Skunk - Email to LAT -- peter.allsten@latimes.com July 30th, 2007
SIr,
I and my three brothers were all born in New York City. They were and I (the youngest) am a veteran of WWII. Our father, an American citizen was born in India to Hindu, Indian parents. He served, due to his knowledge of Sanskrit-based Indian languages, with the American censors in New York during WWI.
Since it's no longer politically correct to say anything negative about Blacks, Latinos, American Indians, Jews, Gays, most East Asians (and I've probably missed some), it seems that all others not claiming membership in any of those categories, are fair game to be denigrated by folks claiming liberal leanings.
So, one shouldn't be surprised to find that your article takes on the tone of being nothing but a racist-cum-xenophobic interpretation of facts. After all, you did single out an Indian firm, Tata, to indicate that despite its having supplied but a few new jobs in America for non-Indians, it is responsible for providing jobs for many hundreds of Indians -- and for outsourcing many more jobs to India.
None of this would be indicative of a bigoted attitude if you had at least alluded to the fact that many of our huge, American-owned corporations are outsourcing, as well as arranging to hire highly skilled individuals on the cheap (their educations having been paid by citizens of their home country) from the world over to work in America -- and that those corporations outsource to any number of nations other than to India or China -- especially to European- and American-oriented nations having dominant Euro-Judeo-Christian populations -- all of which caused the loss of jobs in America. And, I have great doubts that you would ever be allowed to write the same type of diatribe against any of those nations that also maintain Political Action Committees - which have equal or greater pull.
I imagine, though, that Indians, in this case Zoroastrians and Hindus, should be happy that they're not being chastised as are Moslems -- who are denigrated for the very simple reason that they're Moslems.
Markand Thakar
