My latest post over at Change.org:
Being Non-White is “Playing the Race Card”?
Manan Trivedi is a doctor and an Iraq War veteran who is currently running as a Democrat for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 6th District. He also happens to be South Asian American, the American-born son of immigrant parents from India.
Trivedi is one of six South Asians squaring off this year in congressional races against the GOP (which is even more riled up than usual over racialized issues like illegal immigration, the NYC mosque construction, and “Obamacare”). Earlier this year, Raj Goyle (a Democratic Indian American running in Kansas against Republican Mike Pompeo) made headlines when the Pompeo Twitter feed re-tweeted an article that referred to Goyle by the ethnic slur, “turban topper.”
Which tells you just how low some politicians will go to win an election.
Trivedi, who has already raised more than $390,00 dollars as a traditional candidate, in part by tapping a wealthy network of politically-minded Indian Americans in Pennsylvania, is now facing off against Republican incumbent Jim Gerlach (pictured above). Recently, Gerlach launched attacks against Trivedi, saying that he “doesn’t share our values.”
And whose values are those? One guess.
When concerns were raised that the Gerlach campaign’s statement could be perceived as playing on Trivedi’s ethnic differences compared to the average Pennsylvanian voter’s (85% of Pennsylvania’s residents are White), Gerlach dismissively said, “The only one who has played the race card here is him, by going to Indian-American groups to raise money.”
