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US Politician and NRIs

US NRIs defends US senator's controversial statements:
"You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not jokin",the senator Biden said.

  • The senator's remarks had touched a raw nerve in the community with many an angry Indian American calling his remarks variously as racist, stereotyping or tasteless.
  • One angry NRI said, "No Donuts for you, Mr. Biden"
Washington, July 11, 2006
Ravi Singh


Controversial remarks by Senator Joseph R. Biden:

On a recent edition of the C-SPAN series ”Road to the White House,” Biden is shown in New Hampshire boasting about his support among Indian-Americans.
”I’ve had a great relationship. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking,” the senator said.

The incident occurred at a restaurant in Manchester, New Hampshire, where a reception was being held for Manchester Democratic state Senate candidate Betsi DeVries




Response by Joseph R. Biden:

  • Visiting troops and officials in Iraq this week, Biden was asked about the comment during an interview with CNN’s ”The Situation Room.”
    The senator said he has had an ”incredibly strong” relationship with the Indian-American community in Delaware and that his comment was misinterpreted.
    I keep waiting to hear a “sorry”, “my apologies”, “oops” or even a “dude…my bad”, but he’s got nothing useful like that for us, which is too bad, because that would have been one way to make this all go away.
  • “I was making the point that up until now in my state, we’ve had a strong Indian community made up of leading scientists and researchers and engineers,” Biden said. Lately, he said: “We’re having middle-class people move to Delaware, take over Dunkin’ Donuts, take over businesses, just like other immigrant groups have, and I was saying that … they’re growing, it’s moving.”
    Oh, well now…that explains EVERYTHING

 

Other's Selected opinions


July 08, 2006
It's time to move on
I find Delaware senator Joe Biden pretty annoying, but conservatives are being silly when they attack him for his comments about Indian-Americans. If you watched the C-Span clip, it's clear he's talking to an Indian-American when he says, jocularly, "You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking." Biden later explained, "I was making the point that up until now in my state, we've had a strong Indian community made up of leading scientists and researchers and engineers...We're having middle- class people move to Delaware, take over Dunkin' Donuts, take over businesses, just like other immigrant groups have, and I was saying that ... they're growing, it's moving."

Posted by Susan Olasky at July 8, 2006 05:02 PM


Manish Antani, 23, a resident of Nashua, New Hampshire, and a self-described Indian activist, has been quoted as saying that he was "100 per cent behind him (Biden) because he did nothing wrong".

Biden was caught on a local television network as telling Antani, "I've had a great relationship (with Indian Americans).

According to a report in the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper, Antani, who kept quiet for quite some time after the incident, has now said that his not commenting must have been a mistake.

"I thought it was so ridiculous that I didn't want to deal with it," he told the newspaper. "That may have been a mistake on my part."

Recalling the incident, Antabi said, "He (Biden) came in and went around shaking people's hands. I introduced myself as an Indian American and he said that there are a lot of Indian Americans in Delaware.

He started to praise them for being business-minded and entrepreneurial. And then he said many of them were owners of 7-Elevens and Dunkin' Donuts."

He told the newspaper that the senator "definitely got a bad rap" from the national media for his remarks.

"You can tell if someone's going to make a derogatory comment and he wasn't," Antani was quoted as saying.


Facing criticism, potential 2008 presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday defended his recent remark that ”you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”
I wouldn’t have advised the Senator to go that route, but okay.

The Delaware senator said his words were taken out of context.
Aren’t they always? Quelle tragédie. Here’s what I heard: one needs to have a “slight” Indian accent in order to order a glazed, as if the person behind the counter wouldn’t understand you otherwise. That’s garbage.

You know, the only proverb I ever memorized as a child was “Pride goeth before a fall”. Boast and you’re toast, y’heard? I’m saddened that the Senator seems too proud to own his faux-pas.


Oh, and if you need to F5 your memory— here’s what started all the drama, Mama:

On a recent edition of the C-SPAN series ”Road to the White House,” Biden is shown in New Hampshire boasting about his support among Indian-Americans.
”I’ve had a great relationship. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking,” the senator said.
That’s my favorite part by the way— when he foolishly insists that he’s not joking. If only he had known that his poorly-chosen meal of toes would follow him like a bad case of gas, all the way over to eye-rack. He might have fasted.

“I was making the point that up until now in my state, we’ve had a strong Indian community made up of leading scientists and researchers and engineers,” Biden said. Lately, he said: “We’re having middle-class people move to Delaware, take over Dunkin’ Donuts, take over businesses, just like other immigrant groups have, and I was saying that … they’re growing, it’s moving.”
Oh, well now…that explains EVERYTHING.


 


 

 

 

 



No Donuts for you


U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr.
One of the nation’s most powerful U.S. Senator


  • Joseph R. Biden, Jr. was first elected to the United States Senate in 1972 at the age of twenty-nine and is recognized as one of the nation’s most powerful and influential voices on foreign relations, terrorism, drug policy, and crime prevention.

  • For three decades, Joe Biden has played a pivotal role in shaping U.S. foreign policy. He has become respected at home and abroad for his well-informed, common-sense approach to international relations