Tell Time Magazine to Apologize for its Racist, Unfunny Snark

There's a fine line that writers and comedians must walk when trying to deal with a sensitive topic like race. As Prerna wrote earlier this morning, Joel Stein's recent article in Time Magazine, "My Own Private India," emphatically fails that test. Instead of being humorous, Stein strays into a world of racist epithets and offensive stereotypes about Indians.

While Stein's intentions were probably not to deeply offend an entire group of people, that's exactly what his misguided attempt at humor accomplished. Please take a moment to join other Change.org members in telling Time Magazine and Joel Stein that racism is not funny, and that an apology should be published immediately.

For those who are lucky enough to not have read Stein's painfully unfunny article, the basic theme is simple: he grew up in white New Jersey suburbia and is now saddened to return home to place he hardly recognizes since it's become heavily populated with Indians. Gone are the days when he and his friends used to steal from the local Pizza Hut — now, as he describes it, his hometown has gone from being affluent and white to a browner and "charmless" area that smells funny.

As Stein writes, this change didn't happen overnight — it was gradual.  At the beginning, Stein says he embraced the newfound diversity because he supports immigration and likes Indian food. But soon the number of Indian immigrants increased, and the novelty of having a few token Indians around to infuse Edison, NJ with an acceptable amount of diversity wore off. Stein says he then began to empathize with people in Arizona (yes, he took it there), while feeling "a sense of loss and anomie and disbelief that anyone can eat food that spicy."

In response to this shift in cultural make-up, the people in Edison began referring to their new neighbors as "dot heads." Stein was disappointed in the use of this term — not because it's racist, but because it wasn't creative or offensive enough! In retrospect, he writes, "I question just how good our schools were if 'dot heads' was the best racist insult we could come up with for a group of people whose gods have multiple arms and an elephant nose."

Soon after the blogosphere erupted with backlash against Stein's article, he updated his Facebook status to attempt to appease those who were offended. He wrote that he "didn’t meant to insult Indians with my column this week. Also stupidly assumed their emails would follow that Gandhi non-violence thing."  At this point, Stein's unfunny snark ceases to amaze me. Is he really trying to apologize for a blatantly racist article by deploying still more stereotypical ideas? Great idea.

Stein's apology was inadequate at best, and proves that he doesn't understand why his article and "humor" are inappropriate. Just because he also took a few jabs at white Americans in the article (e.g., he refers to them as technologically stupid) doesn't excuse his desire to spend the rest of the article insulting minorities. Stein's use of racist epithets and gross stereotypes are offensive, whether or not Stein himself is both pro-immigration and a minority (Stein is Jewish).

Humor has the ability to be an amazing tool to relieve tension and open up a dialogue about sensitive topics like race in America. Unfortunately, Stein completely missed the mark.

So why would a prestigious publication like Time Magazine even consider publishing his article? Demand that Stein and Time Magazine issue a decent apology to the Indian community (for example, one that does not involve more stereotypes) today.

Photo Credit: monsieur rico.