The unbearable whiteness of being ... an Indian?

If only we understood deep within ourselves that we are all variations of Africans!

But, of course, the world doesn't work that way, and the recent hate email itself is a strong piece of evidence from my own life.  While it is one thing to function in society with whatever personal preferences one might have, making political statements of any sort is an entirely different issue.

It is that kind of an issue, however minor that might be, which has landed South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley in a controversy.

The Associated Press reports that in 2001, Haley listed her race as "white" on her voter registration form. State Democrats accuse her of being a fake-race opportunist in a state that is, according to the US Census poll, about 66% white (and just a tick over 1% Asian).

 Like she didn't have enough on her plate already.  And this in a state where the previous governor took quite a hike!

Of course, the news has already echoed around the world, in India:

The 39-year-old Ms. Haley is also the first Indian-American woman Governor and, after Bobby Jindal from Louisiana, is only the second from the community to occupy this post.

The local Post and Courier newspapers reported that the State Democratic Party, which obtained the public record in this regard, is asking whether her inconsistency on the card made her ineligible to vote under a new law.

State Democratic Party chairman Dick Harpootlian said whether Ms. Haley listed her race as white or not did not really matter to him but the issue was that the Governor had shown a pattern of such actions. “Haley has been appearing on television interviews where she calls herself a minority — when it suits her,” Mr. Harpootlian was quoted as saying. 

 Oh well ...

The Supreme Court made it clear, back in 1932, that a person like Nikki Haley cannot claim to be white:

Courts have classified Indians as white and non-white without any real pattern until the crucial 1923 Supreme Court case United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, which created the official stance to classify Indians as non-white."

Back in the days of racial segregation, this change in the classification meant, among other things:

As they became classified as non-whites, Indian Americans were banned by anti-miscegenation laws from marrying white Americans in the states of Arizona, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia.^[3]

Back in 1933, a Nimrata Nikki Randhawa would not have been able to marry a Michael Haley!

I suppose as much as race and ethnic issues have largely died down, they really haven't gone away.

For the record, whenever I am asked to bubble in my race/ethnicity, I go with whatever pleases me. Sometimes I am a White, sometimes an Asian, sometimes it is simply Other.  I simply don't care about that identity.