Modern Jackass Magasin

Back in ’03, when Midnight Love was still on BET, trucker hats had officially become passe and cool kids were on blazers, I was an intern with the Indo-American Democratic Organization in Chicago.  Our cause was to promote grass-roots mobilization of Northern Illinois’ sizeable South Asian diaspora behind the Illinois democratic agenda, which, at the time comprised Gov. Rod Blagojevich, U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, and a young upstart from Chicago’s South Side making his way through the U.S. Senate primaries, Barack Obama.

When me and the other intern set a voter registration booth at the Indian Independence Day picnic off Devon Avenue on Chicago’s NW side, we dealt with a lot of questions about a young, rising politician of Indian American descent in Louisiana named Bobby Jindal.  Jindal was running for governor or something at the time.  Because we were an Indian organization, it was assumed we’d support his candidacy, but because he was a Republican, he didn’t fall under the purview of our Democratic Organization.

South Asian support for Jindal comes down to the basic failures of early ’90s identity politics.  Representation in appearance does not necessarily translate to, you know, representation.  Jindal may look like me, he may sweat in social situations like me, he may wear a hat to flatten his hair like me, but he doesn’t vote like me.

While Slumdog, Rahman and Jindal may cap the most Indian week in America in recent memory it really means nothing in the end.  The global Indian population is so different from Mumbai to Calcutta to London to Chicago the phenomenons of Slumdog Millionaire and Bobby Jindal have little in common in terms of concrete meaning.

Slumdog was an aight movie; the soundtrack and score were aight, too; Jindal came off sounding like a small town sportscaster, and I shouldn’t say these things because like each and them, I’m small and brown.  If Jindal’s speech last night showed us anything, it’s that you can’t just be young and dark to be the next Obama.  America had its first taste of the Turbanator this past week, and all it means is that there’s only more to come.