Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
A New Kind of Minority Is Challenging Louisiana's Racial Conventions
By ADAM COHEN
NEW ORLEANS
The election-night blowout at the Astor Crowne Plaza in the French Quarter last weekend was something rare in Republican politics: a truly biracial event. But even though 33 percent of Louisiana -- and 67 percent of New Orleans -- is black, there was scarcely a black reveler there. The mix of people celebrating Bobby Jindal's first-round win in this year's governor's race was an unusual one: whites and Indian-Americans.
California's new governor has been grabbing all the headlines, but Mr. Jindal's odyssey has been nearly as remarkable. At the age of 32, he has an almost freakishly impressive r�sum�: at 24, he was running Louisiana's hospital system. But perhaps more notable, in a state where an ex-Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, David Duke, made a real run for the governor's office, Mr. Jindal is the dark-skinned son of immigrants from India.
As Mr. Jindal moves on to a Nov. 15 runoff against Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, he has a chance to make history. He would be the nation's first Indian-American governor, and one of the few elected officials from an ethnic group that now numbers nearly two million. And he would be Louisiana's first nonwhite governor since P. B. S. Pinchback served for 35 days during Reconstruction. But if Mr. Jindal's success is a sign of racial progress, and it is, it also has elements that suggest how far we still have to go.
…In last weekend's crowded field, Democratic candidates won 57 percent of the vote. To win, Ms. Blanco needs only to hold on to that base. But Mr. Jindal has to hunt for new support. He has made modest efforts to woo blacks but is unlikely to get far. To win, he will need overwhelming white support. If even a small percentage of white conservatives hold his ethnicity against him, it could cost him the election.
A win by Mr. Jindal would raise a different set of racial questions. Blacks who have run for governor in recent years got less than 35 percent of the vote. It may be that they were too liberal, but it may also be that the state remains resistant to a black governor. If Mr. Jindal wins, it may mean not that race no longer matters in Louisiana, but simply that -- in a change from the days of Martha Lum -- Asian-Americans now fall on the white side of the racial divide.
If Mr. Jindal is Louisiana's next governor, he will be hailed by national Republicans as a symbol of inclusion, a new Colin Powell or J. C. Watts. But he will be a hollow symbol if he ends the white lock on the governor's mansion despite overwhelming opposition from the state's blacks. If the Republican Party really wants to be inclusive, in Louisiana and nationally, it needs to start finding nonwhite candidates that nonwhites want to vote for.
Posted by P6 at October 12, 2003 11:32 AM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1952I have a feeling it's the latter, that Indian-Asians would fall on the white side of the racial divide. In fact, for those who keep track of this kind of nonsense, I recall reading somewhere a long time ago that Indians were considered caucasians, regardless of their darker skin. go figure.