cultures use "tribe" or even "clan". american indians deeply sense tribe, scottish sense tribe as celts, but u.s. history hasn't needed to organize that way.i think "nationality" or "sect" is the closest we get to the subtle regional and genetic cluster of the word "tribe".

btw in india, one dating site has a pull-down menu of a dozen words describing skin color (i remember one was called "dusky").

Chuckv is wrong when he says "His ancestors are the Aryan tribesmen who invaded India in the bronze age". The Aryan Migration Theory ( AMT ) has been demolished. Please don't pander lies here.

The AMT is reviled by many Hindus, he said, due to its implicit proposition that a tribe of 'Aryans' migrated into the Indian subcontinent, subjugated an indigenous people dispersing them to South India and established a caste system where the highest castes are comprised of 'Aryans' in an ethno-religious apartheid system.This 'explosive theory' that narrates that Aryans were only the first colonizers -- followed by Greeks, Mongols, Turks, Persians -- was used by European historians to justify the last foreign claim on India, the British Raj.However, he asserted, it is the latest genetic evidence, based on chromosomal and DNA analysis, that scientists believe definitively discredits the AMT.

Please educate yourself.

While I'm no fan of Jindal or his social and political views, it is his prerogative to embrace whatever identity he wishes. As someone of Indian descent myself, I see no reason why he should seek to hyphenate his identity. If he prefers to limit his Indian-ness to the occasional samosa or the addition of a pinch of garam masala to his gumbo, so be it. And while I'm also a northeast classic liberal, I think his popularity with white southern conservatives is something to be celebrated as, perhaps, a true sign of racial progress. Jindal is embraced by conservative whites in Louisiana because he is seen as one of them, if not racially, then certainly politically and culturally. And to their credit - and his- ancestry takes a back seat to political and cultural identities. Isn't this what we're all aiming for in America?

People here in Louisiana who don't like Jindal often make gratuitous use of his given name, Piyush. But I don't think it's a soft-core way of pointing out his race (although you might expect here in a Slave State).

I think it's because he has gone to such lengths to make himself "American" that he comes off as very, very artificial.
And his speaking style reinforces that.

Many people refer to him as Piyush to point that out, and I have to admit I do it myself on occasion because I am so offended by his political stance.

Blogging Heads in the New York Times batted this very thing about the other day. The final two paragraghs in your piece are very important and revealing in the sense that jindal has 'invented himself'. As Americans we pride ourselves in this. He is obviously uncomfortable with this. Why hasn't the GOP invested time and money in Jindal and Steele in media training? They both need it.

I am so glad someone wrote this piece. I am an Indian, have been in the US for about 8 years now and I was very offended by this guy. You are truly right when you say he is not comfortable in his skin. Maybe that is what he is but it sure does not come off that way. There is a point made above that conservative whites in the South think he is one of them because of his beliefs, I would like to know if that would have been the case had he not changed his religion. This may sound too shallow, however this bigotry still exists; case in point the elections and a woman in McCain's townhall meeting calling Obama an Arab