If America is not a racist country, then why does Nimrata Randhawa go by Nikki Haley?

[LV426]

You make the naive and unfounded assumption that voters know the position and beliefs of candidates running for city council and school board when in reality they seldom even know who is running.

Haley didn't run for school board, she ran for state legislature and then governor.

Most Americans cannot name their U. S. Representative and Senators much less their positions on issues.

Ah, so then changing her name from "Nimrata Randhawa" to "Nikki Haley" was done for the purpose of winning the election because she wouldn't have otherwise gotten votes due to racism because of her name.

So...that is exactly what I've been arguing.

That's why I said before that you and I believe the same thing: that Haley changed her name in order to win the votes of racist people in a racist country. So why have you been arguing against that?

 

[Flash]

How so?

You're the one who said Nimrata was too hard for English speakers to pronounce or remember, but didn't even explain why.

I never said "too hard." I said Nikki was easier. A hard name does not have to be only for Asians. Russians, Polish and other Eastern Europeans have very difficult last names to pronounce.

If you do not know how to say ​Oisín, Aoife, or ​Caoimhe does that make you a racist? If that person used a nickname on the ballot is it because they think their voters are racist or so people would know who they are?

 

[Cypress]

Whether liberal or not, voters are more likely to vote for candidates with names like themselves. When there is a large group of a certain ethnicity or nationality this becomes an important political advantage.

Machine politics in places like Chicago traditionally included candidates on the ballot to appeal to different immigrant groups--Italians, Irish, Greek.....

Today Hispanic candidates do much better with large Hispanic groups and various African nationalities attract voters.

Are all these people racist because they are voting for familiar names (or are only "Southern rednecks" racist when they do the same thing)?

Asian, African, and Latin American immigrants can face the challenge of xenophobia and white Christian nationalism anywhere in the country.

It is just more pronounced wherever you have more conservatives and more rednecks.

And that is precisely why as children and young adults, Piyush and Nimrata undoubtedly felt some latent pressure to abandon their foreign-sounding names and ditch their family's religious tradition to convert to Christianity and conform to southern redneck expectations.

 

[Flash]

Haley didn't run for school board, she ran for state legislature and then governor.

Ah, so then changing her name from "Nimrata Randhawa" to "Nikki Haley" was done for the purpose of winning the election because she wouldn't have otherwise gotten votes due to racism because of her name.

That is contrary to your entire argument that other Indians won because of their position on the issues and that Haley did not have popular policy ideas.

Did her policy ideas become more popular because she went by Nikki instead of Nimrata?

Do people vote based on policy positions which you claim or do they vote against foreign names to satisfy your obsession with race?

 

[TOP]

The fact that she ditched her native Sikh faith and converted to Christianity as a young adult indicates this is about more than just a benign preference for a name change.

Abandoning the given name your parents gave you, and ditching your Sikh faith for Christianity has all the hallmarks of an immigrant trying to subdue their ethnic heritage and conform to the cultural expectations of the backwards American south of the 20th century.

When did they first begin to call her Nikki? That is her given middle name....

 

[Flash]

Right, because they could get elected on their policies and platform.

Haley can't. She hasn't won an election since 2014.

So it wasn't her name, it was her policy positions? You want it to be both to justify two conflicting explanations.

 

[LV426]

That is contrary to your entire argument that other Indians won because of their position on the issues and that Haley did not have popular policy ideas.

Right, she doesn't and didn't, and that's why she doesn't run under her full name.

Did her policy ideas become more popular because she went by Nikki instead of Nimrata?

No, but she did.

Do people vote based on policy positions which you claim or do they vote against foreign names to satisfy your obsession with race?

Some vote based on policy positions, and some people, like you, vote based on names.

You said yourself that most people can't even name their reps...so then how and why are they casting their votes for them?

 

[LV426]

So it wasn't her name, it was her policy positions? You want it to be both to justify two conflicting explanations.

No, it was her name because Conservative policy positions aren't popular. If they were, Trump would have won in 2020 and the GOP would still control the Senate.

 

[Cypress]

When did they first begin to call her Nikki? That is her given middle name....

When she was a child and began to become conscious of the cruelty of cultural stereotyping and the social pressure to conform. I have little doubt at some point she begged her parents to let her use her more American-sounding middle name on a permanent basis.

My brother used to beg our papa to not call him Misha in front of his junior high friends.

 

[Flash]

No, it was her name because Conservative policy positions aren't popular. If they were, Trump would have won in 2020 and the GOP would still control the Senate.

Trump carried South Carolina by 12% and Republicans dominate state offices, so it is inaccurate to suggest conservative policy positions are not popular in SC.

But, if it was her policy positions then her name carried no significance because her policies and not race was important.

 

[LV426]

Trump carried South Carolina by 12% and Republicans dominate state offices, so it is inaccurate to suggest conservative policy positions are not popular in SC.

She would never have gotten the nomination of the GOP if she used her actual name...that's what you've confirmed for us here when you said that "Nimrata" was hard for people to pronounce and remember.

 

[LV426]

But, if it was her policy positions then her name carried no significance because her policies and not race was important.

But it wasn't her policy positions that got her the nomination.

It was her name because, as you've said, most people can't even name their reps and Senators.

So everything you keep saying on this thread further confirms the thesis of the thread.

It's like you are walking blindfolded into a field of landmines.

 

[Flash]

When she was a child and began to become conscious of the cruelty of cultural stereotyping and the social pressure to conform. I have little doubt at some point she begged her parents to let her use her more American-sounding middle name on a permanent basis.

My brother used to beg our papa to not call him Misha in front of his junior high friends.

Agree, unusual names can invite childhood kidding. If your brother is Caucasian then it was his name, not race. My brother's friends called him "Sweetie" because my mother once yelled down the street calling him to lunch by that name.

I had a student whose name was pronounced Shi-thead. Spelled Shithead.

SC voters were well aware Haley was Indian when they elected her governor.

 

[TOP]

When she was a child and began to become conscious of the cruelty of cultural stereotyping and the social pressure to conform. I have little doubt at some point she begged her parents to let her use her more American-sounding middle name.

My brother used to beg our papa to not call him Misha in front of his junior high friends.

Nikki is her middle name....nothing weird, odd, or remotely racist about her family calling their daughter the name they gave her....I think it's lovely they gave her two traditional names....celebrating her heritage...The use of Nikki does, you know.... I bet they used her full name when she was in trouble

 

[Flash]

But it wasn't her policy positions that got her the nomination.

It was her name because, as you've said, most people can't even name their reps and Senators.

So everything you keep saying on this thread further confirms the thesis of the thread.

It's like you are walking blindfolded into a field of landmines.

You said her policy positions were not popular. Now you say it was her name.

Nikki Haley's name has little to do with the thesis of the thread. That is a big stretch you are making based on pure speculation.

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

When she was a child and began to become conscious of the cruelty of cultural stereotyping and the social pressure to conform. I have little doubt at some point she begged her parents to let her use her more American-sounding middle name on a permanent basis.

My brother used to beg our papa to not call him Misha in front of his junior high friends.

Some ppl are *very* concerned about those who use their middle names; I wonder why? There's no racism to see here though, folks.

 

[Drummie123]

Never said anything about taking control of South Carolina.

The fact is, the only ones on this thread mocking and denigrating Ms Haley's first name are conservatives.

I think the name Nimrata is very cool.

She should have stayed with those like you if she didn't want to be teased about her name.

The decision to use Nikki instead of nimrod shows that she had the right attitude and that you are at odds with American culture.

Duh

 

[LV426]

Trump carried South Carolina by 12% and Republicans dominate state offices, so it is inaccurate to suggest conservative policy positions are not popular in SC.

But, if it was her policy positions then her name carried no significance because her policies and not race was important.

She had to first win the nomination in order to win the election, do you think if "Nimrata Randhawa" was on that primary ballot instead of "Nikki Haley" that she would have won the GOP nomination for governor?

 

[LV426]

Agree, unusual names can invite childhood kidding.

Right, so let's look at the "childhood kidding" around the name "Nikki":

Picky
Icky
Sticky
Hickey
Dickey
Flickey
Trickie
Quickie

There's no shortage of ways to ridicule the name "Nikki", and there actually may be MORE ways to ridicule that name than the name "Nimrata", which doesn't rhyme with anything and is pronounced phonetically.

So the ridicule of an unusual name (unusual for whom?), in this case Nimrata, would be along purely racist lines, wouldn't it? And because of that, Nikki (or her parents, we don't know) felt compelled to start going by "Nikki" at a young age. Why? Because of the racism you've exhibited on this thread.

 

[LV426]

Nikki is her middle name....nothing weird, odd, or remotely racist about her family calling their daughter the name they gave her.

Hold on...you don't know if her family called her Nikki.

All you know is that she started going by Nikki "at a young age".